Vietnam Visa from Pakistan

A Vietnamese e-Visa, explained properly

In August 2023 Vietnam did something unusual: it threw its e-Visa open to citizens of every country and territory in the world, and raised the maximum stay to 90 days. For a Pakistani passport holder, used to being left off facilitation lists, that is genuinely good news.

The friction has moved somewhere else — to where you are allowed to walk across the border.

Which visa you need

Government Resolution 127/NQ-CP, signed on 14 August 2023 and effective from the following day, says it in one line: "Implement the issuance of electronic visas to citizens of all countries and territories." There is no nationality list any more, so Pakistan is covered by inclusion rather than by being named.

One precision worth getting right, because it is often stated too flatly. Pakistan does appear on Vietnam's visa exemption list — but only in the diplomatic and official or service passport columns, for 90 days. The ordinary passport column is not marked. So an ordinary Pakistani passport is not visa-exempt for any period and needs the e-Visa.

The official portals are evisa.gov.vn and thithucdientu.gov.vn, which the Immigration Department announced as the new addresses from 11 November 2024, plus the Ministry of Public Security's own public service portal. Those are the domains to use.

What it costs

The fee is paid through the portal's electronic payment gateway, and Vietnam is explicit that "the fee will not be refunded if the application is refused."

Note that the multiple-entry option buys you more entries, not more time — both are capped at the same 90-day maximum. It is worth paying the extra USD 25 only if you are leaving and re-entering Vietnam, for instance on a Cambodia or Laos side trip.

Source and date. Fees and processing time from the Ministry of Public Security's published administrative procedure record for the e-Visa, read 11 October 2026. These are Vietnamese government charges, paid to the authorities and not to Breeze, and Vietnam can change them without notice. Our own charge is quoted separately.

Documents

The official dossier has three items and nothing else:

• The online application, form NA1a, completed in English
• A recent photograph: 4 by 6 cm, JPEG, no larger than 2MB, face looking straight ahead, no hat, no glasses, decent attire, white background
• A scan of your passport's biographical data page

That is the complete list. No bank statement, no minimum funds, no return ticket, no hotel booking and no travel insurance appear in the official requirements. The only conditions are that you hold a passport and are not barred from entry under Article 21 of the immigration law.

And Vietnam publishes no separate document list for salaried, self-employed, retired or student applicants. One list, everyone.

A small inconsistency to be aware of: the current procedure record allows a photo file of up to 2MB, while the older portal instructions asked for a portrait under 50KB and a passport scan under 200KB. Meet the 4 by 6 cm, JPEG, white background, no-glasses specification and keep the file modest, and you satisfy both.

How to apply

1. Apply from outside Vietnam

   The e-Visa is issued to foreigners who are abroad and want to enter. It is not issued to someone already in Vietnam.

2. Fill in NA1a in English

   Every answer must be in English. Vietnam states that if the immigration authority finds a declaration untrue, the e-Visa will be refused — and the fee is gone.

3. Choose your entry and exit gates carefully

   The form collects both. Read the border gate section below before you pick them.

4. Pay USD 25, or USD 50 for multiple entry

   By card, through the portal's gateway.

5. Wait up to three working days

   The official wording is "not more than 03 working days from the date of receiving complete e-visa application information and the visa fee." Applications are received Monday to Saturday morning; results come back Monday to Friday.

6. Print it and carry it

   No embassy visit, no biometrics and no interview — Vietnam classifies the e-Visa as a fully online, end-to-end public service.

The border gate rule — the thing that ruins trips

A Vietnamese e-Visa does not work at every crossing. The binding rule, from the Ministry of Public Security's own application guidance, is that the e-Visa "may only be used to enter and exit through border gates on the list permitted by the Government of Vietnam."

Note carefully what that attaches to. The restriction is to the list — not, so far as Vietnam has published, to the specific gate you typed into the form.

What this means in practice. If you are flying into Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Phu Quoc, Cam Ranh or any of the other listed airports, this never touches you. It matters if you are crossing by land — from Cambodia, Laos or China — or arriving by sea, because the small crossing you found on a blog may simply not be a designated gate.

