Do I need a Visa to enter Vietnam? - What About Vietnam S6-E3

Let’s start with one of the most important questions you need to answer before you get too far into booking or planning your trip to Vietnam.

Why? Because this one question quietly underpins everything else. 

It sounds simple — but this is where so many people come unstuck.

I can’t stress this enough: if you don’t ask yourself this question early, you can end up choosing the wrong visa, applying for something you didn’t need, or realising far too late that one small decision here has shaped your whole trip.

And what is an eVisa? 

In this episode of What About Vietnam – One Question at a Time, I break down the “Visa Entry question”  into clear, bite-size pieces. I’ll explain who actually needs a visa, who doesn’t, and I’ll walk you through how to apply for a Vietnam eVisa properly and what to double-check so it doesn’t derail your trip.

If you’re coming from the UK, Europe, the US, Australia or elsewhere, the answer to the ultimate question here is: it depends!

Some passports qualify for Vietnam’s 45-day visa-free entry, others don’t. Some trips work perfectly on visa-free. Others absolutely don’t.

And then there’s the eVisa — which is simple, but also incredibly easy to mess up if you don’t pay attention to the details.

In this episode, I walk you through:

The most common eVisa mistakes I see:

• Wrong dates
• Wrongly spelling, middle name missing on EVisa but is in Passport
• Passport details don’t match
• Wrong entry point
• Applying too late (and panic-fixing it)

This episode will help you:

• ✅ Choose the right entry option for your trip
• ✅ Avoid last-minute stress and costly mistakes
• ✅ Start your Vietnam journey calm, confident, and prepared

So this is “cautious Kerry”, signing off on One Question at a time Series 6-Ep3

Please take the time to explore the link to more information - https://www.whataboutvietnam.com/visa-info  and for the direct link to the official Immigration site go here.

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Transcript

If you're new here, welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. My name is Kerry Newsome, and I'm your host. If you're joining me again, it's really great to have you back. 

And here we are in 2026. It's been five years of conversations with travelers, locals, and people who know this country deeply. Recently I was recognized in Vietnam with a National Multimedia Award and you know after that and kind of the highs that came with that and just the spectacular year that it was I've taken a moment just to sit back and pause and reflect on just what is the best way for me to serve you and give you the best advice I possibly can to help. You better understand Vietnam and help with your trip planning. Now, over the time, I've learned that your greatest experience in Vietnam is not going to come from doing more, you know, cramming everything in, trying to get as much in as possible in your time slot. It's actually built on getting a few key things right. And you'll be amazed just how important getting things right is for people. And when you start planning, you want to feel that you're doing this in a way that you feel confident because obviously you might be traveling with someone else or you might even be traveling on your own. But at the end of the day, you still want to feel that you're doing it in a knowledgeable, informed, educated way. and that's kind of where I hope I step in. 

The best way I know how to get to the heart of that is to focus on the questions. And they're the questions that travelers ask all the time. They're the ones that are kind of seen in all the groups and the chats and the, you know, the various kind of Google questions that come up. They're consistent and I know them in a much more intimate way because my travelers ask them. So for a while, I'm doing things a little different. I'm doing shorter, sharper episodes, one question at a time. Honest answers, real context, and when needed, voices from people on the ground who know their stuff, people I think We'll do you a great service by coming on and giving some extra information to support the answer and to make sure, let's face it, we're getting it as right as we can. We'll get back to the longer conversations down the track. I know you love them. And guess what? So do I, because I get to kind of have fun and chat with people and, you know, we can kind of talk about things that we've shared. So lots more fun coming that way. But for a little while, I really want to focus on these questions. And I'm hoping you're going to give me some feedback or even if you wish, send me a question and we'll address it on the show. 

