# Tan Ky Old House, Hoi An

> Tan Ky Old House (Nhà cổ Tấn Ký) is a late 18th-century merchant's house at 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, still home to the same family upstairs while the ground floor is open to visitors. Entry is one coupon of the Old Town ticket (80,000 or 120,000 VND); open daily 8:00–11:30 and 13:30–17:45. You need about 20 minutes.

Web page: https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/tan-ky-old-house

- City: [Hoi An](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an), Vietnam
- YesGo score: 39/100 (Yes, if nearby)
- Time on site: 20 min
- With kids: Fine with kids
- Entry: One coupon of the Old Town ticket: 80,000 VND (bridge or Quan Cong Temple + 2 sites) or 120,000 VND (+ a museum + 3 sites)
- Separate ticket: None — the house only takes Old Town ticket coupons
- Hours: Daily 8:00–11:30 and 13:30–17:45
- Closed: No weekly closing day; hours may change over Tết (Lunar New Year)
- Children: Free under 16, per the Hoi An Heritage Management Centre
- Ticket validity: Up to three days — keep the stub
- Payment: Cash in Vietnamese dong at the ticket booths; foreign Visa and Mastercard work mostly in hotels and bigger restaurants, not at street stalls
- Open to visitors: Ground floor and inner courtyard; the family lives upstairs
- Time needed: 15–25 minutes
- Address: 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Ancient Town, a 3–4 minute walk from the Japanese Covered Bridge
- Coordinates: 15.87646, 108.32783
- Facts checked: 05.11.2026

## Key facts

- **1 coupon** — of the Old Town ticket — there is no separate admission (source: Hoi An Heritage Management Centre; Da Nang Department of Tourism (danangfantasticity.com))
- **8:00–11:30, 13:30–17:45** — opening hours every day, with a lunch break (source: Da Nang Department of Tourism (danangfantasticity.com))
- **7 generations** — of one family have kept the house; descendants still live upstairs (source: Da Nang Department of Tourism; Vietnam National Authority of Tourism (vietnam.travel))
- **Late 18th century** — when the house was built; guidebooks and Wikidata often give 1741 (source: Da Nang Department of Tourism; Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record (1992))
- **Street to river** — the house runs right through the block, from Nguyen Thai Hoc to Bach Dang on the riverfront (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; localvietnam.com (unofficial))
- **1985** — taken under protection as an Ancient Town monument; Ministry of Culture certificate in 1990 (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; Da Nang Department of Tourism)
- **Kim Bong** — the carpentry village whose craftsmen carved and built the house (source: Da Nang Department of Tourism; localvietnam.com (unofficial))
- **100 strokes** — in a calligraphy panel where every stroke is drawn as a bird (source: Da Nang Department of Tourism; localvietnam.com (unofficial))
- **1 m × 1 m** — trapdoor in the ceiling above the entrance, used to haul goods up to the storeroom (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record)
- **Lê Từ đường** — the house is both a home and the Le family's ancestral chapel (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record)
- **Bat Trang** — bricks on the floors; the courtyard is paved with large stone slabs (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; localvietnam.com (unofficial))

> **Expect a lunch break from 11:30 to 13:30** Da Nang's tourism board lists the house as open **8:00–11:30 and 13:30–17:45**. Some guides say it stays open all day, but don't count on it over lunch. The nicest slots are just after 8:00 and after 16:00, before the day-trip groups from Da Nang arrive or once they've left.

## Is Tan Ky House included in the Hoi An Old Town ticket?

Yes — and that's the only way in. Staff tear off one coupon of your **Old Town ticket** at the door; there's no ticket booth at the house itself. The Hoi An Heritage Management Centre sells two versions, **80,000 VND and 120,000 VND**, both valid for up to three days, and under-16s go free.

The 80,000 VND ticket covers the Ancient Town, a compulsory coupon for either the [Japanese Covered Bridge](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/japanese-covered-bridge) or [Quan Cong Temple](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/quan-cong-temple), plus **two sites of your choice**. The 120,000 VND ticket adds a museum and gives **three sites of your choice**. Tan Ky is one of those choice sites. Da Nang's 2026 price table labels the same two amounts as the Vietnamese and foreign-visitor prices, so ask at the booth which ticket you're getting.

