The present study examined the impact of emotional intelligence on the cognitive subjective well-being of Vietnamese college students and the intermediate role of self-esteem. Based on data collected through a self-assessment survey method of 725 college students in Vietnam, the results of the structural equation modeling analysis show that emotional intelligence has a positive impact on cognitive subjective well-being. Simultaneously, self-esteem was found to partially mediate the relationship between emotional intelligence and cognitive subjective well-being. In addition, the results also show that there is a difference in cognitive subjective well-being by family type while there is no difference in cognitive subjective well-being by gender, school year and order of children in the family. From the results, the study is expected to contribute some recommendations for policy makers to improve college students' mental health.