How do you get a Vietnam visit visa from Pakistan? (2026)

Do Pakistanis need a visa to visit Vietnam?

Yes. Vietnam operates a unilateral visa waiver for a named list of countries, and a Pakistani passport is not on it. What Pakistan does have is full access to the electronic visa, which is the part most people get wrong when they ask whether Vietnam is open.

What changed in 2023

Resolution 127/NQ-CP, dated 14 August 2023 and in force from 15 August 2023, extended the grant of electronic visas to citizens of all countries and territories. It replaced the earlier resolutions that had limited the e-visa to a pilot list of around 80 nationalities. The same change raised the maximum e-visa stay from 30 days with a single entry to 90 days with single or multiple entries.

So a Pakistani applicant is no longer looking for a sponsor or an invitation to get a tourist visa. You apply yourself, online, on the Vietnamese government’s own portal.

Where the application actually lives

The e-visa is issued through the National Portal on Immigration, run by the Vietnam Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security. The public address is evisa.gov.vn. Everything on this page that carries a figure comes from that portal or from a Vietnamese government resolution, and the review date at the top of this guide is the day those pages were checked.

If you are still choosing where to go, it is worth comparing entry rules before you commit to flights. The Thailand visit visa guide, the Malaysia visit visa guide and the Indonesia visit visa guide cover the usual alternatives for a Pakistani traveller in the region.

Which Vietnam e-visa do you need, and how long can you stay?

There are two shapes of the same product: single entry and multiple entry. Both allow a stay of up to 90 days. The only question is how many times you need to cross the Vietnamese border.

Ninety days is a ceiling, not a promise

Resolution 127/NQ-CP sets the maximum at 90 days. Your own e-visa carries a from date and a to date, and that printed window is what the officer at the gate reads. Plan your return flight inside it with a few days to spare, and do not assume you will be granted the full 90 if you asked for less.

Multiple entry does not reset the clock

This is the detail that costs people money. On a multiple entry e-visa, the 90 days is the length of the visa, not a fresh allowance for each arrival. If you spend six weeks in Vietnam, take a fortnight in Cambodia and come back, you are still inside the same 90-day window, not starting a new one.

Single entry means exactly one entry

A single entry e-visa is finished the moment you leave Vietnam. A day trip across a land border uses it up. If your itinerary includes Laos, Cambodia or China and a return leg through Vietnam, buy the multiple entry version at the start rather than paying twice.

How much does a Vietnam e-visa cost from Pakistan?

The government fee is small and published. The official portal charges USD 25 for a single entry e-visa and USD 50 for a multiple entry e-visa, paid by card as part of the application.

The fee is not refundable

The portal states that the fee is not refunded if the visa is not granted. That covers a refusal, and it also covers the more common problem: an application rejected because a field was wrong or a scan was unreadable. You pay again to apply again, so the slow careful pass over the form before you submit is the cheapest minute of the whole process.

What an agent’s quote should show

• the entry type, single or multiple, and the stay requested;
• the USD 25 or USD 50 government fee as its own line;
• their service charge as its own line;
• who types the form, and who checks it against your passport;
• what happens to your money if the e-visa is refused.

When the published government fee is USD 25 and someone quotes PKR 60,000, almost all of that is margin. There is nothing unlawful about charging for a service, but you should be able to see what you are buying.

What do you upload for a Vietnam e-visa?

The e-visa application is light compared with a Schengen or UK file. You upload two images and type the rest. The strictness is in the format, not the volume.

The two uploads

• Passport data page. A clear scan or photograph of the page with your photo and details. The portal’s instructions put this image under 200 KB.
• Portrait photograph. Looking straight at the camera, without glasses. The portal’s instructions put this image under 50 KB.

Both files being small does not mean blurred. Scan at a decent resolution, then compress, rather than photographing the passport in poor light and hoping. Glasses are specifically ruled out for the portrait, and so is anything that obscures the face.

What the form asks you to type

Your passport details, your intended entry and exit dates, your intended border gate, your address in Vietnam and your contact details. The portal warns that if there is any missing or incorrect or unidentified information, the application will not be accepted. Names must match the passport exactly, including the order of the words.

