Three days. That is the honest number for one suit you will be happy with: measure and cut on day one, fitting on day two, pick up on day three. Two days works if you arrive early and the shop is not slammed -- that is our published in-person standard. But land in peak season and some shops will quote you five to nine days,1 and giving a tailor only 24 hours trades away the parts of a suit you cannot see.
I am Jay. I came to Hoi An about a year ago as a customer, after ten years in finance in the US, and liked the shop enough to end up a partner in it. Linda -- born and raised here, 25 years at the cutting table -- leads the craft. So I am not neutral. What I can do is show you what travellers with cameras recorded, with the source behind every number.
How many days do you actually need in Hoi An to get a suit made?
A suit needs a fitting; a fitting needs the jacket to exist in rough state, and then it goes back to the bench. The minimum credible cycle:
- Day 1 (morning): choose cloth, get measured, get cut. Arriving in the morning rather than at 6pm is what turns four days into three.
- Day 2: first fitting -- the appointment that matters. Pins go in, the shoulder gets read, the trouser rise gets settled.
- Day 3: collect, try again, walk out.
One traveller filming a full build at a Bangkok tailor -- same three-day rhythm, different city -- narrates exactly that: "the first day we did the measurements, we did the cutting, the second day we did the fitting and today I'm going to pick up my suit."2 In Hoi An, a couple recorded the compressed version: "it's been just 48 hours since we had our first measurements taken, now we're going to go pick up our final fitted suit and dress."3 Two days is possible. Two days plus a delayed flight or one round of "can we take the waist in a bit more" is not.
So: book the tailor for the first morning you are in town, not the last. The lanterns, An Bang beach and My Son all fit around a fitting; a fitting does not fit around them. Trip-planning detail lives at Hoi An questions.
How long is the Hoi An tailor wait time in peak season?
Longer than the internet told you. A traveller who visited four Hoi An tailors at the end of March put it plainly: normally "it's a 24-to-48-hour turn around", but "because we were there in peak season, we were getting much longer turn around times quoted, up to sort of 5 to 9 days for some of them."1 She had six days in town and still felt the pressure.
Peak season runs roughly February to April, again July to August, plus Christmas and New Year. Landing in one of those windows: message shops with your dates before you arrive, and get the delivery date in writing when you pay the deposit. A shop that will not commit to a date is telling you something.
The boom has a second effect worth saying out loud. The most-liked critical comment under that video: "going to Hoi An to get custom clothes is trending on social media so the increase in demand is leading to sloppier work with quick turnaround times."1 Another, who had it done twice, "would never get it done again in Hoi An."1 Demand rose faster than skilled hands did.
Is a 24-hour suit from Hoi An any good?
A 24-hour suit can be fine. It is rarely good, and the reason is structural rather than moral. In 24 hours, with one fitting or none, three things get compressed:
- The fitting. This is where a jacket stops being a size and becomes your shoulder. Skip it and you get a well-sewn garment cut to a chart.
- The canvas. A chest can be built with a floating canvas layer or simply glued -- fused. Fusing is fast. A commenter under a Bangkok tailor video complains of exactly that: jackets "without canvass which will surely lose their shape after being worn just a few times."5
- Pressing. Cloth needs time under iron and steam to hold a shape. Nobody films pressing, and it is half of why a good jacket looks alive.
So stop asking "how fast?" and start asking "how many fittings, and is the chest canvassed or fused?" That answer tells you far more about a shop.
How do you tell if a Hoi An tailor makes the suit in house?
Hoi An has hundreds of shopfronts -- one reviewer who price-checked eight of them opens by asking, "they have 600 tailor, how do you know out of these 600 which one is the best to go to?"6 Many are showrooms: they take your measurements and send the work to a workshop you never see. That adds a margin layer between your money and the person sewing, and it changes what the shop can do when something is wrong. Three tests:
- Ask to see the workshop. Buy "somewhere where you can see them sewing in the shop so that you know you're not dealing with a middle man."1 One reviewer named exactly that as his deciding factor: "having their own workshop upstairs was one of the deciding factors."4 A vague "the factory is outside town" has told you what you needed.
- Ask a construction question and listen for a specific answer. Half-canvas or fused? Exact fibre composition of this cloth? A middleman cannot answer, because he did not make the decision -- he will change the subject to colour or a discount. A maker answers in one sentence.
- Ask what happens after you fly home. One Hoi An tailor on camera keeps measurements on record "about three or four years" so customers can reorder by mail.4 That is a workshop answer, not a storefront one.
This is not a Vietnam problem. A commenter under a Hong Kong tailoring video "never saw actual tailoring happen inside the stores, even though they all say they make the suits in Hong Kong."7 More in Hoi An vs Hong Kong vs Bangkok.
Are Hoi An tailor Google reviews reliable?
Reliable in aggregate, unreliable one at a time. Two filters do the work.
Volume. A 5.0 average across a dozen reviews is noise. The shop that produced the worst garment in that four-shop test had "12 reviews, I think, and none of them were particularly recent."1 She knew the rule and overrode it because the people were friendly. Everyone does. Decide your threshold before you land.
Recency. Hoi An shops change hands, workshops and staff, so glowing 2019 reviews may describe a business that no longer exists in that form. Sort by newest, read the last three months, and read the three-star ones -- that is where the detail is.
