Vietnam E-Visa: Beginners Guide Walkthrough 2024

You booked your vacation to Vietnam, you go to check in for your flight, and they tell you that your visa for Vietnam has an error and you can’t board this flight. This has happened to quite a few people.

Don’t put your E-visa off to the last minute! You risk causing a huge headache, losing money, and putting your vacation at risk. I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen to you; in this blog, I’m going to cover the following:

• Who Needs a Vietnam E-visa?
• When to apply?
• What you’ll need for the application
• Where to apply?
• The actual application with a walkthrough
• Reviewing your E-Visa for errors
• Visa Agents and Emergency Situations

I understand this sounds like A LOT. Let’s just cover some basics real quick so everyone starts on the same page.

💵Vietnam E-Visa Cost and Duration

The application process for the e-visa isn’t immediate and can take time, especially if you have to make any amendments to the application. Most travelers will Require a Visa to enter Vietnam. You have the option of getting a 30-day single entry visa for $25 USD. Or a 90-day multi-entry visa for $50 USD. The multi-entry allows you to leave Vietnam and Come back in during that 90-day visa window.

Great for travellers who look to visit somewhere like Siem Reap and come back into Vietnam after There is an Emergency Visa on Arrival but you can ONLY get these through third-party Visa Agents. Airlines will stop you from getting on your plane if your Visa to Vietnam contains errors or if you don’t have one at all. Don’t worry or feel stressed, or develop visa anxiety you are in the right place, Let’s start with Who needs the E-visa.

🤗Who is Exempt from Vietnam Visa?

Are there any countries that don’t need a visa? There is a 45-day Visa Exemption that applies to these 13 countries:

• South Korea
• Japan
• Belarus
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Norway
• Russia
• Spain
• Sweden
• UK

These countries listed can just pack their bag, book their ticket, and come to Vietnam for 45 days. This Visa Exemption doesn’t have many restrictions, you can leave Vietnam and come right back in after and you’ll still have an exemption. There is no time restraint or limit of use for this exemption.

🌏Which Countries Require a Visa to Come to Vietnam?

Here is a handful of countries that DO Require the E-Visa and you should continue reading this blog so I can help you get this process done as hassle-free as possible.

• Australia,
• The U.S,
• India,
• New Zealand,
• Canada
• China
• South Africa

And many more So, for those not on an exemption that will require a visa.

📅When should you apply for your Vietnam E-Visa?

I suggest applying for the e-visa 2-3 months before your arrival date and 2-3 weeks at the latest. The approval typically takes 3-5 business days if you don’t run into any issues. But if you are required to fix anything and resubmit, this can add another 3-5 business days.

Now, if your completed e-visa returns with an error like your name is misspelled, you’ll need to restart the entire process, including the payment. I’ve been in Vietnam for over a decade operating my motorbike food tour business Back of the Bike Tours. I’ve seen my fair share of frustrations here and my big tip, You just have to let these kinds of issues roll off your back. You’ll have a much better experience visiting Vietnam if you don’t take these types of minor annoyances too seriously. This type of stuff is going to happen, and you just have to go with it.

🤳How to Prepare for the Vietnam E-Visa? Vietnam Visa Requirements

So, What do we need before we sit down at our computer to start the application?

This part is vital, and I’ll include a little tip for you here at the end.

First things first: Check your passport expiration date. Vietnam requires 6 months of validity from your entry date. This also applies to those with 45-day Visa Exemptions.

If your passport has less than 6 months left, it will be an issue, and you’ll need to scramble to try and get a new one. Sort it out as soon as possible if this is the case. Do not take a chance with this; the airline may not even let you board the plane.

Next, ensure your passport has at least 2 completely blank pages. Again, this will also apply to those receiving a 45-day visa exemption.

Next, you must prepare two .jpg photos before starting the application. Please pay special attention to this part, as it is extremely important to get our e-visa approved quickly. I would say this is the #1 reason people have to fix their applications.

You can take these photos with your phone. The first .jpg is a portrait photo of yourself with a white background. The second jpg is a photo of your passport page.

Your portrait photo should show your shoulders, neck, and face against a white background, without glasses or obstructions on your face.

Do not crop and submit the photo from your passport page. It will be denied.

The passport page photo, the page in your passport with your personal identity information, must be crystal clear, with every letter and number clearly visible. You don’t want anything on the page to be cut off, blocked, or too dark.

Pay special attention to the ICAO line at the bottom so that it’s clearly readable. Watch for shadows from your phone or hand when you take this photo. I suspect that’s a big reason these get denied.

Now, Even if you believe your photos are flawless, you might still receive an email asking you to amend your visa by uploading a new photo. I think this is just a tiny issue with the online system, so you’ll just need to upload a new photo.