Booths stand at the entrances to the Ancient Town, including one by the Japanese Bridge, and they take cash in dong. Foreign Visa and Mastercard cards are fine in hotels and bigger restaurants, but street food, markets and small shops are cash only. Grab, the main ride-hailing app, takes cash or a linked foreign card.

## What is Tan Ky Old House?

It's a private merchant's house in the middle of Hoi An's Ancient Town, dated by Da Nang's tourism board to the late 18th century, when the port was booming. Many guidebooks — and Wikidata — give a precise year, 1741, but no official source we checked confirms it. The 1992 heritage record simply says "more than 200 years old".

Like most Hoi An shophouses it's a "tube house": narrow at the front and very deep, built as several sections one behind another. It runs right through the block from Nguyen Thai Hoc Street to Bach Dang Street on the river. The shop faced the street, while goods came in by boat at the back. According to the heritage record, the house was once a shop, a warehouse, a family home and rented space all at once; today it is a home and the Le family's ancestral chapel, **Lê Từ đường**.

The frame is jackfruit, ironwood and kiền kiền timber, carved by craftsmen from Kim Bong village across the river. You can read three building traditions in it: a Vietnamese post-and-beam frame, Chinese lacquered boards and couplets, and Japanese-style joinery in the roof. The house was taken under protection in 1985 and received its Ministry of Culture certificate in 1990; Da Nang's tourism board calls it the first home in Hoi An to be given this status.

## What to see inside

- **The wooden street front** — panels of fitted planks between square posts, with a pair of yin-yang **"door eyes"** above the main door to watch over the house.
- **Carved stone column bases** shaped like lotus flowers. Each post sits on its own stone instead of in the ground, which keeps the timber dry.
- **The "crab shell" ceiling** — a curved roof truss that makes the front room feel wider. Look for the brackets carved as **two crossed swords wrapped in a silk ribbon**, and the fish-shaped ends of the eave supports.
- **A trapdoor in the ceiling** above the entrance, a metre square. Sacks of goods were hoisted through it to the storeroom upstairs — easy to miss unless you look up.
- **Fine carving** of the "eight treasures" with plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo, and on the gallery, **bats circling the character for "precious"** — bats stand for good fortune in Chinese symbolism.
- **Mother-of-pearl couplets** more than two metres long, and the **"hundred birds" panel**, where each of the 100 strokes is drawn as a bird. There's also a four-character board presented by Emperor Bảo Đại.
- **The open-air courtyard** — the house has no street windows, so this is where light and air come in. It's paved with big stone slabs, while the rooms have Bat Trang brick floors.
- **The Confucius cup** in a glass case; Da Nang's tourism board puts its age at 550–600 years.

## What the visit is like

Short and simple. You hand over a coupon at the door and walk through the front room to the courtyard and the back of the house. A family member or a guide usually gives a quick talk on the family, the trade and the carpentry; large tour groups get their own guide's version. The upper floor is the family's home and stays closed.

Treat it as someone's house with an ancestral altar, not a museum. Keep your voice down, don't sit on the old furniture and leave the altar alone. Photos are fine; switch off the flash and step aside during the talk so people can pass. There's no air-conditioning, so on hot days come early.

The tour ends at a small souvenir corner. Buying anything is entirely optional. If something catches your eye, haggle calmly — in Ancient Town shops a fair opening offer is around half the asking price.

## How to get to Tan Ky Old House

1. **From Da Nang airport (DAD)** — about 30 km, 40–50 minutes by taxi, Grab or shuttle bus. Hoi An has no airport or railway station of its own.
2. **Get dropped at the edge of the car-free zone** — on Tran Hung Dao or Phan Chu Trinh Street. Cars and motorbikes are kept out of the Ancient Town from 9:00 to 21:30 in summer and to 21:00 in winter.
3. **Buy the Old Town ticket** at the first booth you pass if you don't have one yet; there's one by the Japanese Bridge.
4. **From the Japanese Covered Bridge: 3–4 minutes, about 250 m.** From the bridge's east end, head down towards the river and keep left at the fork onto Nguyen Thai Hoc. No. 101 is on your right — the dark timber front with the name sign.
5. **From Tran Phu Street**, Nguyen Thai Hoc runs parallel one block closer to the river. The [Fujian Assembly Hall](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/fujian-assembly-hall) is a few minutes' walk east.

