In order to take control of and ensure the national security, visa for foreigner travellers to entry a particular country was born and has continuously and popularly developed until now. However, different countries often establish different policies on visa, thus, different methods to issue a visa, too. The three methods of issuing a visa being applied so far are visa sticker, visa on arrival and e-visa, which is also considered the three distinctive forms of a Vietnam visa.
There are different forms of visa
Forms of visa
The most traditional and long-lasting visa form is known as visa sticker. Visa sticker is a visa paper sticked to the applicant’s original passport. For getting this visa, the foreigner will need to travel to Consulate to fill in visa application form and to submit in person required documents, including a fully filled visa application form, original passport, passport-sized photos and an invitation letter from a Vietnamese company in case of business-purposed visa. The applicant then will wait for several days to get his documents checked and his visa issued. However, in the era of globalization with increasing demand for travelling overseas, especially for tourism purpose, this method of issuing a visa is quite obsolete and can not meet the expectations and requirements from travellers, taking them too much time, money and effort to move around and wait for a visa.
To increase the competitiveness of service sector, many countries now introduce a different form of visa, leading to the birth of visa on arrival or visa stamp type - the second generation of visa. With this method of issuing visa, a foreigner will get visa stamped in his original passport when arriving international airport of the host country. This method of visa issuing can remove the disadvantages of visa sticker which is saving time, effort and money for travelling to the Embassy.
Visa on arrival can remove disadvantages of visa paper
In spite of being an innovative method of issuing visa as compared to the earliest-formed visa, visa on arrival still has a minor disadvantage which is applicants queuing at the airport’s international counter. After a long flight, waiting in line can be a little unfavorable. That is why the third generation of visa - e-visa was established. Applicants do not need to travel to the Embassy or queue at the airport but stay at home, apply online, pay online and get visa online afterward. They then only need to print the result and bring it with them when enter a country, that is all.
Visa in Vietnam
At the moment, e-visa is not applicable in Vietnam but Vietnam visa on arrival has been implemented. However, in Vietnam, a pre-arrangement is required. More specifically, an applicant needs to apply for a visa online before their travel to get visa approval letter via his subscribed email. This letter then must be printed out and brought with him to the airport where he can get the visa stamped in his original passport by submitting his letter.
Vietnamvs.com is a commercial website providing legal visa services. To apply for a Vietnam visa online and get visa approval letter, please click Here to start your application process.
Read more: Pros and cons of Vietnam visa on arrival