I wouldn’t worry too much about trying to make it more perfect or better than the original one unless there was something clearly wrong with the first one you submitted.

So, here’s a time-saving tip: Take two portrait photos and two passport page photos that you believe are both good enough for submission. If later you are asked for a photo amendment, quickly submit the second saved photo. This avoids having to set up and retake these photos again.

🔗Where to apply for Vietnam E-Visa?

Here’s a little cautionary tale: I recently came across a visa horror story about a young man who got scammed by applying on the wrong website for his e-visa.

He couldn’t board the plane because his visa was a fake. Fortunately, a third party took care of it and got him an emergency visa on arrival letter.

This unfortunate mishap delayed his flight, and of course, none of us want to start a vacation like that. So, let’s be careful here and ensure we are on the correct website.

First, we need to be on a desktop or laptop using a Chrome browser. Don’t try to submit this application on your phone; you won’t have a good time! There are numerous reports of payment issues if you use other browsers like Safari, so just stick with Chrome.

The official Vietnamese Government website is https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/

‘xuat nhap canh’ means immigration in Vietnamese, so check for those three words in your browser’s address bar to ensure you are in the right place.

🧑‍💻Vietnam E-Visa Application Walkthrough Step by Step

1. On the homepage, select E-visa.

2. Select For Foreigners

3. Click the “I’ve read carefully” confirmation box and then next.

4. At the top of the page, Click on these sample images to upload your images.

We have the Portrait image sample and the Passport page sample. By clicking on these sample images, we can upload our own photos for the application. We will be able to see them now. Check that these are the correct ones.

5. Fill in your personal information. Read Below for more specific instructions and how not to fill in your Surname and Given Name

Surprisingly, the Surname and Given Name can be tricky because of spelling errors or placing the wrong name, like a short form of your name instead of what is exactly on your ICAO line.

Look at the ICAO Line at the bottom of the passport. These are the names you want to give in the personal information section.

For example, if you have a name on your passport like Jonathan Robert Susie Smith, let’s say that’s your whole name, and it’s listed on the top of the passport page, but on the ICAO Line, it reads as Smith Jonathan Robert. That means your second middle name, Susie, isn’t listed in the ICAO line, and you should NOT put that into the personal information section.

What if you have numbers in your name or you are a Junior or Senior? For me, my name is Fredrick Allen Wilson III. I will fill out the Surname with Wilson III for the third, and my given name will be Fredrick Allen.

If you are sure you have your name listed correctly as displayed on the ICAO line, then triple-check for spelling mistakes. And it’s time to move on to the other details, which are pretty straightforward.

Your email should be correct and one that you use often. This is how you will get updates about your e-visa approval status and when it’s time to download your e-visa.

6. These Next Three questions are not mandatory. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether to complete this.

7. Single Entry Visa Vs. Multi-Entry Visa? Fill out the Dates needed for your visa, and if you will be leaving and coming back into the country during that time.

Will you say for longer than 30 days? Or Do you plan on leaving Vietnam during your trip and then reentering Vietnam? That’s what this boils down to.

So select whatever applies to you. I’ll pretend I’m staying for 50 days, and during my trip, I’ll be going to Bangkok and then coming back to Vietnam.

8. Fill in your Passport Information by selecting “Ordinary Passport” and then your additional details carefully.

Enter your passport number, date of issue, and expiry date, again being very, very careful that everything is correct.

9. Other Valid Passports, just select “No” and move along.

If you are a dual passport holder, I recommend you fill this out just in case it comes up for some reason. Contact information is not mandatory, so I think you could leave this blank if you wanted to or just fill it out. This won’t affect your approval either way.

10. Contact Information and Occupation can be skipped entirely, and it will have no effect on your E-Visa Approval!

You could fill this out if you want, up to you. I would skip to save time.

11. Your purpose of entry: Tourism

You definitely want to select tourism. Don’t select anything else, as we are literally applying for the Tourist e-visa. I suspect that selecting anything else will just lead to a rejection.

12. This agency/organization can be Skipped.

13. Enter the number of days you will stay and the date you will enter Vietnam.

14. Select your Entry and Exit Point, This is not Strict, if you are still unsure just select Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

15. Put Your Temporary Residential Address Which is a Hotel or Airbnb address you are staying (Careful Here)

This part is what tends to trick people up here, and it surprised me when I heard so many people having issues with this part.

We just need any hotel location or the address where you plan on staying for this. It doesn’t even have to be the hotel where you are staying. Just in the general area is good enough.

But you must put the 100% correct address here, or you will have some issues. Which people have been experiencing, and I reckon it’s because they don’t put the ward and district in the information.