## Is Tan Ky House worth it, and how long do you need?

Yes, if you want to see one Hoi An house from the inside rather than just the façades — it's the best-known of the old merchant homes and shows how shop, store, home and altar all fit into one narrow building. Plan on **15–25 minutes**: only the ground floor is open, so it doesn't take long.

It's less rewarding at midday, when the rooms fill up and the talk happens on the move. And if you've already seen another old house on your ticket, you might prefer to spend the coupon on the Fujian Assembly Hall or a museum. The easy way to fit it in is right after the Japanese Bridge on a west-to-east walk.

## Tan Ky House vs the Japanese Bridge and Fujian Assembly Hall

|  | Tan Ky House | Japanese Bridge | Fujian Assembly Hall |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | A lived-in merchant's house with a family altar | A roofed bridge with a tiny shrine | The Fujian community's hall and temple |
| Coupon | One of the sites of your choice | The compulsory coupon: bridge or Quan Cong Temple | One of the sites of your choice |
| Where | 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc | West end of Tran Phu | 46 Tran Phu |
| Time needed | 15–25 min | ≈ 20 min | 30–40 min |
| Highlights | Carving, courtyard, couplets, family story | The shrine, monkey and dog statues | Triple gate, sea goddess altar |

All three are within a 10-minute walk of each other, and a single 80,000 VND ticket covers the bridge plus both of the others.

## Before you go: checklist

- [ ] Old Town ticket with a choice coupon left, or dong in cash to buy one
- [ ] Arriving before 11:30 or after 13:30
- [ ] Shoulders and knees covered — there's a family altar
- [ ] Phone flash switched off
- [ ] Small notes in case I want a souvenir
- [ ] Grab pickup set for Tran Hung Dao or Phan Chu Trinh

## Hoi An's history, compared

Hoi An's historic sights rated by YesGo.

- [Hoi An Central Market](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-central-market) — YesGo score 44/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 45 min · Free entry
- [Japanese Covered Bridge](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/japanese-covered-bridge) — YesGo score 40/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · Old Town ticket: 80,000–120,000 VND
- [Tan Ky Old House](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/tan-ky-old-house) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · One Old Town ticket coupon
- [Fujian Assembly Hall](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/fujian-assembly-hall) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 30 min · Old Town ticket, 80,000–120,000 VND
- [Quan Cong Temple](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/quan-cong-temple) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · Old Town ticket, 80,000–120,000 VND
- [Hoi An Ancient Town](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-old-town) — YesGo score 34/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 3 h · 80,000–120,000 VND; streets free
- [My Son Sanctuary](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/my-son-sanctuary) — YesGo score 26/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 2 h 30 min · 150,000 VND

## One street, one morning

The Japanese Bridge at opening, Tan Ky House, the Fujian hall, Quan Cong Temple and the market — west to east along the same few blocks. Add them to your route — YesGo fits in the timing and walks.

1. [Japanese Covered Bridge](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/japanese-covered-bridge) — YesGo score 40/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · Old Town ticket: 80,000–120,000 VND
2. [Tan Ky Old House](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/tan-ky-old-house) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · One Old Town ticket coupon
3. [Fujian Assembly Hall](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/fujian-assembly-hall) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 30 min · Old Town ticket, 80,000–120,000 VND
4. [Quan Cong Temple](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/quan-cong-temple) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · Old Town ticket, 80,000–120,000 VND
5. [Hoi An Central Market](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-central-market) — YesGo score 44/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 45 min · Free entry

## Not to be confused with

Several old merchant houses in the Ancient Town take ticket coupons — Quan Thang House at 77 Tran Phu is another. Tan Ky is the one at 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc, nearer the river. Its Vietnamese name is Tấn Ký; you'll also see it called the Old House of Tan Ky.

