You need a visa to enter Vietnam before you travel to the country. It’s easy to organise a Vietnam visa in Bangkok if you know where to go.
Vietnam is one of the few countries in the world where you can’t get a visa on arrival in the country. You need to make sure you already have a visa in your passport before you arrive in Vietnam at the airport or by road or sea. If you don’t have a visa, they won’t let you in.
Getting a Vietnam visa in Bangkok is pretty easy. Get a taxi or Skytrain to Wireless Road (Soi Wittayu) in the centre of Bangkok. On the Skytrain you get off at the Phloen Chit stop. Walk out through the elevated skywalk and then down the stairs onto Wireless Road going towards All Seasons Place, which is a huge mall and office block. (There is a big map on a board in the BTS station – check it before you go out through the exits to ensure you know where you’re going).
At the bottom of the walkway stairs there is a cluster of shops that can provide you with passport photos if you do not have them already. You will need two for your Vietnam visa application. Get these before you go any further.
Walk along Wireless Road for about five minutes. The Vietnamese Embassy is just along here, but it’s easy to miss because you are so close to it. Look for this door, which is the entry to the Visa Application area.
Once inside, fill in one of the application forms and then submit it at the window along with the appropriate fee. It’s around 1000 Baht ($30 US) for a one entry visa – make sure you request a multiple entry visa if you intend to exit and re-enter Vietnam during your travels, otherwise you’ll have to apply for a second visa all over again. You need to submit the visa application between 8.30am to 11.30 am and 1.30pm to 4.30pm. You can collect it 3 days later or pay a little more and get express service to collect it the next day, but make sure you drop it early in the morning if you want to be sure of this. You can find more info on the quite helpful Vietnamese Embassy website.
Get A Vietnam Visa Without The Wait in Cambodia
If you are travelling to Cambodia and intending to go on to Vietnam afterwards, you can cleverly get a Vietnam visa without any wait at the Sihanoukville Vietnam Embassy. This trick is listed in the Lonely Planet Cambodia and I’ve done it myself (although it was 3 years ago so double check it’s still operational). You simply turn up at the Vietnam Embassy – preferably mid morning when someone will be there and also have time to deal with your request – and they issue the visa on the spot. The gentleman who issued mine and Louise’s visas was certainly a lot more friendly than the harried Bangkok visa staff.
The Vietnam Embassy in Sihanoukville is marked on most maps of the city, although it can take a bit of cruising up and down the road on the back of motorbike taxis to spot its entrance gates.
Note that this immediate issue only seems to happen in Sihanoukville and not any other Cambodian cities, including the capital Phnom Penh. You can still get a Vietnam visa in PP, but you’ll have to wait for it.
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that was incredibly useful. Thank you very much for providing that. It was concise and exactly what i was looking for.
really helpful, thanks a million!!
This was a very useful article and it helped me enormously just this morning. If you are in the sukhumvit area around Soi 6 it is actually really easy to walk if your that way inclined. Say about 20 minutes each way. Follow the Sky train along sukhumvit road and look out for the Phloen Chit stop.
I do want to point out 2 things.
1) Anyone needing passport photos should expect to pay about 150 baht.
2) if you want an express visa it WILL COST YOU! I had to pay 2500 baht for the fast service so try to plan ahead and you’ll be able to avoid the extra cost of express service. I wish I had!
Does anyone know if this service is available to all nationalities? (or more specifically, for Australians?)
Looks like I’m not going to have time in Australia to get my Vietnam visa before heading off to Thailand so I may have to resort to this option. Looks like it might be cheaper anyway.
Awesome thanks heaps!!
Word of warning! We’ve just found out it now takes 4 days to get a Vietnam visa from the embassy in Bangkok. Having arranged our flights to give us the 3 days we needed, we ended up having to pay 2500 baht for the express fee (nearly fifty quid each!!) to make sure we had the visa when we fly. So if you are planning on getting the normal visa, make sure you leave yourself enough time. Also, you don’t pick it up on day 4, but on day 5 – as obviously it takes 4 whole days to stick a piece of paper in your passport. Make sure you take into account the weekend or public holidays. The staff were pretty unhelpful too.
If you get the express visa (1000 baht), you collect the next day between 3.30 and 4.30pm.
Sorry, I made a mistake in the comment above, its 1000B for a normal visa, not the express one!
Thank you for the advice and guidence!
sounds good!
tomorrow I am going to this place let see will it work to me
Regards!
Yes, I think you do, but you can just write the address of any hotel — you don’t need to provide proof that it’s where you’ll be staying. So for example “Hanoi Elegance 4 Hotel, Hanoi” should be sufficient
Hi
What is the current situation… I do need very urgently a visa for a 3 days trip to Vietnam.
My intension is to drop all the required paper early morning but need to get it next day before 12.00 am. > flight is in the afternoon.
Any experiences ?
Thanks
You’d best go to the embassy and ask them direct. They have an express next-day service but not sure if they’ll have it ready before 12 noon.
Helpful
Thank you.
thanks very very useful information
i appreciate it
mart
Hello Guys,
I need help!!!
I ve got a touristvisa for Thailand and I am already here for 3 months now.
I want to make a trip about 3 weeks to Vietnam and want to know, if there will be problems to get a new Visa for Thailand again?
somebody told me that I just can stay 90 days and than I have to leave the Country for 180 days. Is that right?
I have to come back to Thailand after 3 weeks, so now I am afraid that they wont let me back to Thailand.
So please can somebody help me?!?
To,orrow I will go to the Vitnamese Embassy at Wihayu Road….thank you so much for this page..it helps alot!!!
Hi Pamela – current visa regulations for Thailand at May 2010 are that if you fly in and out of the country you will get a 30 day visa when you return to Thailand. As long as you fly in and out of Thailand, you can get one of these 30 day stamps indefinitely. The 180 day rule has been dropped. If you are travelling in and out of Thailand by a land border, you only get a 15 day visa when you re-enter Thailand at a land border.
Have a great time in Vietnam
Best
Chris
Thank you so much Chris.
After Vietnam I want to stay another 2 months in Thailand so I hope I will get a new touristvisa at the Thai Embassy in Saigon.
It is very helpful what you wrote.
Take care Chris.
Pam
Great postings,can anyone tell me if you have to leave your passport with them or can you fill in form etc then go pick your visa up a week later,i’m flying to phuket from bangkok but want to apply for visa before i leave bangkok and pick it up when i return 8 days later
Yes, you leave your passport with the embassy while they are processing it
Cheers have you done this chris as i need to know must you leave your passport or can they copy it and give you it back as i will need it to fly to phuket and then i will return to bangkok to pick up my visa
Hi Chris, thanks for the info. However I see the embassy webpage (in Thailand) says that you need to submit a document ‘Approval from Immigration Authority or Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam’ before they will process your visa application. How do you get this?
Hi Lou, you just need to fill in the application form and submit it with your passport when you go to the Embassy – no need to submit anything beforehand.
Hi Stephen, you will need to leave your passport at the Vietnam Embassy to get the visa processed. You might be allowed to check in for a domestic flight between Bangkok and Phuket if you make a photocopy of your passport ID page — I would check with the airline first.