Lebanese passport holders need a visa before they can board a flight to Vietnam, and the eVisa is the only route most of them will ever need. Here is what it asks for, what it costs, how long it takes, and the detail that matters when you are leaving Beirut on a schedule that has moved more than once this year.
Yes, you need a visa. The visa requirements for Lebanese citizens begin with one plain fact: Lebanon sits on neither of Vietnam's exemption lists. Resolution 44/NQ-CP of 7 March 2025 waives the visa for 12 countries and Resolution 229/NQ-CP of 8 August 2025 adds 12 more, 24 in all. Lebanon is on neither, and no bilateral agreement covers ordinary Lebanese passports.
Several visa-comparison pages still list Lebanon as visa-free in Vietnam for 90 days. It isn't. There is also no length threshold: two nights or two months, tourism or a trade fair, you need the visa before you fly.
The eVisa itself is open to everyone. Vietnam extended it to citizens of all countries and territories on 15 August 2023 under Resolution 127/NQ-CP, as the Embassy of Vietnam in the United States confirms. It runs up to 90 days, single or multiple entry, and lands in your inbox as a PDF.
Where you can use it grew at the end of 2025. Resolution 389/NQ-CP of 2 December 2025 added 41 border gates, taking the network to 83 checkpoints: 17 airports, 27 land border gates and 39 seaports. Long Thanh and Gia Binh count only once they open, so about 15 airports are usable today, and every one a traveler from Beirut would use is on the list. Phu Quoc is the single exception to the visa rule: the island waives it for 30 days for any nationality arriving directly from abroad by air or sea, provided you hold an onward ticket out within 30 days and stay put. Reach the mainland and the waiver is gone.
Lebanon placed 90th in the January 2026 Henley Passport Index, with 43 destinations reachable without a visa in advance, and Vietnam is not one of them. Companions on other passports can check our eligibility index by country.
No embassy trip, no visa-on-arrival queue. The first half of that carries unusual weight in Lebanon, because Vietnam keeps no resident embassy in Beirut. Consular responsibility sits with the Vietnamese Embassy in Cairo, whose ambassador is concurrently accredited to Lebanon and presented his credentials in Beirut in March 2025. There is an honorary consulate in Beirut, but an honorary post is not a visa section. A paper visa would mean posting your passport to Egypt and waiting; the eVisa keeps it in your hands.
We don't process visa-on-arrival letters and haven't for years. That route still needs paperwork before you fly, works at a short list of airports, never at a land crossing or seaport, and leaves you at a counter after a long night flight.
Six things, and the first two are where most applications come unstuck.
⚠️ Emergency and temporary passports sit in an unclear space, so don't assume yours will work. No Vietnamese government or embassy source states whether they are accepted for an eVisa, and we won't invent an answer. Apply on your ordinary Lebanese passport wherever possible. If a temporary document is genuinely all you have, call us on +84 832 320 320 before you pay anything.
| 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, because we would rather you saw it. Vietnam charges $25 for a single-entry eVisa and $50 for a multiple-entry one, a rate set by Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC and unchanged since 1 April 2026. On a $54 order, $25 goes to Vietnam and $29 is ours, for preparing, checking, filing and chasing the application.
You can also cut us out and apply yourself at evisa.gov.vn for the stamp fee alone. Some people should. With three clear weeks and a straightforward passport, that is the cheaper road and we won't pretend otherwise. Our fee buys a second reader, a correction before the file goes in, and someone who answers when it stalls. The full fee breakdown lists every surcharge. Either way, the stamp fee is not refunded if the application is refused.
Three speeds, each priced per applicant:
None of that is measured from the moment you pay. The count opens when the file lands with Vietnam Immigration, usually within 2 business hours. Vietnam's statutory figure is 3 working days, the working reality 3 to 5, and Tet shuts Vietnamese offices for the better part of a week.
The timeline belongs to Vietnam Immigration, not to us. We can file fast, chase and fix, but no decision arrives sooner than the department issues it. Apply one to two weeks out and the speed question stops mattering. Flying inside 24 hours? Call the hotline before you pay so we can confirm we are able to deliver. If we can't, we say so and refund you.
Read your itinerary rather than the product names. One arrival, one departure, nothing in between that leaves the country: single entry handles it.
Multiple entry is the right answer the moment your route leaves Vietnam and comes back. Nobody flies fifteen hours from Beirut for one country, and a trip built around Vietnam usually collects Cambodia, Laos or Thailand in the middle. Fly Hanoi to Siem Reap and return into Ho Chi Minh City on a single-entry visa and the visa was spent when you crossed out. Upgrading costs $30 on a one-month visa, $10 on a three-month one. When in doubt, choose multiple entry.
All Vietnam specifies is a photograph, taken straight on, without glasses. A thin instruction, and photographs are still a routine reason files stall. Meet these five conditions and the image will not be what holds you up:
A phone photo against a white wall in daylight is fine. A cropped wedding photo is not. Head coverings worn for faith are accepted, provided the full face stays visible.
Almost every traveler from Beirut lands at one of three airports, and the reason is the connection rather than the rule book. Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) and Noi Bai in Hanoi (HAN) take the bulk of arrivals, because the Gulf hubs Beirut reaches nonstop are the ones with nonstop service into both cities. Da Nang (DAD), the gateway to Hoi An and Hue, is the quiet third option, reachable with one stop since Emirates serves it alongside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from Dubai, as Vietnam's aviation reporting sets out. Phu Quoc (PQC) is an eVisa checkpoint in its own right.
