PhD thesis length in Vietnam: how long should it be?

Direct answer: No. The Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular 53/2026/TT-BGDĐT on 30 June 2026, and its article on the doctoral thesis gives no page or word figure. It hands structure and form to the training institution, so the limit you must meet is written in your own university's regulation.

The Ministry of Education and Training (2026) addresses the thesis in Article 21 of Circular 53/2026/TT-BGDĐT, published in Công báo no. 447 on 28 July 2026. Paragraph 2 reads: "Cơ sở đào tạo quy định cụ thể cấu trúc, hình thức và yêu cầu học thuật của luận án tiến sĩ ..." (Ministry of Education and Training, 2026, Art. 21(2)), so the institution fixes structure, form and academic requirements. Paragraph 3 allows a monograph or a thesis built on the candidate's own publications.

So where is the number? In the university's own thesis-format rules. Nha Trang University (2016) is one published example. Its Decision 121/QĐ-ĐHNT limits a doctoral thesis to "không quá 150 trang A4, không kể phụ lục" (Nha Trang University, 2016, section 3.1), meaning 150 A4 pages excluding appendices, and at least 50% of those pages must present the author's own results and discussion. Other universities differ, and a 2016 decision may have been replaced, so ask your graduate office for the current text.

Source: Ministry of Education and Training (2026); Nha Trang University (2016); Brailsford (2018). Compiled by MAAS, 2026-10-31.

Direct answer: In the best-documented sample, 1,000 doctoral theses at the University of Auckland from 2008 to 2017, the mean was 204 pages and the median 198. Only 23 had fewer than 100 pages. A US sample of 107 education dissertations had a median of 161 pages.

Brailsford (2018), a postgraduate learning adviser at the University of Auckland, drew 100 theses from each year of 2008 to 2017 and counted pages from the first Arabic numeral to the last chapter. His rule was: "a page was a page was a page irrespective of font size, line spacing" (Brailsford, 2018, counting protocol). The mean was 204 pages and 7.55 chapters.

The spread matters more than the middle: 23 had fewer than 100 pages, 486 had 100 to 199, 426 had 200 to 299 and 65 ran past 300. A thesis of 120 pages is therefore ordinary in that sample, and so is one of 280.

Randolph et al. (2014) drew a random 107 education dissertations listed in ProQuest for 2011. Their median was 161 pages: qualitative dissertations at 210, mixed-methods at 187 and quantitative at 147. Dissertations from online universities had a median 44 pages shorter than traditional ones.

Source: studies as cited in the table; mean and median are not interchangeable, so compare within a row only.

The three samples describe what candidates submitted, so treat them as context for PhD thesis length and not as targets. None of the three samples is Vietnamese, and none says a longer thesis is a better one.

Direct answer: Discipline changes it more than route. In the UK medical sample of 75 theses, traditional and publication-based theses had similar page counts, while at Auckland the 2015 median was 159 pages for STEM theses and 223 pages for non-STEM ones, a gap of 64 pages.

Urdă-Cîmpean et al. (2016) compared 43 traditional theses with 32 publication-based ones, all defended at UK institutions between 2003 and 2015. Pages without references and appendices averaged 219 against 196 (p = 0.299), and total pages 274 against 250 (p = 0.563). The authors concluded: "our analysis proved that such a difference does not exist" (Urdă-Cîmpean et al., 2016, Discussion) between the two routes in pages or declared words. What did differ was the content: publication-based theses held 4.44 studies on average against 2.67.

Discipline is a different story. Brailsford (2018) split 800 Auckland theses from 2008 to 2015 into STEM and non-STEM. In 2008 the medians were 210 and 241 pages. By 2015 the STEM median had fallen to 159 while the non-STEM median was 223. If your field argues at length in prose, expect a longer PhD thesis length than a colleague whose chapters are mostly papers.

One caution about method. Urdă-Cîmpean et al. (2016, Methods) note that "university regulations usually stipulate the maximum length of a thesis in number of words", and they could use declared word counts for only some theses: 67,897 words on average for 19 traditional ones and 58,969 for 23 publication-based ones. A page count is the weaker measure, since a publication-based thesis often embeds published articles as printed.

Direct answer: Evidence points to publications and review, not pages. In an Australian cohort of 664 graduates, candidates with four or more articles had a median time to degree of 3.76 full-time-equivalent years, and Vietnam's own independent review can take up to six months.

Churchill et al. (2021) followed doctoral graduates at one Australian university from 2000 to 2020, with publication data on 707 and time-to-degree data on 664, of whom 373 were domestic and 291 international. Graduates with four or more articles had the shortest median at 3.76 full-time-equivalent years (p < 0.001). In health, candidates in a cohort programme had a median of 3.35 years against 3.97 for peers outside it. This is an association, so it does not show that publishing causes faster completion.