So, we will take the Caravelle Hotel in downtown District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City as an example. We will search for it on Google, copy the entire address from the company info section here on Google, and paste it.

That’s all you need to do. Don’t type this yourself or try to be fancy; just copy and paste it.

If you are staying in an Airbnb with a tricky address, go to the email you received for your confirmation and see if you can copy and paste the exact address from there. If you feel that the address for your Air BNB isn’t 100% correct, just go ahead and find a hotel nearby and use that address.

16. Leave these two questions “No”, if they don’t apply to you. If they do, then you should fill these out to be transparent.

17. Careful Here! This ONLY applies to very few countries in the world where children are under their parent’s passports.

The next part is for those whose children are under their passport, but if your child has their own passport, they will need to have their own e-visa filled out separately.

18. Trip’s Expeneses and Insurance: You could skip this part, but it’s quick to fill out.

I’ve selected 2000 in cash paid by the applicant. Click the box at the bottom and fill out the captcha to move on.

We will fill out the captcha and then move onto review!

👀Reviewing your E-Visa Submission and Payment

This review portion is really critical!

If you make a mistake and they issue you a visa with an error, you will have to resubmit and pay again.

Once we make it through here, you’ll move on to the payment process, which is fairly straightforward. However, many people have a bit of an issue with this part because their payment is not accepted. If this happens, you’ll have to start the process again, which is frustrating, but once you get the payment accepted, you are good to go.

I don’t have any solution for this, except for you to use Chrome. It’s just a bit finicky, as the whole e-visa system is new, and that’s why I believe we are seeing so many issues with payment processing.

🔨How to Amend your Vietnam E-Visa?

After payment, start monitoring your email after 3 days to see updates on your e-visa. It’s very possible you will get an email asking you to fix something on your visa application. I will tell you what to do here if and when this does happen.

The email will tell you which part you need to correct, you’ll use the registration code in the first email you received to log back into the Evisa website. On the Evisa website, just click “Search” and then you’ll enter your registration code here, and it will then give you access to fix whatever the error was.

Remember when we took two photos? This is where that comes into play; just grab the second photo you have already taken and saved, upload that photo, and resubmit.

Now it’s just a waiting game to receive the confirmation for your visa. but here comes the most important part and that is the finished visa document.

✅Reviewing your Approved Vietnam E-Visa

Once you get your e-visa, it’s critical that you go through with a fine-toothed comb to make sure there are no errors on your personal information that don’t match your passport.

Check the relevant dates for your trip. There have been reports that sometimes errors come back, even for people who feel very confident they didn’t make the mistake themselves.

An example of this is my name, Fredrick. I don’t have that second “E” in the middle of my name, which is a common spelling. I need to double-check that this didn’t get added to my visa, or I won’t be boarding the plane.

If this happens, you can return to the e-visa website and ask for it to be fixed. But, I think that they will just tell you that you are going to have to do it again. But, you can try to see if they will amend it for you for free.

What if there is a mistake, but you didn’t catch it until way too late? This is the worst situation, honestly, and super stressful, but I’ve got you covered here.

🚨👩‍💻Emergency Visa on Arrival and Using Visa Agents

And this is the part where I’m going to discuss visa agents. If you find yourself in a bind and you don’t have your visa approved, Or there is a mistake on your visa but you know you won’t have enough time to resubmit an application.

You need what is called an EMERGENCY VISA ON ARRIVAL that can ONLY be done through a third-party agent. I’ve listed three options for you below, I have no affiliation with any of these agents, I’m just providing helpful contacts for you.

This agent has been around quite a long time, and my operations manager Ms. Chau worked with them quite a bit in her previous job getting visas for teachers coming to Vietnam.

NhiGia.Vn
https://nhigia.vn/en
phone: +84933 831 788
email: [email protected]

You’ll need to ask for a consultation so I would just email them directly to get started or send a message to that number on whatsapp.

These two are agents that have helped a lot of people out on a very popular Facebook group and they have a very good reputation.

Emily Visa:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008452084428
+84 0936 333 958

Cindy Vu:
https://www.facebook.com/cindy.vu.33046/

I would go ahead and have this information in case you need it in a pinch. If you have to get a visa on arrival, it’s going to cost you, but it’s going to be a lot cheaper than losing all of your deposits, changing your flights, or losing your entire vacation.

Finally, if this whole visa process still gives you anxiety after reading this blog post, just go ahead and contact one of the agents that I’ve listed above. It will cost you more, but they can handle your entire visa process for you. If I’m busy and I’m traveling with my family and I can afford it, I would just let someone else handle it so I can focus on the essential parts of planning the trip.