General 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 Vietnam's 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's 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, Vietnam-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 Approval on your passport at Vietnamese Embassy in your area by yourself. Following such an approval, we will send you the notification (by fax or email) and fax the approval to your desired Embassy or Consulate. You need to bring that approval together 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 on Arrival as your best option.

What is a 'Visa on 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 on 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 in Hanoi. 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.