The overland and maritime gates count once you move around the region. Of the 83 checkpoints, 27 are land crossings, covering a return from Cambodia or Laos on the ground, and 39 are seaports. Vietnam no longer prints the port of entry on the issued eVisa either, so the checkpoint you named is not binding.
⚠️ Budget for a second declaration, filed close to departure and separate from the visa. The Immigration Department's Pre-Arrival Information portal at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn came into use at Tan Son Nhat on 15 April 2026, at Phu Quoc on 1 June, and at Noi Bai and Da Nang on 15 June 2026. Passport, flight and accommodation details go in within three days of arrival, and a QR code comes back. Its legal footing is contested: Vietnamese state media calls it mandatory, the UK Foreign Office says it is not currently a legal requirement. File it for those airports. It is a declaration, not a visa.
Vietnam made overstaying considerably more expensive at the end of 2025. Decree 282/2025 took effect on 15 December 2025, replacing Decree 144/2021, and doubled the ceiling from VND 20 million to VND 40 million, roughly USD 1,520. The scale climbs with the overstay: under 16 days runs VND 500,000 to 2 million, about USD 19 to 76, then 16 to 30 days steps up to VND 5 to 10 million, about USD 190 to 380, rising in bands to the ceiling. Those dollar figures date from December 2025, so read them as approximate.
The financial penalty is the mildest consequence. Deportation and a bar on returning both follow an overstay, and UK Foreign Office guidance notes that Vietnamese authorities can stop you leaving until it is paid.
⚠️ The validity window is built at issue, and your arrival does not shift it. The PDF counts from whatever entry date you gave on the form, so a Beirut departure that slips four days takes four days off your stay rather than adding them at the end. The printed exit date governs, not the stamp in your passport.
No, and it is worth being blunt about. Lebanon is absent from both Vietnamese exemption resolutions and has no bilateral agreement covering ordinary passports. The 90 days people half-remember is the maximum length of the eVisa itself, which you still have to apply for and pay for before you fly.
Yes. The eVisa is open to any foreign national outside Vietnam holding a valid passport, wherever they apply from, so a Lebanese passport holder in Dubai or Paris applies exactly as one in Beirut does. Use the passport you will actually travel on, and enter and leave Vietnam on that same document.
No. A United States visa, or a Schengen or UK one, does nothing at a Vietnamese border. Vietnam's exemptions run by nationality and by bilateral agreement, not by what else your passport holds. A Lebanese national needs a Vietnamese visa, and the eVisa is the practical way to get one.
Lebanese passport holders reach 43 destinations without arranging a visa first, which put Lebanon 90th in the January 2026 Henley Passport Index, up six places on the year before. Most of that access sits in the Middle East, parts of Africa and the Caribbean. Vietnam has never been in the group.
Strictly, no. Phu Quoc waives the visa for 30 days if you arrive straight from abroad by air or sea and stay on the island. Nothing flies there from Beirut, so you would transit airside through Ho Chi Minh City onto a domestic leg, which still qualifies. Many travelers apply anyway, because one mainland night voids it.
Getting there means one stop and most of a day. Nothing flies Beirut to Vietnam nonstop, and Lebanon's own carrier covers the Middle East, Europe and Africa rather than East Asia, so your route goes through a hub. The Gulf works best: Beirut to Doha is around three hours, and Qatar Airways flies Doha nonstop to Ho Chi Minh City as well as Hanoi in about seven. Beirut to Dubai is roughly four, with Emirates serving all three Vietnamese cities onward, and Etihad flies Abu Dhabi to Hanoi. Istanbul is the fourth option, and Turkish Airlines puts Istanbul to Vietnam at around nine hours. Budget 15 to 19 hours door to door.
Then build in slack, because Beirut departures have been unpredictable all year. The airport has stayed open, and Lebanon's civil aviation chief made the point that carriers suspended their own services rather than being shut out. Qatar Airways resumed Beirut flights on 15 April 2026, Emirates returned on 27 April, and by August Turkish Airlines was flying again while others still stood routes down at short notice. Get the visa done early and move flights around it.
Vietnam is four or five hours ahead, and which one depends on the month. Vietnam sits at UTC+7 and never changes its clocks. Lebanon runs on UTC+2 in winter and moves to UTC+3 for summer time at the end of March, returning in late October. So Vietnam is 4 hours ahead of Beirut in summer and 5 in winter, and our 08:00 to 21:00 support window falls at roughly 04:00 to 17:00 Beirut time in summer, 03:00 to 16:00 in winter. Email at the end of your day and the reply is usually there at breakfast. Our guide to time in Vietnam has the detail.
Plan around two calendars, not one. Lebanon keeps Christian and Muslim holidays together. The Embassy of Lebanon's 2026 list runs from Armenian Christmas on 6 January and St Maroun's Day on 9 February through Eid al-Fitr around 20 March, Eid al-Adha around 27 May, the Prophet's birthday on 25 August, Independence Day on 22 November and Christmas. Ramadan filled the month before Eid al-Fitr, mid-February to mid-March 2026, and both feasts fall earlier each year: Ramadan 2027 is expected to begin in early February, Eid al-Fitr around 9 March, Eid al-Adha in mid-May. Then there is summer, when the diaspora comes home and seats out of Beirut this July were scarcer and dearer than usual. None of it changes how Vietnam handles your file, but it changes how fast you can reach a photo shop if something needs redoing.
Payment is in US dollars, converted by your card issuer at its own rate, so expect a small gap between the figure on screen and the one on your statement. In Vietnam the dong takes over, and cards work well in the big cities but much less so outside them. If someone in your group holds a UAE passport, the Emirati eligibility page covers them, and our Vietnam visa guide and answers to common visa questions fill in the rest.