visas for Vietnam

[ellathai]

My wife (thai passport) and l (Australian Passport) live in Thailand and are going to Vietnam next month for a weeks holiday.

As far as l can understand is that the wife just fronts up at Ho Chi Minh airport and gets a visa on arrival.

On the other hand l have to get an approval letter over internet, present that at  Ho Chi Minh airport pay a fee and get a visa .

The fee is $us25, l presume l can pay in Thai baht ?

If anyone has done this can they confirm that i'm right and suggest name of legit approval letter company.

Cheers

Bruce

 

[mfd101]

My b/f and I are off to VN in April. We've done my (Oz) visa thru the tour company we & some Oz friends are using. I just sent them a copy of my p/p & they do the rest. Travelling freely (without tour company) your approach looks right. Just follow the instructions on the internet - if I were you, I would prefer to follow the VN government site rather than the various agents' sites where you will pay a bit more for the privilege ...

 

Thai partner no sweat (ASEAN).

[theoldgit]

You can either use one of the miriad of travel companies that advertise on the internet and, as the previous poster has advised, pay for the priviledge, or you can apply directly for a Vietnam e-visa.

 

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/trang-chu-ttdt

[LongTimeLurker]

Your wife is visa exempt.

 

You can apply online for a visa on the official Viet Nam government website and it will be sent  to you by email within 3 days, cost I think $20.

 

Edit: the website is the one theoldgit has posted

 

If you are going for less than 2 weeks check that you are one of the nationalities that doesn't require a visa.

Edited January 7, 2019 by LongTimeLurker

[scorecard]

47 minutes ago, theoldgit said:

You can either use one of the miriad of travel companies that advertise on the internet and, as the previous poster has advised, pay for the priviledge, or you can apply directly for a Vietnam e-visa.

 

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/trang-chu-ttdt

 

Agree, the site to use is 

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/trang-chu-ttdt

 

This is the actual Vietnam ministry involved. The process is very simple:

 

- Open the website above

- Click on the picture on the left side ".... for foreigners"

- Fill in the details (easy), attach the scans as mentioned (easy)

- Pay on-line, about AUD$25, but they do have promotions, I got it last year for AUD18-.

- Within about 48 hours you will receive an e.visa certificate, print the certificate

- Show the printed e.visa to the check-in staff at your departure airport

- On landing in Ha noi or HCMC go direct* to the actual passport lines for 'Foreigners'.

- Give your passport and the copy of the e.visa to the passport officer. He/she will insert your e.visa certificate number into their system and bingo, all confirmed within a couple of seconds, passport stamped, away you go. I did see one foreigner try to give the passport officer his smartphone to look at the e.visa on his smartphone. Not accepted. Whether this is still the same I don't know. With the e.visa method there is no sticker, just a small stamp. No further payment. This is the easiest and quickest method.

 

NOTE WELL: on departure to leave Vietnam you have to give a copy of your e.visa to the passport officer again. I didn't know this and had to go to another office for another staff member to find my e.visa confirmation and print another document, then back to the passport departure line.  Whether they still do this I don't know.

 

You can still us the older (approval letter) method, open one of the many sites that can get an approval letter for you. These sites often mention things suggesting they are official sites / have gov't connection, even in the website address. This is NOT true, they are private travel agents.

 

The downside of the approval letter method is that on arrival you have to go to another counter 'Visa on Arrival', hand in your passport and your approval letter and wait while they prepare a sticker, then pay the actual visa fee at that counter (the fee you have already paid to the travel agent is a fee to get the approval letter, not the actual visa fee).

 

Using this method (approval letter) the real downside is if other flights have arrived just before your flight (very normal) and when you join the queue there are already hundreds of people in the queue. In this scenario (common) it couple be 2 or 3 hours wait to get your sticker processed, get your passport back and pay the visa fee. After that's all done you now walk across that big room and join an actual 'Foreigners' line to get your passport stamped.

 

The last time I used the 'approval letter / get sticker on arrival then go to passport line, they only accepted payment in US$ or VNDong. Not sure today. 

Edited January 7, 2019 by scorecard