Chilean passport holders can enter Vietnam without a visa for up to 90 days, which makes the visa requirements for Chilean citizens lighter than almost any other nationality's. Here is what the exemption covers, which trips fall outside it, and what an eVisa costs if you need one.
Usually not. Chile holds a bilateral visa exemption for ordinary passports giving you 90 days from the date of entry, as long as your passport has six months of validity left and your trip is not income generating. Chile's own embassy in Hanoi says it plainly: Chileans traveling as tourists need no visa to enter, and that status extends to 90 days.
That is the most generous position Vietnam grants any nationality. The resolutions carrying its headline waiver, Resolution 44/NQ-CP of 7 March 2025 and Resolution 229/NQ-CP of 8 August 2025, cover 24 countries at 45 days each. Chile is on neither and doesn't need to be: its exemption rests on a treaty signed 17 October 2016 and in force since 11 August 2017, and a treaty doesn't lapse on the three-year cycle those resolutions run on.
This is a Chilean privilege, not a South American one. The two countries established relations on 25 March 1971, and Chile's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lists the tourism exemption alongside a free trade agreement in force since 1 January 2014, the first and only agreement of its kind between Vietnam and a Latin American country. Peruvian, Bolivian, Colombian and Ecuadorian passport holders all need a visa before boarding, so check a mixed group one by one against our eligibility index by country or the Peruvian page.
If you fall outside the exemption, the eVisa is open to you. Vietnam extended it to every country and territory on 15 August 2023 under Resolution 127/NQ-CP, confirmed by the Embassy of Vietnam in the United States. It runs up to 90 days, single or multiple entry, and arrives as a PDF, valid at 83 checkpoints: 17 airports, 27 land border gates and 39 seaports since Resolution 389/NQ-CP of 2 December 2025.
The Phu Quoc waiver that matters to most nationalities is beside the point here. It gives 30 days on one island; your treaty gives 90 and the whole country.
The exemption is conditional, and four situations put you outside it.
Here is the part a visa company is not supposed to say. Vietnam's eVisa also stops at 90 days, so it doesn't solve the first problem. If your stay runs past 90 days or you're going to work, an eVisa is the wrong product and we can't sell you the right one: that needs a visa arranged through a Vietnamese mission, and our answers to common visa questions cover the difference.
Most Chilean tourists need nothing at all. We would rather say that here than take $54 from someone who was already covered.
⚠️ Three things void the exemption, and airline staff in Santiago check the first one. Under six months of passport validity on arrival, a stay planned beyond 90 days, or any income-generating purpose each puts you outside the agreement. Check your expiry date before you book, because the fix at that stage is a renewal at the Registro Civil, not a visa.
If you are in the smaller group that needs an eVisa, have six things ready. Most stalled applications fail on the first two.
⚠️ Emergency and temporary passports sit in a gray area, so don't assume yours will work. No Vietnamese government or embassy source states whether they're accepted for an eVisa, and the exemption treaty is written for ordinary passports, so a temporary document leaves you covered by neither route. Call us on +84 832 320 320 before you pay.
| Option | Validity | Our fee (per applicant) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Month Single Entry | 30 days from arrival | $54 |
| 1 Month Multiple Entry | 30 days from arrival | $84 |
| 3 Month Single Entry | 90 days from arrival | $94 |
| 3 Month Multiple Entry | 90 days from arrival | $104 |
All prices include the Vietnam Immigration Department's stamp fee. Here is the arithmetic. Vietnam charges $25 for a single-entry eVisa and $50 for a multiple-entry one, a rate set by Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC. On a $54 single-entry order, $25 goes to Vietnam and $29 is our fee for preparing, checking and filing it.
You can skip us and apply yourself at evisa.gov.vn for the stamp fee alone. Some people should, and we won't pretend otherwise. The full fee breakdown has every add-on. A refusal does not return the stamp fee, and if the 90-day exemption covers you the honest total is zero.
Three speeds, all priced per applicant:
The clock does not start at checkout. It starts when your file lands with Vietnam Immigration, normally inside 2 business hours of payment. Statute says 3 working days, practice says 3 to 5, and Tet closes Vietnamese offices for several days together. Hanoi is 10 or 11 hours ahead depending on the Chilean season, so an application paid for on a Friday evening in Santiago reaches an office that has already begun Saturday.
That timeline is Immigration's, not ours. We can file, chase and correct, but we can't make approval land faster than the department issues it. Flying inside 24 hours? Call the hotline before paying. If we can't deliver, we'll say so and refund you.
Trip shape decides this, not the name on the visa, and it matters less for Chileans than for most: each visa-free entry restarts a fresh 90-day clock rather than spending a single use.
For an eVisa holder the rule is simpler. In once, out once, and single entry covers the stay. The moment your route leaves Vietnam and comes back, multiple entry is the right call. Nobody flies 30 hours from Santiago for one country, and crossing out to Siem Reap spends a single-entry eVisa. The upgrade costs $30 on a one-month visa, $10 on a three-month one. When in doubt, choose multiple entry.
The portal's own instruction is short: a photograph taken straight on, no glasses. A rejected image is still one of the commoner reasons an application stops moving, so aim for all five of these:
A phone photo against a white wall in daylight works. A cropped holiday snap won't.
