Vietnam visa information

Only citizens of certain countries can visit Vietnam without an Entry Visa (valid for visit within 30 days), specifically as follows:

– Not more than 30 days: for citizens of Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Laos.
– Not more than 15 days: for citizens of Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland.
– French citizens holding valid diplomatic passports are exempt from visa requirements when visiting Vietnam and are allowed to stay for up 3 months at one time or on several visits within six months since their first immigration dates.
– Citizens of Chile holding valid diplomatic or official passports are exempt from needing entry, exit and transit visas in Vietnam’s territory and are allowed to stay for up 60 days on each visit.

Citizens from all other countries are required to get an Entry Visa before departure or a pre-approved Entry Visa (issued on arrival at Vietnams International Airports) supplied before arrival in Vietnam.

The whole Visa-to-Vietnam Application Process should be recommended to you as follows;

It is common that you obtain your Entry Visa by having a valid passport stamped prior to your departure by applying to the Vietnam Embassy and/or Consulate (in case there is a Consulate instead of Embassy) in your country. However, if your particular city does not have a Vietnamese Embassy, and you wish to avoid procedural delays (anywhere from 4 to 10 days) which sometimes happen with visa approvals at embassies outside Vietnam, myvietnam-visa.com can make this requirement a fairly easy exercise. We provide a specialized form which you may copy and paste into a word document, fill out the required information and return to us by fax or email. We will then arrange to obtain the visa approval code service for you. Yet, you still subsequently have to get the official Vietnamese Stamp of with your passport to the Embassy or Consulate to get the Visa Stamp on your passport on the same day. You are now ready to go to Vietnam!

In case there is no Vietnam embassy or Consulate in your country, or you would like to make Vietnam part of a multi-destination trip, we recommend Visa upon Arrival as your best option.

What is a ‘Visa upon Arrival?’: this is probably the easiest way to obtain your visa without having to chase down embassies, consulates and the like prior to your trip. It is a valid alternative when applying for a tourist visa. The Entry Visa will be stamped on your passport as you pass through our Immigration Checkpoint. Though valid for thirty days, it can be extended once you enter Viet Nam. With this type of visa, you only can enter the country by air.

How to get a Visa upon Arrival: The service also facilitates customers at most in this case. We obtain what is called an Approval Letter for you from the Viet Nam Immigration Department. Then we will send you a copy by fax or email. Copies of the same document will be forwarded on your behalf to Vietnam Immigration Checkpoints at International Airports only. Thus when you arrive in Viet Nam, the Immigration officers will have those documents on hand and will be able to issue your Entry Visa expediently.

A Vietnamese Visa is required for almost all foreigners.

1. Tourist visas allow visitors to enter and exit Vietnam at Hanoi, HCMC and Danang air-ports or at any of its twelve land borders, three each with Cambodia and China, and six with Laos.

2. Only citizens of certain countries can visit Vietnam without Vietnam Visa. Those countries include: most citizens of ASEAN countries are no need Vietnam entry visa for visit Vietnam within 30 days; citizens of Korea, Japan & Scandinavians (Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland passport holders) are no need visa to vietnam for visit Vietnam within 15 days. All other citizens are required to get Visa Vietnam before departure (Vietnam entry visa issued prior to departure by Vietnamese consulates or embassies) or a pre-approved Vietnam Visa (visa is issued on arrival at Vietnams International Airports) supplied before arrival in Vietnam.

3. Tourist visas are valid for a single 30-day stay. The government often talks about issuing visas on arrival to certain favoured nationalities, but as yet this sensible scheme has failed to materialise. Arranging the paperwork for a Vietnamese visa has become fairly straightforward, but it remains expensive and unnecessarily time-consuming.

4. It is possible to arrange a visa on arrival through a Vietnamese travel agent. They will need passport details in advance and will send a confirmation for the visa to be issued at your airport of arrival. In Asia the best place to pick up a Vietnamese visa is Cambodia, where it COST A around US$30 and can be arranged the same day. Bangkok is also a popular place as many agents offer cheap packages with an air ticket and visa thrown in.

5. If you plan to spend more than a month in Vietnam, or if you plan to exit Vietnam and enter again from Cambodia or Laos, arrange a three-month multiple-Visa. These cost around US$95 in Cambodia, but are not available from all Vietnamese embassies. In our experience personal appearance influences the reception you receive from airport immigration – if you wear shorts or scruffy clothing, look dirty or unshaven, you can expect problems. Try your best to look ‘respectable’.

Vietnam Visa exemption information:

1. No Vietnam entry Visa required for travel less than 30 days: Citizens of Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos.

2. No Vietnam Visa required for travel less than 15 days: Citizens of Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.

3. No visa required for travel less than 90 days or several visits within 6 months: Citizens of France holding valid diplomatic or official passports.

4. No Vietnam Visa required for travel less than 60 days: Citizens of Chile holding valid diplomatic or official passports.

5. No Vietnam Visa required for travel less than 60 days: APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) Holders from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies.

6. No Vietnam Visa for traveling to Phu Quoc Island Vietnam : Foreigners and Vietnamese nationals bearing foreign passports who enter Vietnam through an international border gate and then travel to Phu Quoc Island and stay in Phu Quoc less than 15 days will also be exempt from Vietnam entry visa application. Passports must be valid for at least 45 days. After arriving in Phu Quoc Island, if visitors want to travel other localities or stay in the island for more than 15 days, the immigration department will be responsible for issuing visas right on the spot.

Vietnamese cultural showcase to open in RoK

A Vietnamese cultural showcase is scheduled to open at the end of August in the Republic of Korea’s (RoK) National Folk Museum in Seoul, to promote the country’s many different cultures.

The Welcome to Vietnam showcase and another on Mongolian culture (Senbeno Mongolia) are the first two items launched this year in the RoK, where almost 1.2 millions foreigners live. With this programme, children in the RoK will be able to find out more about the country’s range of diverse cultures, which will help to stamp out cultural problems in the country. Through the showcase, the visitors will have chances to find out about Vietnam’s history, its language, environment, cuisine, customs, religions, musical instruments and traditional games by examining the plentiful and vivid documents and artefacts. At present, there are over 90,000 Vietnamese people living and working in the RoK, the second largest foreign community after China including 35,000 Vietnamese brides married to Korean men.

Source VNA