Nepali passport holders need a visa to enter Vietnam, and there is no counter at Noi Bai or Tan Son Nhat handing out an on arrival visa for Nepalese travelers who land without one. Here is what is required, what it costs, how long it takes, and why the eVisa is the route that works from Kathmandu.
Yes, you need a visa. Vietnam's 45-day exemption rests on two resolutions, Resolution 44/NQ-CP of 7 March 2025 covering 12 countries and Resolution 229/NQ-CP of 8 August 2025 adding 12 more, 24 in total. Nepal is on neither, and no bilateral agreement waives the visa for ordinary Nepali passports. There is no length threshold either: tourism, a wedding, a conference, a week of meetings all need a visa before you board.
Now the part worth slowing down for, because Nepal is one of the countries that made visa on arrival famous. Nepal's own Department of Immigration issues on-arrival tourist visas to most visitors landing at Tribhuvan International Airport, and Nepali travelers reasonably assume the arrangement runs both ways. It does not. Vietnam's visa on arrival was never a walk-up counter service. It means getting a pre-approval letter from the Immigration Department before you fly and then queuing for a stamp after you land, it works at a handful of airports, and it never works at a land border or a seaport. We do not process it.
What Vietnam asks of Nepali travelers is what it asks of every non-exempt nationality, and the eVisa answers all of it. Resolution 127/NQ-CP opened the scheme to citizens of every country and territory on 15 August 2023, as the Embassy of Vietnam in the United States confirms. Up to 90 days, single or multiple entry, issued as a PDF, and settled before you fly rather than at a counter after you land.
Its reach grew on 2 December 2025. Resolution 389/NQ-CP added 41 border gates, lifting the total to 83 checkpoints: 17 airports, 27 land border gates and 39 seaports. Long Thanh and Gia Binh sit on the list ahead of opening, leaving roughly 15 airports in service, and every airport reachable on a one-stop routing from Kathmandu is among them.
There is a single narrow carve-out. Phu Quoc island gives 30 visa-free days to any nationality that reaches it from abroad directly by air or sea, holds a ticket out inside those 30 days, and stays on the island.
The Henley Passport Index published in February 2026 placed Nepal 95th, with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to around 35 destinations. Vietnam is not one of them, and does not need to be: the eVisa is decided on the application, not on the passport's ranking. Companions on other passports can check our eligibility index by country.
No embassy trip, no visa-on-arrival queue. The first point carries unusual weight from Nepal, because Vietnam keeps no resident embassy in Kathmandu, and a paper application would mean sending your passport out of the country or flying to Delhi to hand it over. You apply online, we review and file it, and the eVisa comes back as a PDF you print and carry. We stopped processing visa-on-arrival letters some time ago and are not going back. The eVisa covers all 83 checkpoints and is settled before you leave home.
Have these six things ready. Most applications that stall fail on the first two.
⚠️ An emergency or temporary passport is an open question, not a safe bet. No Vietnamese government or embassy source has published whether such a document can carry an eVisa, and we are not willing to guess for you. Apply on the ordinary Nepali passport if you hold one. If a travel document is all you have, telephone +84 832 320 320 and ask us 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 and unchanged since 1 April 2026. On a $54 single-entry order, $25 goes to Vietnam and $29 is our fee for preparing, checking, filing and chasing the application.
You can skip us and apply yourself at evisa.gov.vn for the stamp fee alone. Some people should. With three weeks in hand, a straightforward passport and patience for the form, that is the cheaper path and we will not pretend otherwise. What you pay us for is the review, the correction, and a human answering when something goes wrong. Our full fee breakdown lists every surcharge. Either way, the stamp fee is not returned if you are refused.
Three speeds, all priced per applicant:
Each count begins at Vietnam Immigration, not at checkout, and your file usually reaches it inside 2 business hours of payment. Vietnam's statutory standard for a decision is 3 working days, 3 to 5 is the honest expectation, and a Vietnamese public holiday stretches it further; Tet shuts the offices for several days. This is the step Nepali travelers most often expect to skip, because the equivalent at Tribhuvan takes minutes at a desk. In Vietnam it happens before departure or not at all.
The schedule is the department's, not ours. Filing, chasing and correcting are what we do; issuing the decision is not. File one to two weeks before you fly and the speed question stops mattering. Flying within 24 hours? Call the hotline before paying, and if we cannot deliver we will refund you.
Choose by the shape of your trip, not by the name of the visa. One flight in, one flight out, and single entry covers the whole stay. A layover in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur does not count against you, because you have not entered Vietnam yet.
Multiple entry earns its keep the moment your route leaves Vietnam and comes back, and an itinerary built out of Kathmandu often picks up Cambodia, Laos or Thailand in the middle. Fly Hanoi to Siem Reap and return into Ho Chi Minh City on a single-entry eVisa and the visa was spent when you crossed out. The upgrade costs $30 on a one-month visa. When in doubt, choose multiple entry.
On the photograph the government form says almost nothing: taken straight on, without glasses. That silence is exactly why rejected images are a routine cause of delay. What actually passes comes down to five points:
A phone photo against a white wall in daylight works.