Almost every Chilean traveler lands at Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) or Noi Bai in Hanoi (HAN), the two airports the long-haul hubs feed into. Da Nang (DAD), the gateway to Hoi An and Hue, usually needs a third flight, and Phu Quoc (PQC) is a domestic hop.
For a regional trip, the eVisa list covers 27 land crossings, so returning overland from Cambodia or Laos works, plus 39 seaports for cruise arrivals. The port-of-entry field has gone from the issued eVisa, so holders are no longer tied to the checkpoint they nominated.
Being visa-exempt does not exempt you from the pre-arrival declaration. The Immigration Department's Pre-Arrival Information system, at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn, started at Tan Son Nhat on 15 April 2026, added Phu Quoc on 1 June and reached Noi Bai and Da Nang on 15 June 2026. Three days before you land at the earliest, you submit passport, flight and accommodation details and get a QR code. State media calls it mandatory, the UK Foreign Office says it isn't yet a legal requirement, and the safe course is to file it. For most Chilean tourists it is the only Vietnamese paperwork the trip involves.
Ninety visa-free days is generous enough that people stop counting, which is exactly when this gets expensive. Decree 282/2025 took effect on 15 December 2025, replacing Decree 144/2021, and doubled the maximum overstay fine from VND 20 million to VND 40 million, roughly USD 1,520. The scale rises with the overstay: under 16 days is VND 500,000 to 2 million, about USD 19 to 76; 16 to 30 days is VND 5 to 10 million, about USD 190 to 380. Those December 2025 conversions are approximate.
The fine is the smaller half of it. An overstay also supports deportation and a bar on returning, and UK Foreign Office guidance notes that Vietnamese authorities can stop you leaving until the fine is paid. Given what a seat back to Santiago costs to rebook, losing yours is the expensive part.
⚠️ Count your 90 days from the entry stamp, in calendar days. Nothing tells you the clock is running when you enter visa-free: no PDF, no expiry date in your inbox, only a stamp. Photograph it at the border and set a reminder for day 80. On an eVisa the exit date is fixed when the PDF is issued, and arriving late doesn't push it back.
Yes, up to 90 days from entry, on an ordinary Chilean passport. The waiver comes from a bilateral treaty in force since 11 August 2017, not from Vietnam's 45-day resolutions, and the conditions are six months of passport validity and a purpose that is not income generating.
Not for a tourist trip. Vietnam keeps a resident embassy at Fátima 1640, Vitacura, Santiago, on +56 2 2437 6638, more presence than most nationalities get. You need it only for what the exemption and the eVisa don't cover, such as work or long stays.
An eVisa doesn't help, because it also stops at 90 days. Longer stays need permission arranged in advance through a Vietnamese mission, in the category matching your purpose. Plan it months ahead rather than hoping to extend from inside the country.
You can, and a few Chileans reasonably do: someone whose employer wants documentation before approving travel, or whose passport validity sits close enough to six months to be a check-in risk. For an ordinary tourist trip inside 90 days it's money you needn't spend, and we'll say so if you call.
No visa, but you do need an approved ESTA before you board. Chile is the only Latin American country in the US Visa Waiver Program, a status held since February 2014. It covers transit as well as tourism, needs an electronic passport, and has been revoked from individual Chileans without notice. Route through Oceania or Europe if you'd rather not rely on it.
Getting there is a full day and then some. No airline flies nonstop between Chile and Asia. From Santiago there are four realistic shapes: west across the Pacific on LATAM's nonstops to Auckland at about 12 hours 40 minutes or Sydney at about 15 hours 15 minutes, then five to nine hours onward; north through Sao Paulo onto a Gulf or Istanbul service; east to Madrid, about 12 hours 40 minutes, then the Gulf or Bangkok; or north to Los Angeles or Dallas, often cheapest and the only one adding a US entry requirement. Expect 30 to 40 hours door to door. LATAM restored the Sydney nonstop in October 2024 as the longest route in its network.
The time difference moves twice a year, and it moves the wrong way. Vietnam sits at UTC+7 all year with no daylight saving. Continental Chile switches, and its summer runs opposite to the northern hemisphere: under Decree 98, clocks go forward on the first Saturday of September 2026 and back on the first Saturday of April 2027, moving Santiago from UTC-4 to UTC-3. So Vietnam is 11 hours ahead of Santiago from April to September and 10 hours ahead from September to April. Our 08:00 to 21:00 support window lands at roughly 21:00 to 10:00 the previous day in Santiago, an hour later in the Chilean summer. Email at night, read the reply at breakfast. Our guide to time in Vietnam covers it.
Book around the Chilean calendar. The Dirección del Trabajo lists 1 January, 1 May, 18 and 19 September and 25 December as obligatory and unwaivable holidays under Law 19.973, and Fiestas Patrias on 18 and 19 September is the week the country stops. In 2026 those dates fall on a Friday and Saturday, a long weekend rather than a full week, but fares move regardless. The other pressure point is the southern summer: SERNATUR runs its peak season from December through March, and February is when most Chileans take leave. Renew a passport outside those weeks.
Money. We charge in US dollars and your issuer converts from Chilean pesos at its own rate, so expect a small gap between the price on screen and the line on your statement. Card acceptance in Vietnam is good in the big cities, thin outside. Our Vietnam visa guide covers the rest.
The relationship keeps growing. Chile was the first South American country to establish ties with Vietnam, and Da Nang marked 55 years of relations in July 2026 with a joint business and tourism event alongside ProChile.