Vietnam durian export season

Roughly April to November, in volume from May, and staggered by region. The Mekong Delta orchards around Tien Giang and Ben Tre and the Southeast around Dong Nai open it. Dak Lak in the Central Highlands runs from about August and is now where the volume is.

The early crop peaks in May and June. In 2026 Mekong Delta prices for Ri6 and Monthong fell at the very start of the season, days before the peak harvest in May. In Dong Nai and Binh Phuoc the harvest was at its peak by mid-June 2025, and heavy rain and waterlogging were already damaging ripe fruit. The Central Highlands take over from August. Dak Lak was still in the last stage of its harvest in late October 2025, on an estimated 392,000 tonnes.

That stagger is the whole reason a Hong Kong buyer works this lane and the Thai one. The Mekong and Southeast crop overlaps Thailand’s eastern peak, and the Highlands crop runs after the Thai season has thinned out. Between them the two origins cover most of the year, and in the months where they overlap the market has a choice it does not have in either shoulder.

The trade is new. China opened to Vietnamese fresh durian under a protocol signed in July 2022, and the first official shipment, about 100 tonnes from Dak Lak, left in September 2022. Every orchard and packhouse needs a code registered with Vietnam’s agriculture ministry and approved by China’s customs authority. By 2024 exports were worth $3.3 billion, with China taking more than 90%. Frozen durian has had its own protocol since August 2024.

Inspection now moves the season as much as weather does. China tested every batch for cadmium from December 2024, and from early 2025 it also required tests for the dye Auramine O (Basic Yellow 2) from an accredited laboratory. Exports through the Lang Son border crossings stopped from 16 January 2025 until testing was in place. In the first half of February shipments to China fell 80%. Budget for the test certificate and the days it takes, because a load without one is sent back or destroyed.

In the Mekong Delta the weather risk is drought and salt. In 2020 seawater pushed 50–110 km up the main rivers, further than in the 2016 drought, and killed durian orchards across the Delta. Tien Giang now builds sluices to protect more than 20,000 ha of durian grown for export.