Do You Need a Visa for Vietnam?

Start by ruling things out

There are only four ways a traveller enters Vietnam, and most people qualify for more than one. Working out which applies to you takes about a minute, and for a large share of visitors the answer is that no application is needed at all — which is the answer nobody selling a visa service will lead with.

The four routes

Visa exemption, 45 days. Granted unilaterally to citizens of a specific list of countries, currently including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia and Belarus, extended in August 2025 to twelve more European states including Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Czechia, Switzerland and Hungary. No form, no fee, no application of any kind. You arrive with a passport and are admitted.

Visa exemption, 14 to 30 days. A shorter exemption applies to most ASEAN neighbours — Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Laos and Cambodia among them. The exact length varies by country and by agreement, so check the number for your specific passport rather than assuming thirty.

E-visa, up to 90 days. Open to every nationality on earth, including all those already exempt. Single or multiple entry, applied for online, decided by the immigration department. This is the route most travellers from the United States, Canada, Australia and India will use, and it is the one this site covers in the most depth.

Phu Quoc island exemption, 30 days. A separate arrangement for the island only. It holds while Phu Quoc is your first and only Vietnamese destination; a connecting flight to the mainland ends it, and the exemption does not convert into anything else once you land.

Where people get this wrong

The most common mistake is assuming exemption and e-visa are alternatives you must choose between. They are not. If you hold an exempt passport and want to stay longer than the exemption allows, you apply for an e-visa instead — the exemption does not cap what you can obtain, it only describes what you get for free.

The second mistake is counting the exemption from the wrong day. It runs from the date of entry, and the day you land is day one. A 45-day exemption entered on 1 September expires on 15 October, not 16 October. Airlines have been known to deny boarding on a return flight booked one day past that line.

The third is treating a visa as permission to enter. It is not. Every route above authorises you to present yourself at the border; the officer at the counter makes the decision. That is true of exemptions, e-visas and every other document, and no service can change it.

What to do next

If you fall under an exemption and your trip fits inside it, you are done — there is nothing to apply for and nothing to buy. Confirm your passport has at least six months of validity remaining and two blank pages, and book your flights.

If you need an e-visa, the process is a single online form on the government portal and a fee paid directly to the government. Our walkthrough covers each field, the two file uploads that cause most rejections, and what the outcome actually looks like when it arrives.

Confirm before you book

The exemption lists change by decree, sometimes with weeks of notice, and this page is a reference rather than an authority. The nationality lists above were checked on 15 August 2026. Before booking anything expensive, confirm your own case on the government’s own portal at evisa.gov.vn, which is the only site whose answer actually binds anyone.