Yes — most ferry ticket counters serving Phu Quoc and Cat Ba now display a QR code beside the cash drawer, after QR payment volumes in Vietnam grew 150% in 2025 according to the State Bank of Vietnam. The catch is that those codes settle into Vietnamese bank accounts, so a foreign Visa or Mastercard cannot scan and pay them.
Two years ago the ticket window at Rach Gia port was a cash operation with a calculator and a roll of paper tickets. Today the same window has a laminated QR code taped to the glass, and the staff member will point at it before she points at your banknotes.
That shift has quietly changed what a foreign traveller needs in their pocket before boarding a boat to an island. The ticket itself is rarely the problem. What happens in the four hours after you step off the gangway usually is.
What actually changed at the ticket windows
Vietnam's ferry operators were late to electronic payment and then adopted it all at once. The driver was VietQR, the national QR standard run by NAPAS under the State Bank of Vietnam, which is now standardised across more than 40 Vietnamese banks and settles instantly between them.
For a ferry company running six departures a day from a provincial port, that removed the cash-handling headache overnight. Counter staff no longer need a float of change, and takings reconcile against a bank account rather than a tin.
The practical consequence for you is that the counter is no longer cash-first. It is QR-first, with cash accepted and an increasingly grudging attitude towards large notes. Hand over a 500,000 VND note for a 45,000 VND Cat Ba speedboat seat and you will wait while someone walks to the next kiosk for change.
Three separate payment moments on one island trip
A Phu Quoc or Cat Ba crossing is not one transaction, it is three, and each behaves differently. The booking, the boarding, and everything after you land.
Booking in advance online is the easiest of the three. Larger operators and the international resale platforms take Visa and Mastercard, and a Phu Quoc fast ferry from Rach Gia or Ha Tien runs roughly 12–25 USD one-way, or about 310,000–650,000 VND. Cat Ba routes are far cheaper, from around 0.5 USD for the local Tuan Chau ferry crossing up to about 7.5 USD for a through-ticket bus-and-boat combination, with the water leg itself taking 30–60 minutes.
Buying at the pier on the day is where the QR code appears. Cash still works, and for a 13,000 VND ferry fare cash is frankly simpler than anything else.
It is the third moment that catches people. Taxis at Bai Vong port, the motorbike rental in Dong Khe Sui, the seafood restaurant at Cat Co 3, the guy who runs the luggage trolley — these are the merchants who took QR first and enthusiastically, and none of them accept a foreign card.
Where a foreign Visa or Mastercard still gets you through
Credit where it is due: on Phu Quoc specifically, an international card goes a long way. The island's development has been resort-led, which means NFC terminals at the Phu Quoc United Center hotels, the larger restaurants in Duong Dong, the airport, the big supermarkets and the cable car ticket office. Tap and go works at all of those.
Apple Pay and Google Pay behave the same way — fine at an NFC terminal, useless at a printed QR code, because they are not connected to Vietnam's domestic payment rails at all.
Cat Ba is a different island economically and the card coverage reflects it. Outside a handful of hotels on Nui Ngoc road and the resorts on Cat Co beaches, you are dealing with small family businesses. They took electronic payment in the form of a QR sticker, not a card machine, because a sticker costs nothing.
Related: How to Pay by QR Code in Vietnam Without a Local Bank Account
The ATM route, and what it really costs on an island
The instinctive workaround is to pull cash out on arrival. It works, and on Phu Quoc there are plenty of machines in Duong Dong and at the airport. Cat Ba has far fewer, concentrated near the harbour front, and they run dry during peak weekends in July and August.
The cost is the issue. Vietnamese banks charge roughly 22,000–55,000 VND per foreign-card withdrawal, and your home bank adds its own foreign transaction fee on top. On a 2,000,000 VND withdrawal that is tolerable. On the 500,000 VND you actually wanted for a day of ferry fares and lunch, the combined cost lands somewhere between 3% and 8%.