What to carry even though it is not uploaded

An e-visa application does not demand bank statements or bookings, but the airline in Pakistan and the officer in Vietnam can both ask. Build a small travel file: the printed e-visa, your return ticket, your hotel bookings, and a recent bank statement in your own name. If a relative is paying, carry their statement and a short letter saying so.

Which border gates accept a Vietnam e-visa?

An e-visa is only valid at a border gate on the published list. This is the single most common way a Vietnam trip goes wrong for a traveller who did everything else right.

The published lists

Resolution 127/NQ-CP named 42 border gates where foreigners may enter and leave on an e-visa: 13 air gates, 16 land gates and 13 sea gates. Resolution 389/NQ-CP, dated 2 December 2025, added 41 more, taking the published list to 83, with two new airports counted from the day they begin operating.

The major international airports have been on the list throughout, so a normal flight into Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City or Da Nang is not the risk. The risk is a land crossing, a river port or a small regional airport that an itinerary quietly includes.

Check both ends of every crossing

• the gate you arrive through, and the gate you leave through;
• every re-entry if you hold a multiple entry e-visa;
• any overland leg to or from Laos, Cambodia or China;
• cruise and ferry ports, which are listed separately from airports.

A valid e-visa presented at a gate that is not on the list can be refused, and the fee is not returned. Confirm the current list on the immigration portal rather than on a tour operator’s blog, because the list has been amended twice already.

Is Phu Quoc visa-free, and does that help a Pakistani traveller?

Phu Quoc has its own 30-day exemption that applies to all nationalities, but the conditions are narrow enough that most Pakistani itineraries fail them without meaning to.

The conditions, as the tourism administration states them

• You must arrive from abroad, on an international flight or ship to Phu Quoc.
• Arriving through the international transit area of another Vietnamese airport also counts.
• If you clear immigration on the mainland first, you need a visa.
• A domestic flight from Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City does not trigger the exemption.
• Going on from the island to the mainland is not covered by it.

In practice that means a beach holiday flown directly into Phu Quoc can work without a visa, and almost any trip that touches the mainland cannot. Given that a single entry e-visa costs USD 25 and covers the whole country for up to 90 days, I would treat the exemption as a narrow convenience rather than a plan.

If you do intend to rely on it, confirm the current rule on the immigration portal and tell the airline at booking, because check-in staff in Pakistan are the first people who will question a traveller boarding for Vietnam without a visa in the passport.

What happens at Vietnamese immigration when you land?

An officer checks your passport, your e-visa and your answers, and decides whether to admit you. An approved e-visa lets you travel. It does not oblige anyone to let you in.

Have the printout, not just the phone

Print the e-visa twice. Airline staff at check-in in Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad will want to see it before they issue a boarding pass, and a phone with a flat battery at an immigration desk is an avoidable problem. Check the registration code, your name and the entry type on the printout against your passport before you leave home.

Questions worth being ready for

• Why are you visiting Vietnam, and for how many days?
• Where are you staying, and can you show the booking?
• When do you fly home, and on which airline?
• How much money are you carrying, and who is paying for the trip?
• What is your work in Pakistan?
• Do you know anyone in Vietnam?

Short, true answers that match the paperwork in your hand. A traveller who says holiday but has no return ticket, no booking and no funds gives the officer a reason to look harder.

If you are refused entry

A traveller refused at the gate is not admitted and has to leave. No agent can promise otherwise, and neither can I. What you control is a file that tells one consistent true story, and an arrival gate that is on the published list.

Can you work in Vietnam on an e-visa, and what if you overstay?

No, you cannot work on a tourist e-visa, and overstaying is penalised. Vietnam is a manufacturing economy with real demand for labour, which is exactly why the job offer arrives wrapped around a tourist visa.

Work needs a work permit

Employment in Vietnam requires a work permit and the matching visa category, arranged by the employer before travel. A tourist e-visa does not carry permission to work. An employer who tells you to fly in on a tourist e-visa and says the permit will be sorted after arrival is asking you to carry the entire legal risk of their shortcut.

