Vietnam E-Visa 2026: Who Needs One, the Official Site and the $25 Fee

Most travelers need a visa for Vietnam, and nearly all of them now get it online. The Vietnam e-visa is open to every nationality, lasts up to 90 days, costs $25 for a single entry or $50 for multiple entries, and usually comes through in three working days. Twenty-four countries, mostly European plus Japan and South Korea, can skip it for stays of up to 45 days. Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders can’t. Here’s who needs what, and how to apply without paying an agency three times the fee.

Do I need a visa for Vietnam?

It depends entirely on your passport. Vietnam has two visa-waiver lists, both running for three years. Resolution 44/NQ-CP covers the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Japan and South Korea until 14 March 2028. Resolution 229/NQ-CP added Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland from 15 August 2025 to 14 August 2028. Citizens of those 24 countries get 45 days on arrival, whatever the purpose of the trip. Neighbors in Southeast Asia have their own agreements, from 14 to 30 days.

Everyone else applies for the e-visa, and so does anyone on the lists who wants to stay longer than 45 days.

The Phu Quoc rule catches people out in the other direction. The 30 days only cover the island. If you decide halfway through to fly on to Ho Chi Minh City, you need a visa like anyone else, so a traveler who might continue to the mainland should get the e-visa anyway.

Vietnam visa for US citizens, Canadians and Australians

For these passports the answer is simple: apply for the e-visa on the government site, and you’ll never touch an embassy. Since 15 August 2023, under Law 23/2023/QH15, the e-visa has been open to citizens of every country and can be issued for up to 90 days, single or multiple entry. The fee is the same whatever the length, so there’s no point asking for 30 days to save money. Ask for the dates you might actually need, with a few days’ margin.

Pick multiple entry if there’s any chance you’ll leave and come back: a side trip to Angkor Wat, a hop to Bangkok, a cruise that calls at another country. A single-entry e-visa ends the moment you cross the border outward, and the extra $25 is cheaper than a second application.

How to apply for the Vietnam e-visa

The official portal is evisa.gov.vn, which also answers at evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn; the older thithucdientu.gov.vn address moved there in November 2024. Choose the e-visa application for foreigners, then work through these steps. Allow twenty minutes, most of it spent on photos.

1. Upload a scan or clear photo of your passport data page, with the two machine-readable lines at the bottom fully visible.
2. Upload a portrait photo: 4 x 6 cm format, white background, facing the camera, no glasses. A phone photo against a white wall works if it’s sharp and evenly lit.
3. Fill in your personal and passport details, your intended date of entry, single or multiple entry, the checkpoints where you plan to enter and leave, and your first address in Vietnam.
4. Pay by card: $25 or $50. Write down the registration code the site gives you.
5. About three working days later, look up the result with the code, your email and your date of birth. Download the PDF and print it.

Three working days means Vietnamese working days. Weekends don’t count, and neither do public holidays, which matters around Tet, the Lunar New Year (6 February 2027), when offices close for about a week. We’d apply two weeks before departure, and a month before if the trip is around Tet. Most rejections come from blurry photos or a name typed differently from the passport, and the fee isn’t refunded, so check both before you pay.

Your entry point matters too. In December 2025 Resolution 389/NQ-CP expanded the list of checkpoints that accept e-visa holders to 83 airports, land crossings and seaports. All the international airports are on it, but check the portal’s list if you’re coming overland from Laos or Cambodia or arriving by cruise ship.

Vietnam e-visa fees, and the “urgent” option

The government fee is $25 for a single-entry e-visa and $50 for multiple entry, whether it runs for one week or 90 days. There is no official fast track. Every “urgent”, “same day” or “2-hour” e-visa you see advertised is an agency charging to push your file through its own contacts, usually for $65 to $100 or more on top.

We’d only pay for that if the flight leaves in the next two or three days and the normal application hasn’t come back. Otherwise it’s money spent on something the government site does for $25.

Vietnam visa on arrival: is it still worth it?

Visa on arrival still exists on paper, but it isn’t what the name suggests. You can’t just turn up. You need a pre-approval letter arranged in advance by an agency or a sponsor in Vietnam, it only works at international airports, and you then queue at a landing-visa counter to get the visa stamped and pay the stamping fee in cash.

Before 2023 it was the workaround for people whose e-visa options were limited to 30 days. Now that the e-visa covers 90 days for every nationality, we can’t see a reason for a tourist to use it. It costs more and adds a queue at the end of a long flight.

At the border: passport, tickets and staying on

Your passport should be valid for at least six months after the day you arrive, with at least two blank pages, according to the UK government’s travel advice. Airlines check this at check-in, along with your e-visa, and they will refuse to board you rather than risk flying you back.

There’s no written rule that tourists must show an onward ticket, but airlines sometimes ask for one, especially if you’re visa-exempt and flying one way. A booking you can show on your phone saves an argument. And plan the length of your stay properly from the start: an e-visa isn’t something you can count on extending inside Vietnam, and overstaying brings fines and can lead to a ban.

Once the paperwork is done, see our month-by-month guide to the best time to visit Vietnam and what to expect with tipping in Vietnam. Crossing into Thailand as well? Every foreigner now files the Thailand Digital Arrival Card before landing, and South Korea has its own K-ETA.

Once the visa is sorted, our Vietnam currency guide covers dong notes, ATM fees and the customs limit on cash.

Every Vietnam guide we’ve published, from the e-visa to the dong, is sorted by topic in our Vietnam travel guide.

Sorting out your phone as well? Our Vietnam eSIM guide compares a travel eSIM with a local SIM card, including the face check now required to register one.

Data checked: 2026-09-28