We will also be honest about the limit of what Vietnam has published. The application form collects your intended entry and exit gates, but we could find no official statement that the declared gate is binding, nor any official statement of what happens if you present somewhere else on the list. So we will not invent a consequence. The safe advice: enter at a listed gate, and tell us your route before you apply so we check it against the current resolutions rather than a stale PDF.

Stay and validity

Vietnam's own wording: "Vietnam E-visa is valid for maximum of 90 days, single or multiple entry." The temporary residence stamped on entry is granted equal to the visa's duration.

One thing we cannot tell you from the official sources: whether the 90 days runs from the date of issue or from the entry date you declared. That detail lives only on the portal itself, which was not reachable when we checked, and we are not prepared to guess at it. Confirm it on evisa.gov.vn when you apply, or ask us and we will check it for your dates.

Visa on arrival, honestly

You will see Vietnamese "visa on arrival" advertised widely. It is not what it sounds like, and it is not a walk-up facility.

Vietnam's immigration law allows a visa at an international border gate in six narrow situations only: where you depart from a country with no Vietnamese visa-issuing office; where you must transit several countries first; where you are entering for tourism under a programme organised by a Vietnamese international travel business; for foreign crew on a ship needing to exit by another gate; to attend a relative's funeral or visit a seriously ill relative; and for emergency, rescue, disaster or epidemic work at the request of a Vietnamese authority.

Even then, the border unit issues the visa only after checking it against a notice from the Immigration Department — the pre-approval. That approval is obtained by a Vietnamese inviting or sponsoring organisation filing form NA2 with a registered account and digital signature, decided within five working days, or three where the visa is to be collected at the gate.

So the "visa on arrival letter" services you find online are selling access to a sponsor-based pre-approval process, not a counter you can walk up to. For an ordinary trip from Lahore, the e-Visa is cheaper, faster and the correct route.

Registration where you stay

Vietnam requires every foreigner's temporary residence to be declared to the local police, and the duty sits with whoever manages your accommodation. Hotels must transmit the declaration within 12 hours of your arrival, or 24 hours in remote areas, and must be networked to the provincial immigration office to do it. Change accommodation and it must be declared again.

This is why your passport is taken at check-in. The part travellers do not realise is that the obligation reaches them too: the published penalty of 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 VND applies both to an accommodation that lets a foreigner stay without declaring, and to a foreigner who fails to provide, or provides false, information to the accommodation.

Practical consequence: if you are staying in a private apartment or with friends rather than a hotel, make sure somebody is actually filing it. That is the scenario where this goes wrong.

Rules people miss

• Overstaying is charged on a published ladder. Under 16 days, 1 to 2 million VND; 16 to 30 days, 3 to 5 million; 30 to 60 days, 5 to 10 million; 60 to 90 days, 10 to 15 million; 90 days or more, 15 to 20 million. Working without permission sits in the 10 to 15 million band.
• Extending is not self-service. A foreigner wanting to extend temporary residence must have a Vietnamese inviting or sponsoring agency, organisation or individual apply on their behalf, decided within five working days. You cannot simply pay a fee at an office as you can in some neighbouring countries.
• Some categories must not use the e-Visa site at all — official guests of the Vietnamese leadership, and members of diplomatic missions, consular offices and intergovernmental organisations with their families, who go through an inviting body instead.
• A false declaration means refusal, with the fee lost.

How we prepare your file

Vietnam is a three-document application, so we are not going to pretend there is a thick file to build. The value is in two places.

First, the route. If you are flying in and out of a major airport, the application is simple and we will tell you so. If your trip involves a land crossing from Cambodia or Laos, or a cruise arrival, we check your intended gates against the current Government resolutions rather than the outdated lists still circulating — including the ones still sitting on Vietnam's own portal.

Second, the small things that cause a refusal you cannot appeal: the photograph to the 4 by 6 cm specification with no glasses, an English-only form filled consistently with your passport, and choosing between the USD 25 and USD 50 options based on whether you are actually leaving and re-entering.

Breeze Travels & Tours has worked on visa files from Davis Road, Garhi Shahu, since 2003. Flights are issued by the same desk on our own IATA accreditation — see air ticketing.