How much does a suit cost in Hoi An in US dollars?
What travellers reported on camera -- the shape of the market, not quotes you can hold anyone to.
| What was bought | Reported price (USD) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Three-piece suit + shirt + tie + a dress | $200 total | 2Passports 1Dream3 |
| Suits, range across fabrics | $80-$200 | Two Tall Travellers8 |
| Jacket + trousers + shirt (4.5m VND) | about $175 | Travis Travels Vietnam9 |
| Shop's own quoted tiers | from $95; premium $145-$195; wool-cashmere $200+ | 3RD DEGREE FOOD4 |
| Shirt, quoted at three neighbouring shops | $25 poly-cotton, $30-$50 cotton, $55 bamboo | Joachim Badejoh6 |
| Women's tailored vest / trousers / dress | $65 / $75 / $85 | Tina Yong11 |
Two things jump out. The spread is enormous for nominally the same garment -- the eight-shop price checker found neighbours quoting $28 and $15 for comparable shirts and said flatly, "I'm not so convinced actually for the same fabric."6 And what drives price is the cloth, not the labour: "Most people don't realise the fabric matters more than the tailor. A $99 polyester 'wool blend' suit in Thailand or Vietnam is not the same as true wool or linen."6 Another commenter warns that "bamboo" on a Hoi An shelf is frequently a cotton-poly blend with a nice label.6 Ask for the composition. Ask to see the bolt end.
Is there a Hoi An tailor tourist price vs local price?
Yes, and it is worth understanding rather than being outraged by. The opening number often depends on how the salesperson reads you. One reviewer caught it in the same room: he overheard a shop quote shirts at $19 to two men off the street, having been quoted differently himself.4 A commenter elsewhere reacts bluntly: "This are tourist prices! The average salary in Vietnam is $500 a month."1
Both are true at once. A visitor buys a different product from a local: English-speaking service, same-week turnaround, a showroom, someone who remakes a sleeve because you fly out Thursday. What is not fair is a number that moves after you commit. The defence: get the price, fabric name and delivery date written down before you pay a deposit, and be willing to walk out.
Is it worth flying to Vietnam to get a suit made?
Not for one suit. A viewer asks the obvious question under one tailoring video -- "the suits are gorgeous, but the price of the round-trip airfare from the US would be a lot?"12 If the suit is $200 and the flight $1,200, you bought a $1,400 suit. Two cases flip the maths:
- You were coming anyway. Then the marginal cost of the suit is the suit. A viewer under the 24-hour tailoring test video puts it best: "It's like if buying a custom suit in the US came with a free vacation."13
- You are buying a wardrobe, not a suit. Two suits, four shirts, a jacket and two dresses at Hoi An prices is a different number from the same list at home -- one group on camera ordered four suits at $200 each.10
If neither applies, do not fly -- order remotely. That is a real answer, not a consolation prize: most of our own work is made for people who have never been to Vietnam.
What if you are not flying at all?
Then the timeline changes shape: no two-day sprint, just a make and a shipment. For us that is a 3 to 4 working-day make plus express courier -- about 2 to 3 weeks to your door, shipped worldwide, shipping quoted separately by weight and destination. Suits are $149 to $309, garment only, as of September 2026 -- wool blend at entry, Australian merino at the top. True half-canvas chests, not fused, and we cut only from our own cloth library; we do not make up customer-supplied fabric.
The worry is always measurements, so we built the guided measurement studio to walk you through it with a phone and a friend; the online tailoring guide covers the rest. Every garment ships with generous seam allowances and spare matching cloth, so if something needs a nudge a local tailor near you can make it -- you pay them for that. We do not offer a remake guarantee, and I would rather say so here than have you find out later.
And if you do come: two days in person, measured day one, fitted and collected day two. Ask to see our workshop -- it would be strange to write that test and then fail it. You will also be told you are handsome, or beautiful, roughly every four minutes. Linda means it, which is somehow worse.
Frequently asked questions
Can a Hoi An tailor really make a suit in 24 hours?
Physically, yes -- shops quote first fittings inside 24 to 48 hours.1 What gets compressed is the fitting, the chest construction and the pressing. If your trip allows three days, give it three days.
What is the Hoi An tailor wait time in peak season?
Longer than the reels suggest -- one traveller visiting in late March was quoted "up to sort of 5 to 9 days" by several shops.1 Message shops with your dates before you arrive and get the delivery date in writing.
How much does a suit cost in Hoi An in US dollars?
Travellers report roughly $80 to $200 depending on cloth,8 with one shop quoting $95 at entry, $145 to $195 premium and over $200 for wool-cashmere.4
Is it worth flying to Vietnam just for a suit?
For one suit, no -- the airfare swamps the saving.12 It works if you were already travelling, or ordering a whole wardrobe. Otherwise, order remotely.
The bottom line
Give Hoi An three days for a suit, four to enjoy the town too. Book the first morning. Ask to see the workshop before you ask for a discount. Get the fabric name, price and pickup date in writing. Read the newest reviews, not the loudest. And if the flight does not make sense, skip the flight and keep the tailor -- that is what ordering direct is for.