So, let's get started. Let's start building those blocks to your next trip to Vietnam, one question at a time. So, the question, my friends, today is one you really do need to make a priority to check. And that is around, do you need a visa to enter Vietnam? Now, sadly, not all countries are treated the same as far as entry into Vietnam. In fact, Vietnam has declared that there are about, I think it's 12 countries that are visa-free or visa-exempt. So the first step you need to do is to go to the immigration website. I've put a link in the show notes. This is the legitimate official website that you should use as your go-to to check this information. And then ultimately, if you have to apply for an e-visa, which we're going to get into, then that information is in the same place. But the first thing you need to establish is that your passport, the one that you travel on, is either exempt or needs a visa. Now, if it is visa exempt, you're kind of a lucky duck in the sense that you get, as per your entry into Vietnam, 45 days. Now, there's a little bit of clinical detail around that in the sense that When you enter, you will get a stamp in your passport that you entered. You don't have to fill out any forms or any other applications or anything. You literally just go with your passport and your ticket and you would submit that through the immigration as you're going through, as you arrive into the airport and as you're boarding your plane. because the check-in counters of your airlines will be aware of this so they will know whether your country is or is not eligible for this. So then once you go, you enter and you can stay in Vietnam for 45 days. Now, if you want to extend your 45 days, you have to, in fact, leave the country and you have to apply again and come in the same way. And then it's like a restart, like you literally get a fresh new 45 days. So that's a beautiful thing. However, some people get caught when they think that they can be in country and extend or in-country and they can just, you know, use the same visa that they came in on originally and continue their stay. Blah, blah, definitely not. So this is kind of what was the background to You know, when people talk about visa runs, you'll see in a lot of kind of expat groups and, you know, travel sites and things like that where you can literally go by land and you can cross over the border into Laos or Thailand or wherever you want to. And then literally, you know, a day later you're coming back in. Some people are really clever with it. They will use up their 45 days and then, you know, they'll plan a trip to, you know, Bangkok or Singapore and it was going to be part of their big plan anyway. So, you know, no big issue there. They can then come back in and have another 45 days in Vietnam. So it's all to do with your passport. and your ticket. So they're the most critical documents that have to match. So what's on your ticket as per your full name and your full name and your passport, they have to be identical and everything's good. Six months validity and enough pages to put that stamp in. 

