Vietnam’s New E-Visa System
In February Vietnam released a new e-visa system for 40 countries. This is great news for anyone trying to get a Vietnam travel visa. We used the new system to get our visas for a month we spent in Vietnam after hearing about it from the Flight Deal’s blog, and the system had only been live for a month. We weren’t really sure if it was going to work and hadn’t heard about anyone else doing it successfully. The e-visa site looks totally sketchy and unofficial and through the whole process we weren’t really sure if we would actually receive our visas. So we decided to try it out and enter all of our sensitive identification info into the interwebs and hoped for the best. Thankfully it really was the official e-visa system run by the government. The nice thing is that now your visa fee is only for the visa and you no longer have to pay a third party for processing. We were expecting to have to pay at least a hundred dollars for the visa but the $25 price was a pleasant surprise.
The Application
The process was really easy and cheaper than any of the previous e-visa vendors. It’s a flat $25 fee to get the visa as an American for 30 days. All you have to do is go to the official e-visa website and follow the steps. You have to upload a picture of your passport and a picture of yourself. Fill out the form and pay the $25 fee. When you get to the confirmation page make sure you write your confirmation number down or take a screenshot. The e-visa system does not send a confirmation email. It seems like a simple fix on their end but beggars can’t be choosers. After that, it takes about 3 business days for them to process your application. They also won’t email you to let you know that your visa has been accepted. You have to keep checking back and enter your confirmation number to check the status.
The only downside we noticed was that you had to select the ports you were entering and exiting from and it’s only good for a single entry. It doesn’t allow for any flexibility as some of the other visas offer.
Border Control
Once your application has been accepted you have to print out the visa to give to the immigration officers at the airport along with your passport. You don’t have to wait in any lines with all the other people trying to pick up their visas or get visas on arrival. You simply go straight to the border agent to show your documents and get your stamp.
The site itself looks totally sketchy and not official at all but it really is the government’s e-visa site. The visa document also looks really un-official. It looks like a word doc with a qr-code on it. We were half expecting to be denied when we got up to the border agent. All was well though and we got through with ease.
If you have any questions about the process you can email us or leave a comment.
Hi! Thanks for your valuable information. We have an extra question: Does the e-visa have an extra fee once you are at the airport? I mean, do you pay anything else (apart from the 25$) for the stamp?
Hey Teresa! No you don’t pay anything else, you only pay $25 while applying online. You don’t pay anything once you get to the airport, you go straight to the border agent and skip the visa-on-arrival line. Hope this helps!
Thank you so much for the information! It’s really helpful. Have a nice trip!
Hi! Thanks for the helpful information.
I applied for the e-visa successfully and it is ready to print. But I am wondering why there is a blanc at the boxes “Telephone Number” and “Adress” although I filled something in before. Is this normal?
Hi Carolina, The telephone number and address were also left blank on our e-visas as well. I think it’s normal.
hello, quick question as I am running out of pages in my passport. Im planning to apply for an e-visa to enter Vietnam… When you stay “you get stamped” at the airport (using an e-visa) does that mean you get one of those visa stickers that take up an entire page or just a regular small entry stamp in your passport? I need to make sure that I dont loose an entire page for this trip.. thanks!
Hey Alejandro – We got two of the small stamps, one while entering and one while exiting. They each take up a quarter of a page, and are stamped next to each other, so they took up half of a page total. The US state department website says “Your passport must be valid for six months beyond your planned stay and you must have at least one blank visa page.” but the Vietnam border agents (thankfully) stamped a page that was already partially used. Good luck and let us know if you have any other questions!
Thank you for the useful information Lauren.
Some questions i’d like to ask:
1. Were there any issues/complication with the E-Visa when boarding your Airline/Lay away? (Can I also get the Airline which you flown with). The reason I am asking you this is because I’ve read other flyer’s experiences in which their E-Visa was rejected and not recognized as an official document for boarding the airline.
2. It seems that many people have purchased both E-Visa and VOA. It is my impression that they are two separate items.?
My biggest concern relating to this matter is whether the immigration officials would know what this document is given that the E-Visa program is still in its pilot phase. My trip is next month and I’d like to prepare/avoid any complication.
Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.
Hi J,
We flew Jetstar to HCMC. We had no issues boarding or going through customs. Make sure that you’re getting the official E-Visa from the Vietnamese Government. It was newly implemented in February and I we went in April with no problems. If you have your E-Visa you don’t need VOA they are not the same thing. The immigration officials will know what the document is. It comes from their official government and is your ticket in. Follow the links in the post to the E-Visa site. I can’t speak to other people being rejected. You have to specify on the application which airport you are arriving at and leaving out of. I don’t know if the E-Visa works for land or sea entry.
Not sure if you would have this knowledge, but can you arrive when your application is still ‘in processing’?
I know you mentioned it takes 3 business days – but does it usually happen any quicker. We want to go to Vietnam today but only applied for our E-Visa’s last night…
No. You will need your confirmation printed out to hand to the immigration officer. If your application is still pending, they can turn you away.
Hi,
Thank you for the information. My partner and I applied through this website 5 days ago. My partner recieved his granted status, however when I went to log into the website, the website said ‘no results found’ for my application code. I have a confirmation email that the payment I made was successful. Not sure why I can not check the status of my application and also why I have no received any email from them yet.
I lodged an inquiry through there website, but not response. I’m wondering if you know anyone I can contact, or do I just re-do the application. We leave in 5 days time and i’m getting quiet worried now.
Thanks.
It sounds like you’re at the mercy of the e-visa system. They don’t do a great job at updating you. If you applied over a weekend it might take longer to process. Good luck!
Hi there- I tried the evisa site almost three times. I did the process of loading my photos, but nothing appeared in place of the sample photos…althought it said “delete” under the photo after I technically uploaded them. So something might have been in place of the sample photos. Then I filled out the form. However when I hit submit, it claimed that I was missing the photo part! So the problem seems to be that the website isn’t attaching my photos, even though it let me browse my desktop for photos and added ‘delete’ under the photo spot after I selected my photos. I’m so confused. Did this happen to you? Major glitch!
We didn’t experience any upload issues. This sounds like some kind of technical error you’re having. The e-visa system isn’t the easiest process but it worked for us. I hope you can find a solution!
We had a printer issue and on one of the Evisa the visa number and qr code is missing some information. We don’t access to reprint. Do you know what they do with your Evisa paperwork? if they look up the Evisa number for verification when you’re there or do they just look at the form and stamp your passport?
I’m not sure what they can do for you at passport control. They could have a record of your application and Visa. Hopefully it works out!