## Tips

- Go at 8:00: the house is open, but the Japanese Bridge only opens for crossing at 9:00 — you'll fit both in before the crowds.
- Choice coupons run out fast. Decide in advance whether an old house, an assembly hall or a museum matters most to you.
- Look up as you walk in — the trapdoor for hauling goods is right above the entrance.
- The marks on the posts at the back show how high the river has risen in past flood seasons.
- In autumn, during the rainy season, the streets by the river sometimes go under water and old houses close for those days — check at the ticket booth.
- The souvenir corner at the end is optional; your coupon doesn't depend on it.

## Questions

### Where is Tan Ky Old House?

At 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street in Hoi An's Ancient Town, one block south of Tran Phu and a 3–4 minute walk from the Japanese Covered Bridge.

### How much is the Tan Ky House ticket?

There isn't a separate one. Entry uses one coupon of the Old Town ticket, which costs 80,000 or 120,000 VND. Under-16s are free.

### What are Tan Ky House opening hours?

Da Nang's tourism board gives 8:00–11:30 and 13:30–17:45 every day. Some guides say it's open without a break, but plan around lunch.

### How old is Tan Ky House?

Official sources date it to the late 18th century; the 1992 heritage record says more than 200 years. Guidebooks often quote 1741.

### Does a family still live in Tan Ky House?

Yes. The same family has kept the house for seven generations, and descendants live on the upper floor. Visitors see the ground floor and courtyard.

### How long do you need at Tan Ky House?

15–25 minutes. It's small and only the ground floor is open, so pair it with the Japanese Bridge and the Fujian Assembly Hall.

### Is Tan Ky House worth visiting?

Yes, if you want to see inside one old merchant house — it's the best-known and shows shop, store, home and altar under one roof. Skip it if you've already used coupons on similar houses.

### How do I get to Tan Ky House?

Walk. From the Japanese Bridge head towards the river and follow Nguyen Thai Hoc; No. 101 is on the right. Taxis and Grab drop off at Tran Hung Dao or Phan Chu Trinh.

### Can you take photos inside?

Yes. Turn the flash off and don't touch the altar or furniture — it's a family home.

## How we checked

Ticket types, validity, free entry under 16 and car-free hours come from the Hoi An Heritage Management Centre's announcement of 29.01.2026. The announcement doesn't list old houses by name; both Da Nang tourism board articles confirm Tan Ky is covered by the Old Town ticket. Hours of 8:00–11:30 and 13:30–17:45 are from those two articles; guidebooks give 8:00–17:30, 8:30–17:45 or 8:00–17:00 without a break, so we give the official hours and flag the break. The date differs between sources: Da Nang's board says late 18th century, vietnam.travel says 18th century, the 1992 heritage record says more than 200 years, while Wikidata and many guides give 1741 — we use the official wording. Generations: the tourism board and vietnam.travel say seven, while the 1992 record calls the then heir the fifth generation; we go with the current official sources. Status: the tourism board says national monument from 1985; the heritage record dates protection to 1985 and the ministry certificate to 1990, so we give both. The Confucius cup and its age come only from the tourism board. Souvenir corner, the closed upper floor and flood marks are from guidebooks and are unofficial. The walking distance from the Japanese Bridge is measured on OSM coordinates. The English core comes from English search results and related questions.

## Sources

- Hoi An Heritage Management Centre, Old Town visitor announcement of 29.01.2026 (hoianheritage.danang.gov.vn): ticket types, 3-day validity, free under 16, car-free hours
- Hoi An Monuments Management Board, heritage record No. 67/ĐK "House at 101 Nguyễn Thái Học — Lê Từ đường — Tấn Ký" (1992, hoianheritage.danang.gov.vn): layout, carving, trapdoor, boards, protection in 1985 and certificate in 1990
- Da Nang Department of Tourism (danangfantasticity.com): two articles on Tan Ky House — hours, ticket, seven generations, timber and Kim Bong carpenters, hundred-birds panel, Confucius cup, 1985 status; 2026 price table
- Vietnam National Authority of Tourism (vietnam.travel): 18th century, private ownership, family upstairs
- Wikidata Q140915999: coordinates, 1741 date
- localvietnam.com, goodmorning-hoian.com: ground floor only, souvenir corner, flood marks, Bat Trang tiles (unofficial)

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