Now next, I'm going to be talking to people like me, like Australians, like all those other countries bar those 12 that do need a visa. Now, years and years and years ago, you used to have to kind of submit your passport to your consulate in your country, and it was quite a laborious process. But now you can apply for an e-visa online. Now, there's some critical things about that that I want to make sure that I get right for you in the sense that It's easy, but you just have to make sure you get all the ticks in the boxes in the right way. So I'm going to go through, you know, some of the things that I see go wrong lots of times. Some of the things that I know have cost people, you know, a lot of money to fix because there is a fix but it comes at a very expensive price and of course adds a lot of stress and tension to you because if you get it wrong when you get your visa and you go to the airport and then you want to step on the plane, you won't even be able to check in. So you don't even get off the ground. So first and foremost, you're going to submit your application online. At the end of this, you're going to then have to wait about three to five business days to receive a notification and a letter and you'll print that letter and that letter becomes your e-visa. But very important to note that the three documents that have to be, you know, swimming up the same channel with exactly the same information is your passport, your e-visa and your ticket. I can remember one year, accidentally, I don't know how, stupid, just one of those days, I actually had Mr. Kerry Newsome on my ticket. And I went to my operators, et cetera, in Vietnam and said, is this really a biggie? Are they really going to worry about that thing? Yes, they will be worrying about that. You won't be able to fly. So I had to go through that arduous process of changing the ticket to match obviously my passport. So it's kind of little, little, little bits of things that, you know, can go wrong. So let's start with how you apply. Simply go to the website, which I've said is the link is in the notes. So easy peasy to start and make sure you have beside you your passport and your ticket. So you've got all the details, you know, kind of readily available and easy. You can can copy and match. So firstly, you're going to be asked to put up two photos. One photo is of your single face, that passport photo, and the next is a passport photo of the actual page in the book, the passport. Take a photo, take it in a JPEG file, take the photo, crop it, and make it as clear as possible and load that up. Now people have got a little bit anxious around the passport photo because sometimes they try to take a photo of the passport photo that is in your passport. For some reason there seems to be some kind of film over that. And I've had people say that it won't accept it. And it's happened for me as well. Generally, you will get a few extra passport photos when you go to get your original done or for other visas or for other reasons. So I tend to kind of cut one of those out, take a photo of that, and then I will upload that as a JPEG after it's been cropped exactly. Now, to tell you whether or not that is acceptable, you'll get like a score. It'll say, you know, 80% match or 60% match or whatever. So anything, you know, that is above kind of 70%, 80%, 90% match, I think will be enough for you to go right through to the end, make your payment and accept. If you get knocked back for your payment right at the end, that often means to the platform that something's not right. So make sure you go back through and check that. But for those photos, they're really key. The other aspect of the passport photo to the actual page in your book photo is that they don't necessarily have to be the same. Now let's face it, if I'm having, you know, a photo putting it up and it's five or six years later, I'm exactly not going to look the same, let's face it. So they don't care about that, they just want a passport photo that is in the formal style that's required, so that's not too much fringe in the front or none. Clear face, white background, not over smiling, just, you know, follow all those general rules that, you know, I'm sure you know about if you're a traveler and Bob's your uncle, you're there. So number one, getting the photos right. Number two is making sure you've got the right dates. This is a big one. People enter their visa start date as the day after they arrive. It's not. It is the day you arrive and the day you leave. Now, when you apply for an e-visa, there are two options. You can go for the 30 day, which is 25 US, or you can go for the 90 day, multiple entry, and that's 50 US. Now, if I'm only going for 14 days or 20 days or whatever, I'm not going to need the 30. But what if, just what if, I want to extend while I'm there and I want to go up and chew up a little bit more time of my 30 days? If I take the dates for the 30 days, because I'm going to get given them as per the visa structure, why not? So I tend to take my full 30 days. So if I'm leaving on the 20th of November, definitely count your 30 days. Don't do it just month to month. But if you are having a shorter trip, don't worry. If you want to put it exactly as per that, that's fine as well. Just making sure that it's the day you arrive and the day you leave. So, you know, reality check visa dates must cover these days exactly as they match your ticket and then ultimately they will match the visa. Mistake number two I see coming up is when you need multiple entry. What's multiple entry? Well, for a lot of people, they're really trying to mix up their Southeast Asia trip. So they are coming into Vietnam and then they want to jump across to Laos, maybe do some time in Cambodia, maybe come back into Vietnam and make that the hub to return home. So that's all doable. The thing to remember with that is that you will need the multiple entry visa, even if you're not going to do 90 days, because you need that in and out and in and out multiple entry component of that visa. So don't choose the 30 day option thinking that you can come in and out, choose the 90 days. And even though you won't chew up all of the 90 days, you'll have the multiple entry option. So that's number two. Number three is passport details that don't match. I think I mentioned to you before about the Mr. and Mrs. thing and that's just one of the areas you can go wrong. Your date of entry, your date of birth, the airport city that you arrive into, the airport city that you depart from. Just intricate information that matches exactly as your passport. I had one client one year, the husband and wife, they're in San Francisco, they're about to jump on the flight and the wife is knocked back at checkout because her middle name is not On the e-visa, but it is in her passport You know, so we had to do, you know, we had to jump through some hoops to get them on the plane, you know, within three hours with a VIP letter through immigration. And, you know, luckily we were able to do that and there is a cost to that and it's not cheap. I have known even in my own country where people have been knocked back at entry and have paid up to $500 to get that same letter through immigration, through VIP. So, you know, my aim is try and avoid the train smash people, try and do this in a way that it only costs you your minimum $25 or $50 and, you know, have that simple piece of paper, have less stress and get it done and not be worried. So, making sure these aspects match up, critical. And then we've got the port of entry. Now, this is going to come up more and more in the future with the advent of Vietnam expanding into, you know, cities becoming two airport cities, three airport cities, different terminals, etc. And they will come down in a drop down list. So make sure, as I said, when you're referring to your ticket, you look at the ticket and it'll give you where it's coming into, if it's, you know, Saigon and it's Tan Son Airport. But in the future, it might be Long Tan Airport, which is the new airport that's being built. I'm going to do an episode on that a little bit later in the year. But important for you to make sure if it's Da Nang, if it's Ho Chi Minh or if it's Hanoi, that you selected the right port of entry and the right port of departure. And then lastly, the mistake I see people do without even realizing, they kind of leave it to the last minute. I'm a big fan of getting ahead of the game, ticking off things that are easy to do and just put to bed. And a lot of people leave it a few days before they're going to go thinking it's something that's super duper efficient and quick in turnaround and you know they're just going to get it. And then three days beforehand they still haven't got their e-visa through. The notification is saying when they go to check it that it's still processing. So I would say to my clients that they should do this about, you know, two weeks before. I know that sounds a long time, but in the case that there is an error and you get it back and you've printed it off and you're checking it offline by line and you notice an error, it gives you a buffer time to make a change and make that change also have time to come back to you corrected. So as I said, it's just, you know, cautionary carry, I guess, trying to get ahead of the game for you and make your trip as stress free as possible. So final wrap up, rule of thumb for an e-visa, apply at least two to three weeks before travel. Double, triple check every single field before submitting. And then when you get the printed version and you print it off, which you need to print off, that it is matching exactly. And then make sure you carry it with you and you submit it at immigration as you go through. So I think, or I hope, I hope I have covered the two options to enter Vietnam. There is visa on arrival, and that would be where you would submit to get a letter to enter. And some people do that. And then when they arrive into the airport, before they go through into immigration, they will then have to go through the process of getting a visa on arrival. But not many people do that anymore because it's just kind of an extra hassle and why would you when you can do it so much cheaper and so much quicker through the e-visa. For the visa-exempt people, lucky you, check your country and your country passport. If you're visa-exempt, then you can breeze through and you can have 45 days visa-free. I hope I've covered the subject as adequately as you need. If you do want to reach out to me for any further information, please feel free to do so. I hope you've enjoyed this segment and, you know, I hope you're getting something out of these questions as we're going through them because, you know, I'm trying to keep it focused and just do one question at a time.

SPEAKER_00: What about Vietnam?