Publication demands can also lengthen the road. Ahmad et al. (2025) interviewed twenty doctoral students and ran three focus groups, 33 participants in total, in Pakistan, choosing candidates who had experienced notable delays. They write that "Completion of all of these requirements, including specific publications, is essential to obtaining the degree" (Ahmad et al., 2025, pp. 17–18), where the requirement is at least two papers in recognised journals, and participants described journal costs and long review cycles as causes of delay.

In Vietnam the calendar is shaped by Article 22 of the circular. A thesis goes to 3 independent reviewers, at least 2 from outside the institution. The institution must finish the process within 6 months of receiving the draft approved by the specialist unit, extendable by 3 months for a second round, and a thesis passes with at least 2 agreeing opinions. Article 22(5) also lets an institution waive this step for candidates whose publications exceed the programme standard, but none of the above depends on whether you wrote 140 pages or 190. For the full sequence from submission to the award, see the timeline guide.

Direct answer: Start from your university's written rule and its counting method, then ask your supervisor for two recent theses from your department. Use the measured ranges above only as a sanity check on your plan, and set chapter budgets before you begin to write.

1. Get the rule in writing. Ask the graduate office what unit is used, whether references, appendices and front matter count, and whether the rule is a maximum or a norm.
2. Pull two recent theses. Choose ones from your supervisor's own graduates, in your method family, because Randolph et al. (2014) found 147 to 210 pages depending on method alone.
3. Budget by chapter. For a 150-page cap with at least 50% own results, as at Nha Trang, 75 pages must carry your own findings and discussion.
4. Check the count with a printout. Count the way the rule does, not the way your word processor does.

Reading one thesis end to end teaches more about proportion than any PhD thesis length target. The Wikipedia article on the thesis is a fair map of how formats differ across countries, and the entry on the Doctor of Philosophy covers the degree itself.

Direct answer: Yes, a second reader can test a chapter plan against your university's rule before you invest months in drafting. The reader checks scope, proportions and the fit between your research questions and the length you can defend. The writing stays yours.

A page budget is easiest to test against a real outline. If you are still deciding how to scope the PhD, the PhD Application Strategy and Execution service can walk through scope, supervisor fit and the way a proposal becomes chapters. MAAS advisers comment on plans and drafts, and every sentence of the thesis remains the candidate's own to write.

The service is advisory work with no grade target and no refund tied to an outcome, because examiners and committees decide results. If the adviser matched to you is not the right fit for your field, you can ask for a different expert, and nothing about that request affects the rest of the engagement. Bring your university's thesis regulation and one recent thesis from your department to the first conversation, because the plan depends on how your institution counts length.

Three guides sit next to this one in the doctoral planning sequence. Pick the one that matches the decision in front of you today.

• From PhD thesis submission to the award in Vietnam: the stages after the manuscript is finished
• How long is a PhD programme?: what the published duration figure measures
• PhD by publication in the UK: the two routes if your thesis is built on papers

• Ahmad, F., Waheed, S. A., & Gilani, N. (2025). Navigating the complex intersection of doctoral degree requirements: Results from a qualitative analysis. Bulletin of Education and Research, 47(1), 11–35. https://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/ier/PDF-FILES/2_47_1_25.pdf
• Brailsford, I. (2018, May 29). How many chapters and pages are there in a doctoral thesis? DoctoralWriting. https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/how-many-chapters-and-pages-are-there-in-a-doctoral-thesis/
• Churchill, M. P., Lindsay, D., Mendez, D. H., Crowe, M., Emtage, N., & Jones, R. (2021). Does publishing during the doctorate influence completion time? A quantitative study of doctoral candidates in Australia. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 16, 689–713. https://doi.org/10.28945/4875
• Ministry of Education and Training. (2026). Thông tư số 53/2026/TT-BGDĐT ban hành Quy chế tuyển sinh và đào tạo sau đại học [Circular 53/2026/TT-BGDĐT promulgating the regulation on postgraduate admission and training]. Công báo, no. 447. https://congbao.chinhphu.vn/van-ban/thong-tu-so-53-2026-tt-bgddt-470098/67203.htm
• Nha Trang University. (2016). Quy định trình bày luận văn thạc sĩ, luận án tiến sĩ và các báo cáo khoa học khác trong đào tạo sau đại học của Trường Đại học Nha Trang [Regulation on the presentation of master's theses, doctoral theses and other scientific reports in postgraduate training] (Decision No. 121/QĐ-ĐHNT).
• Randolph, J., DeWeese, S., Manuel, A. K., Baugher, G., Tessmer, K., Westbrook, A., Shoats, S., Balloun, J., & Crawford, L. (2014). Page length and methodological characteristics of recently published doctoral dissertations in education. Georgia Educational Researcher, 11(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.20429/ger.2014.110202
• Urdă-Cîmpean, A. E., Bolboacă, S. D., Achimaş-Cadariu, A., & Drugan, T. C. (2016). Knowledge production in two types of medical PhD routes: What's to gain? Publications, 4(2), Article 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications4020014

Written for candidates planning a doctoral thesis. MAAS advisers comment on scope and drafts, and every chapter stays the candidate's own to write.