There is also the awkwardness of carrying island cash. You withdraw 2,000,000 VND to make the fee worthwhile, and the machine gives you four 500,000 VND notes that no ferry counter, xe om driver or bun cha stall wants to break.
This is the point where LocalPay solves the specific problem rather than a general one. It is a non-custodial wallet that pays any VietQR merchant in Vietnam, and it needs no Vietnamese bank account, no local SIM and no Temporary Residence Card — which matters because tourists on a 45-day exemption or a 90-day e-visa cannot open a standard Vietnamese account anyway. You top it up with the Visa or Mastercard already in your wallet, or with Apple Pay or Google Pay, and then you scan the sticker at the ticket window like everyone else in the queue.
Phu Quoc and Cat Ba need different plans
If you are flying into Phu Quoc, staying at a resort and taking a boat tour or two, an international card plus a modest amount of cash genuinely covers it. The island's high-end infrastructure works in your favour.
If you are ferrying from Rach Gia or Ha Tien, island-hopping to Hon Thom, renting a bike and eating in Duong Dong night market, you are in QR territory for most of the day. Same story for Cat Ba from start to finish, and same story for the Lan Ha Bay kayak operators and the Cat Ba National Park entrance.
The domestic e-wallets are not a realistic substitute for short stays. MoMo requires a Vietnamese phone number, ZaloPay requires a Vietnamese ID document as well, and under Circular 41/2025 new e-wallet registration in Vietnam requires biometric verification tied to local documentation. Expats holding a TRC and a local bank account should absolutely use MoMo — it is excellent, and it does more than payments. Two-week visitors will not get past sign-up.
Four things to sort before you reach the pier
- Book the Phu Quoc fast ferry online a day or two ahead in high season. Rach Gia and Ha Tien departures sell out, and the booking is the one leg where your foreign card is reliably accepted.
- Carry 200,000–300,000 VND in 20k and 50k notes for the small stuff — the Tuan Chau ferry crossing to Cat Ba costs about 13,000 VND and nobody at the barrier wants a 500,000 VND note.
- Withdraw cash before the boat, not after. Cat Ba has a handful of ATMs near the harbour and they empty out on summer weekends.
- Install and top up a QR-capable wallet while you still have hotel wifi on the mainland. Port wifi is poor and mobile data in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin is worse.
So the answer to the title question is yes with an asterisk. QR is now the default way to pay for a ferry seat to Phu Quoc or Cat Ba, and cash remains a perfectly good second option at the counter itself — but neither your contactless card nor a domestic e-wallet you cannot register for will get you through a full day on either island.
The fix takes five minutes on the mainland. Download LocalPay from the App Store or Google Play, top it up with the card you already carry, and you can scan the same sticker as the Vietnamese passenger in front of you — at the ticket window, the taxi rank at Bai Vong and the bike rental on Cat Ba. Stablecoin top-ups via USDC or USDT are there too if that is how you hold funds. LocalPay is backed by Colosseum and non-custodial, so your money stays under your control the whole time.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Major Phu Quoc operators and international resale platforms accept Visa and Mastercard for advance bookings, with fast ferry fares from Rach Gia or Ha Tien running roughly 12–25 USD one-way. Some Vietnamese-language booking portals accept only domestic cards and local e-wallets, so use the operator's English site or a международный reseller if your card keeps declining.
Yes, cash in Vietnamese dong is accepted at every Cat Ba ferry and hydrofoil counter. Fares are low — from around 13,000 VND for the local Tuan Chau to Gia Luan crossing up to about 195,000 VND for a combined bus-and-boat through ticket — so bring 10,000, 20,000 and 50,000 VND notes rather than large denominations.
Only if you hold a Vietnamese phone number, because MoMo registration requires one, and under Circular 41/2025 new e-wallet sign-ups in Vietnam also require biometric verification against local identity documents. Tourists on a 45-day visa exemption or 90-day e-visa generally cannot complete registration, which is why a non-custodial QR wallet such as LocalPay is the practical route for short stays.
