Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum: Opening Hours, Tickets, Dress Code

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi is free to enter and opens on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday mornings only, shutting every Monday and Friday. From April to October the doors open at 7:30, and from November to March at 8:00, with last entry around 10:30 to 11:30 depending on the day. It also closes for maintenance for roughly two months a year, usually from about 15 June or in September and October depending on the year, so check before you go. In 2026 that closure runs from 4 September to 2 November. Cover your shoulders and knees, and expect to queue.

Hours checked October 2026 against the announcement from the Mausoleum Command.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum opening hours

The mausoleum runs on two seasonal timetables, and the closing time depends on the day of the week. There are no afternoon visits at any time of year.

Three dates override the Monday and Friday rule: 19 May (Ho Chi Minh's birthday), 2 September (National Day) and the first day of the Lunar New Year. On those days the mausoleum opens whatever the weekday, and the queue is at its longest of the year.

The closing time is when the doors shut, not when the queue stops moving. Security stops admitting people from the back of the line some time before, so arriving at 10:15 on a Thursday is a gamble. Being in line at opening time is the safer plan.

The 2026 maintenance closure

Every year the mausoleum closes for roughly two months while the body and the building are maintained. In 2026 the closure runs from 4 September to 2 November, and visits resume on Tuesday 3 November, which falls on an open day. The dates were announced by the Mausoleum Command in August, and some tour operators published a slightly different window (5 September to 3 November), so check again in the week you go.

The closure moves from year to year. In 2025 it ran from 2 June to 31 July, so a date you read on an old blog may be wrong by three months. The pattern that holds is that it lasts about eight weeks and is announced a few weeks ahead.

A closure does not shut everything. Ba Dinh Square in front stays open, the guards still stand at the door, and the stilt house, the museum and One Pillar Pagoda keep their own hours.

The square stays open to walk around even when the mausoleum is shut. Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0.

Dress code for the mausoleum

Guards at the security check turn people away for clothing, and there are no wraps or sarongs to borrow at the gate. The rules are simple:

• Shoulders covered. No vests, tank tops or spaghetti straps.
• Knees covered. Long trousers or a skirt past the knee, no shorts of any length.
• Nothing see-through or low-cut.
• Hats off inside, so wear one you can carry.
• Closed shoes are preferred. Sandals are usually let through, flip-flops get looks.

The practical problem is the heat. In April and May Hanoi is already over 30 degrees by mid-morning, and the queue is mostly in the open. Light linen trousers and a loose cotton shirt with sleeves solve both problems at once. If you are coming straight from a day of sightseeing, a pair of thin trousers folded into a day bag does the job, though the bag itself then goes to the storage counter.

How long is the queue, and how to get through it

On a weekday outside the holidays most people are inside within 30 to 45 minutes of joining. In peak months, at weekends and around the three special dates, it runs to 90 minutes and sometimes more. Large Vietnamese school and veterans' groups arrive in coaches through the morning, and they share the same line.

The visit itself takes far less time than the wait. The line is walked in single file, two abreast at most, past the guards and round three sides of the glass case, and you are back outside within two or three minutes.

Where to join the line

Individual visitors and ordinary tour groups enter from Ngoc Ha Street, at number 17, on the west side of the complex. The entrance at 8 Hung Vuong Street is for delegations laying wreaths. Taxi and Grab drivers know both, so say Ngoc Ha.

Bags, cameras and phones

Backpacks and large bags are not allowed in. Leave them at the storage counter by the entrance and collect them at the exit on the other side of the complex, which is a walk, so travel light. Professional cameras go to storage too. Phones may stay in a pocket, switched off. Food, drink and chewing gum are banned.

Behaviour inside

No photos, no filming, no talking, hands out of pockets and arms uncrossed. Keep walking at the pace of the person in front. The guards correct people politely and immediately, and nobody is offended by a foreigner getting it wrong once, but this is a place many Vietnamese visitors come to pay respects, and the atmosphere reflects that.

The guards change to a darker uniform for the cool season, and the change is a small ritual of its own. Photo: Christophe95, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Can you see Ho Chi Minh's body?

Yes. Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body lies in a glass case in a dim, cold central hall, guarded at each corner. He died on 2 September 1969, and the mausoleum was built between 1973 and 1975 and opened on 29 August 1975. His own will asked for cremation, and the decision to preserve the body was taken by the leadership after his death. The building faces Ba Dinh Square, where he read the Declaration of Independence on 2 September 1945.

Most visitors describe the hall as quiet and very cold, with the light directed onto the face and hands. Children are allowed in, and the walk past is too short to unsettle most of them.

What else is in the complex

The exit from the mausoleum leads straight into the grounds of the Presidential Palace, and most people walk the rest as one loop. Allow an hour and a half for everything.

He lived and worked here from 1958 until 1969. Photo: Sumi nguyễn / Google Maps.

The stilt house says more about how he chose to live than anything in the museum. He declined to move into the French governor's palace and lived instead in a two-room wooden house by a carp pond, with a desk, a bed and a telephone. The rooms are seen from outside, through open walls.

For the war itself, the Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi is a ten-minute walk south along Dien Bien Phu Street and fills an afternoon.

The museum sits beside One Pillar Pagoda, at the far end of the circuit. Photo: VNM Hanoi / Google Maps.

Fitting the mausoleum into a day in Hanoi

Because it only opens in the morning, the mausoleum decides the shape of the day. A route that works: queue at opening, walk the palace grounds and One Pillar Pagoda, then take a short taxi north to Tran Quoc Pagoda on West Lake before lunch. The afternoon is free for the Old Quarter and an evening walk around Hoan Kiem Lake, about 2.5 kilometres from Ba Dinh.

Our longer list of things to do in Hanoi covers the rest of the city. And the dress rules here are a good habit for the whole country, along with the other points in things not to do in Vietnam.

Visitors walk the grounds but never go inside the palace itself. Photo: Sky Blue / Google Maps.

Many people heading south from Hanoi stop next in Phong Nha, ten hours away on the overnight train. The Hanoi to Phong Nha travel guide compares the train, sleeper bus and flight, and our page on Phong Nha caves and treks covers what to do once you arrive. A first day there is often a jungle walk into a wet cave, after two days of city pavements.