Vietnam Visa Policy For Citizens Of Different Countries
Vietnamese government implements different visa policies for citizens from different countries. Accordingly, we can divide visa applicants into 3 groups based on their nationalities which are visa - exempted, visa - required with simple procedure and visa - required with cumbersome procedure.
Vietnam offers either unilateral or bilateral visa exemption policy to citizens of some specific countries for their short stay in Vietnam.
- Unilateral visa exemption: under this exemption policy, citizens of countries on the list are granted single entry and stay in Vietnam for up to 15 days for all purposes of entry. However, to benefit from this policy, the distance between the former exit and the latter entry must be at least 30 days. Countries appearing on this list are UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Russia, Japan, South Korea and Belarus.
- Bilateral visa exemption: This policy allows citizens of countries on the list to enter Vietnam and stay here for up to 30 days for all purposes of entry. There is not any condition for the entry as in unilateral exemption. These beneficiary countries are: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia (30 days visa free), Philippines (21 days visa free) or Brunei (14 days visa free) and Myanmar (14 days visa free).
Vietnam waives visa for 22 countries
Citizens of other countries whose names are not mentioned above are required to apply for Vietnam visa before their travel. For almost all nationalities, the procedure and requirements for applying for Vietnam visa is quite simple. More specifically, foreigners can apply for Vietnam visa either at the nearest Vietnam Embassy or online. To be eligible for Vietnam visa, the only requirement that foreigners need to satisfy is having a passport with at least 6 months of validity, counted from their date of arrival. The visa can be valid for 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months. Besides, depending on different groups of applicants and different purposes of arrival, foreigners can also apply for visa with validity of up to 1 year, 2 years or 5 years.
Although Vietnam visa requirements for foreigners are generally simple, it is still quite difficult for citizens from some specific countries to get Vietnam visa with more required documents to be submitted. Accordingly, these countries’ citizens need to present their passport, round - trip flight booking and hotel booking when applying for the visa. Besides, there is only tourism visa available with the maximum length of visa validity being 25 days. Some countries appearing on this list are Bangladesh, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana,...