Vietnam entry reference
Single or Multiple Entry E-Visa
Twenty-five dollars separates the two, and one itinerary detail decides it. How to tell which you need before you pay.
- Updated
- 15 August 2026
- Reading time
- 3 minutes
- Purpose
- Independent reference
The difference in one line
A single-entry e-visa is spent the moment you leave Vietnam. A multiple-entry e-visa stays valid for its whole window no matter how many times you cross.
Both can run up to 90 days. Single entry costs 25 USD, multiple entry costs 50 USD, and the choice is made once, at application, and cannot be changed afterwards.
When single entry is the right answer
Most trips. If you fly into Vietnam, travel inside it, and fly out — one arrival, one departure — the extra twenty-five dollars buys nothing at all.
Internal flights do not count as leaving. Hanoi to Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City is domestic travel and never touches your visa.
When it is the wrong answer
The moment a land border or a regional flight appears in your plans. The classic cases:
The Cambodia side trip. Fly into Ho Chi Minh City, spend a week, cross to Siem Reap for Angkor, come back for the flight home. That return crossing needs a second entry, and a single-entry visa has none left.
The Laos loop. Northern Vietnam itineraries routinely dip into Laos and return, sometimes by land, sometimes by a short flight.
A regional work trip. Based in Vietnam for two months with a meeting in Bangkok in the middle is two entries.
A cruise calling twice. Some itineraries touch Vietnam, leave territorial waters for another country, and call again. Each call is an entry.
The judgement call
Twenty-five dollars is a small sum against a plane ticket, and the failure mode is expensive and hard to fix from the wrong side of a border. If any part of your plan involves leaving the region and coming back — even as a maybe, even as a plan you have not booked — multiple entry is the cheaper choice in expectation.
If your itinerary is genuinely fixed and genuinely one-way-in-one-way-out, single entry is not a false economy and there is no reason to pay more.
First entry and the checkpoint you nominate
Your application names an intended entry checkpoint, and the first crossing is expected to happen there. Reports differ on how strictly this is enforced for subsequent crossings on a multiple-entry visa, and enforcement is not something a reference page can promise you either way.
The safe reading: nominate the border you will actually arrive at, and if your plans change materially after issue, treat that as a question for the immigration department rather than something to discover at a counter.
What neither option gives you
Neither can be extended from inside Vietnam. Neither converts into the other. Neither survives its expiry date — a multiple-entry visa with three unused crossings is worth nothing the day after it expires.
If you are unsure how long you need, the length of stay is the more consequential field than the entry count. Ninety days on a multiple-entry visa costs 50 USD in total, which is less than most travellers spend on the taxi from the airport.
Confirm before you book
Fees and the entry-checkpoint rule were checked on 15 August 2026. Rules here move by decree — before booking a trip whose shape depends on re-entry, confirm the current position at evisa.gov.vn.