Visa On Arrival At Vientiane Airport

[DennyEagle]

Flying from Bangkok to Vientiane on a visa run can I get a visa on arrival at the airport ?

[lopburi3]

Should be the same process as at land crossing.

[BangkokHank]

Yes you can get a Lao visa upon arrival at the Vientiane airport. But be sure the Lao immigration officials stamp your passport upon entering the country. It's not enough just to get the visa. It also has to be stamped - by the next guy in the line. I went to Laos earlier this year to get a Thai visa and they "forgot" to stamp my passport at the Vientiane airport. I didn't notice it until I was at the Thai embassy applying for my Thai visa. They wouldn't issue my visa without the Lao stamp in my passport. So I had to RUSH back to the airport to get my passport stamped by a Lao immigration officer. Luckily I had gone to the Thai Embassy early enough to still be able to make it back on time the same day.

Apparently there is a $100 fine for being caught without the Lao stamp, so it is entirely possible that they deliberately "forgot" to stamp my passport. It just as likely could have been an honest oversight. No way to know for sure.

[stoneyboy]

Yes you can get a Lao visa upon arrival at the Vientiane airport. But be sure the Lao immigration officials stamp your passport upon entering the country. It's not enough just to get the visa. It also has to be stamped - by the next guy in the line. I went to Laos earlier this year to get a Thai visa and they "forgot" to stamp my passport at the Vientiane airport. I didn't notice it until I was at the Thai embassy applying for my Thai visa. They wouldn't issue my visa without the Lao stamp in my passport. So I had to RUSH back to the airport to get my passport stamped by a Lao immigration officer. Luckily I had gone to the Thai Embassy early enough to still be able to make it back on time the same day.

Apparently there is a $100 fine for being caught without the Lao stamp, so it is entirely possible that they deliberately "forgot" to stamp my passport. It just as likely could have been an honest oversight. No way to know for sure.

How did you exit the airport without passing through the immigration,these are separate desks to the one that issues the visas on arrival. ?

That's the reason for having to obtain the visa upon entry,I am amazed that you could pass through without at least having to wait and queue,did you come on a private jet.

[stoneyboy]

And in fairness whilst travelling abroad surely you must know that you have to get a stamp in your passport,showing entry and duration of stay.

[BangkokHank]

The immigration officer putting the visa into my passport, and the one who was supposed to stamp it, were sitting next to each other behind a single, long counter. The first one put the visa in my passport and handed it to the next guy who then handed it back to me - without having stamped it, as it turned out. It was his job to have stamped it. Had there been a separate queue for getting it stamped, then I would have of course waited in that queue and gotten my stamp. As it was, things appeared to have been taking place all at one time behind one counter.

In defense of the immigration officials, there were about five tourists arriving at the same time on the same (commercial, not private) flight, so this rush might have caused them to miss stamping my passport. On the other hand, the guy who stamps the passports sits there with nothing else to do than to receive the passports from the visa affixers - and put his date stamp on them. I find it very surprising that my passport would have accidentally slipped through without having been stamped. Especially considering that there is a $100 fine for getting caught trying to leave the country without the entry stamp. I get the feeling that the immigration officer in charge of the stamping just thought I looked like I had $100 more than I needed, but of course I have no way of proving this.

When I went back the next day to get the problem rectified, the people at the airport remembered me from the night before, corrected the mistake with smiles and apologies, and I managed to make it back to the Thai embassy before closing time on the same day. (I paid a tuk-tuk driver at the Thai embassy ten dollars to drive me to the airport and then back to the Thai embassy. The whole thing took about an hour.) It was a Thursday, and if I hadn't made it back to the embassy on time, I would have had to have gone back on Friday to apply for my visa, which would have meant picking it up on Monday - instead of Friday, as originally planned. In this case I would have missed my flight back to Bangkok, which was scheduled for Saturday morning. So this cock-up very nearly wrecked my well-laid plans, which is why I went to so much trouble to tell about it here. I would like to help others avoid the unnecessary stress that I went through.