Overstaying

Overstaying is an administrative offence, with fines graduated by how long you stayed beyond your permitted date. Those brackets were raised by a decree that took effect in December 2025, so a figure quoted from an older article may well be out of date. Forced exit and a bar on future entry are also possible outcomes.

Because the amounts changed so recently, I am not going to print a number here that might be wrong by the time you read it. Check the current decree or ask the Vietnam Immigration Department. The practical advice does not change: book your return flight inside your permitted stay and keep a few days of margin.

What happens at the Pakistani airport before you fly?

FIA immigration officers check that your passport and visa are genuine and valid, and they may ask about the purpose of the trip. Visit visa travellers should carry a return ticket, accommodation details and proof of funds.

What FIA says it checks

FIA’s published FAQ lists these for visit visa travellers: a valid passport, a return ticket, a confirmed hotel booking with advance payment, and sufficient funds. Its Travellers’ Guide says officers ask questions to confirm your identity and the authenticity of your passport and visa, and that a second officer re-checks the documents before you enter the departure lounge.

If you are offloaded

Being stopped from boarding is commonly called offloading. FIA’s guide says the shift in-charge will personally tell an offloaded passenger the reasons, and that if your passport and visa are genuine and valid, with no apparent misdeclaration of facts, immigration staff are not authorised to offload you. FIA’s helplines are 1991 and 051-111-345-786.

The protector requirement for work

Under the Emigration Ordinance 1979, every Pakistani going abroad on a work visa must be protected by the Protector of Emigrants, which involves a Foreign Service Agreement with the employer or a licensed Overseas Employment Promoter. FIA lists a protector stamp among the documents for work visa travellers, not for tourists or family visitors.

An e-visa cannot convert a job into a holiday. The story told at the counter has to be the true one, and a person genuinely travelling for work needs the work route, not a tourist e-visa.

How do you spot a fake Vietnam e-visa site or a job scam?

Apply only on evisa.gov.vn, and treat any Vietnam job that begins on a tourist e-visa as a scam until someone proves otherwise. Both of these take money from Pakistani families every month.

Look-alike e-visa websites

Vietnam’s government fee is USD 25 for a single entry. That low figure is what makes the market for imitation sites so profitable: a page that looks official, charges USD 90 and then files the same free form you could have filed yourself. Some never file anything.

• Addresses with extra words around the official name, rather than the government domain.
• A price several times the published USD 25 or USD 50, with no fee breakdown.
• Promises of guaranteed approval, or a paid express service the portal does not offer.
• An approved e-visa arriving by WhatsApp for an application you never made.
• Anyone asking for your passport original rather than a scan.

When the e-visa arrives, check the registration code, your name, your passport number, the entry type and the dates. If an agent applied for you, verify the result on the government portal using the registration code rather than trusting the PDF they sent.

The tourist visa with a factory job attached

The pattern is familiar: an e-visa, a ticket and a promised job in a factory or a restaurant, with the work permit to be arranged after you land. It fails in the same way every time, because the permit was never possible on that visa. Meanwhile the money has gone, and staying on after the e-visa expires turns a bad deal into an immigration offence.

• The job starts on a tourist visa and the permit comes later.
• No BEOE licence can be shown, and there is no job order.
• You are told to say holiday if FIA asks.
• Payment is cash with no receipt, or into a personal account.
• Someone keeps your original passport.

What Pakistani law says about the recruiter

Only a licensed Overseas Employment Promoter may recruit people in Pakistan for work abroad. Section 22 of the Emigration Ordinance 1979 makes it an offence for anyone else to take money for providing, or pretending to provide, a job abroad. Check the licence with the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment before paying anyone.

The guide to checking a visa consultant in Pakistan sets out the registration and licence checks and where to report fraud. If you have already paid and have doubts, you can book a consultation and bring the receipts and the messages.

How do you apply, step by step?

The order below works for most Pakistani tourists and family visitors. Settle the route first, because the route decides the entry type and the gates.

1. 1

   Decide the trip, then the entry type

   Write down your dates, the cities you will visit and whether you will leave Vietnam and come back. One holiday with no side trips needs a single entry e-visa. A route that dips into Cambodia or Laos and returns needs a multiple entry e-visa.

2. 2

   Check your arrival gate is on the e-visa list

   An e-visa only works at a border gate on the published list. Resolution 127/NQ-CP opened 42 gates, and Resolution 389/NQ-CP of 2 December 2025 added 41 more. Confirm your airport, land crossing or seaport appears on the current list before you book.

3. 3

   Prepare the passport scan and the photo

   You upload a scan of your passport data page and a portrait photograph, looking straight ahead without glasses. The official portal asks for the portrait under 50 KB and the passport image under 200 KB, so resize them before you start the form.

4. 4

   Apply on the Vietnamese government portal only

   Use the National Portal on Immigration at evisa.gov.vn. Type the address yourself rather than following a search advert. Enter every detail exactly as printed in your passport, because the portal rejects applications with missing or unidentified information.

5. 5

   Pay the fee and keep the registration code

   The portal charges USD 25 for a single entry e-visa and USD 50 for a multiple entry e-visa by card. The fee is not refunded if the visa is not granted. Save the registration code on the confirmation screen, because you need it to collect the result.

6. 6

   Download the e-visa, check it, then travel

   The portal says applications are processed in three working days. Download the e-visa, compare the name, passport number, entry type and dates with your passport, and print two copies. Carry one in your hand luggage with your ticket and hotel bookings.

What goes wrong most often?

Arriving at a gate that is not on the list

A valid e-visa and the wrong border gate is a refusal. It happens most on overland legs and at small regional airports. Check both the arrival and the departure gate against the current published list before you buy tickets.

Buying single entry for a multi-country trip

A single entry e-visa ends when you leave Vietnam. Travellers who plan Hanoi, then Siem Reap, then a flight home from Ho Chi Minh City find they needed the USD 50 version. Draw the route before you pay the USD 25.

Uploads that fail the format rules

A portrait over 50 KB, a passport scan over 200 KB, glasses in the photo, or a detail typed differently from the passport. The portal rejects incomplete or unidentified information and the fee is not refunded, so each slip costs a new application.

Leaving it to the week of the flight

Three working days sounds generous until a weekend, a Vietnamese public holiday and one rejected photo land in the same week. Apply two to three weeks out and the same mistakes cost nothing but time.

Assuming Phu Quoc solves the visa question

The exemption needs a direct arrival from abroad and keeps you on the island. Travellers who read the headline and booked a domestic connection through Ho Chi Minh City discover at check-in that they needed a visa after all.

A realistic example

This is a hypothetical illustration, not a real client. Hamza and Ayesha live in Rawalpindi. Hamza teaches at a private college, and they want 16 days in Vietnam in February, Hanoi and Ha Long first, then Hoi An, flying home from Ho Chi Minh City.

• Seven weeks before. They check their passports. Ayesha’s has four months left, so she renews it first and leaves everything else until the new one is in hand.
• Four weeks before. They draw the route and see they never leave Vietnam, so a single entry e-visa is enough. They confirm that Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are both on the e-visa gate list.
• Three weeks before. They scan the passport pages and take plain portrait photographs without glasses, resizing both to meet the portal limits before opening the form.
• The same evening. Each applies on evisa.gov.vn, pays USD 25, reads every field back against the passport before submitting, and saves the registration code.
• Four days later. Both e-visas are issued. They check the names, passport numbers, entry type and dates, and print two copies each.
• At both airports. They carry the printed e-visas, the return ticket, hotel bookings and a bank statement. Their answers match the paperwork.

Nothing in that file is clever. It is a true story with the documents to support it, which is all a visit visa ever asks for.

The version that goes wrong

Now imagine Hamza’s cousin Bilal, 24. An agent offers a Vietnam package for PKR 550,000: e-visa, ticket and a job in an electronics factory, permit to follow after arrival. The agent has no BEOE licence, gives no receipt and keeps the passport until departure. Bilal is told to say he is going sightseeing. If FIA’s questions expose the plan, he may not fly. If he flies and the Vietnamese officer doubts his story, he may be refused at the gate and the fee is not returned. If he gets in and works, he is working without a permit, and when his e-visa expires, staying on adds an overstay penalty to everything else he has already lost.

Key takeaways

Frequently asked questions