Two airports take almost everyone. Noi Bai in Hanoi (HAN) is the shortest hop from Kathmandu, reachable in one stop through Kolkata, Kunming, Chengdu, Bangkok, Delhi or Guangzhou. Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) is the other, usually through Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or the Gulf, and it is the gateway most Nepali travelers use when Vietnam sits inside a longer regional loop.
Da Nang (DAD) is on the eVisa list and is the way into Hoi An and Hue, though from Kathmandu it needs a second connection. Phu Quoc (PQC) is an eVisa checkpoint too, reachable on a domestic hop.
Land and sea gates matter more than they look. The eVisa covers 27 land crossings, so walking back in from Cambodia or Laos at the end of a loop is fine, and 39 seaports if you arrive by ship. The port-of-entry field has also been removed from the issued eVisa, so you are not tied to the checkpoint you nominated.
⚠️ A second declaration is now expected before you board. Vietnam's Immigration Department runs a Pre-Arrival Information system at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn, which opened 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. Enter passport, flight and accommodation details within the three days before you land and a QR code comes back. State media in Vietnam calls it mandatory, the UK Foreign Office says it is not currently a legal requirement, and with the sources in conflict the sensible course is to file it at those four airports. It replaces nothing, least of all the visa.
Overstaying became a much costlier mistake on 15 December 2025, when Decree 282/2025 took over from Decree 144/2021. The maximum penalty doubled to VND 40 million, roughly USD 1,520.
Underneath that ceiling the penalty is banded by length. Under 16 days sits at VND 500,000 to 2 million, USD 19 to 76 or thereabouts. Sixteen to 30 days moves up to VND 5 to 10 million, USD 190 to 380, and the bands keep climbing from there. Read those dollar figures as December 2025 conversions.
The fine is the smaller cost. Overstaying also opens you to deportation and to a ban on future entry, and the UK Foreign Office notes that Vietnamese authorities can stop you leaving until the fine is paid. Rebuilding a one-stop routing back to Kathmandu after a missed departure costs far more than the penalty.
⚠️ Your exit date is decided at issue, not at the border. The validity window on the PDF is calculated from the entry date you gave on the form, so landing two days behind plan simply removes two days from the stay. Work to the exit date printed on the document rather than to the stamp in your passport.
No. Nepal issues on-arrival tourist visas at Tribhuvan International Airport, which shapes what Nepali travelers expect, but Vietnam works the other way round. What is called visa on arrival there needs a pre-approval letter arranged before departure, covers few airports and never a land or sea border. We do not offer it.
Yes. Since 15 August 2023 the eVisa has been open to citizens of every country and territory, Nepal included, and Vietnam publishes no list of excluded nationalities. What matters is the document: an ordinary Nepali passport with six months of validity beyond your exit, two blank pages, and form details that match it exactly.
Our one-month single-entry service is $54 per person, including the $25 Vietnam charges. Urgent adds $45, Super Urgent adds $85. We bill in US dollars, so your bank converts from Nepali rupees at its own rate and adds any card fee. There is nothing to pay on arrival.
None at all, and no bank statement is asked for. What the form wants is passport details, a photograph, your travel dates and your entry point. Proof of funds, itineraries, hotel reservations and return tickets are not part of it. The only place a ticket becomes relevant is the Phu Quoc waiver, which requires onward travel inside 30 days.
Strictly, no. Phu Quoc gives 30 visa-free days to anyone who arrives from abroad directly by air or sea and stays on the island. Kathmandu has no service there, so a Nepali routing means an airside connection in Ho Chi Minh City onto a domestic sector, and that still counts as direct. Most travelers apply regardless, since one mainland night undoes the waiver.
Getting there means one stop, and there is no way around it. No airline flies nonstop from Kathmandu to Hanoi, and the hubs sort themselves by flying time: Kolkata about 4 hours 20 minutes in the air, Bangkok about 5 hours 20, Delhi about 6 hours 20, Guangzhou about 6 hours 50 and Kuala Lumpur about 8 hours, all before the layover. Doha and Dubai are the long way round. Add a normal two to four hour connection and Kathmandu to Hanoi is an 8 to 12 hour day through the Asian hubs. Vietnam Airlines states its Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi sector takes about 3 hours 20 minutes and runs four times a week.
Vietnam is 1 hour 15 minutes ahead, not one hour and not two. Nepal is one of a handful of countries on a 45-minute offset: the Nepal Tourism Board puts Nepali time at GMT plus 5 hours 45 minutes, and Vietnam sits at UTC+7 with no daylight saving on either side. Our support window of 08:00 to 21:00 Vietnam time is therefore 06:45 to 19:45 in Kathmandu, close to a full Nepali working day. Our guide to time in Vietnam has the rest.
Vietnam keeps no embassy in Kathmandu. Consular responsibility sits with the Embassy of Vietnam in New Delhi, whose ambassador is accredited to Nepal as well, and an honorary consulate operates in Kathmandu under Rajesh Kazi Shrestha, whom the ambassador met there in August 2023. The eVisa never goes near a mission, but a visa category it cannot cover runs through Delhi, so leave far more time. Travelers routing through India should also read the India eligibility page.
Dashain and Tihar close the doors you might need. Nepal Rastra Bank's holiday list for 2083 BS shuts banks from Fulpati to Dwadashi, 17 to 23 October 2026, and again for Tihar from Laxmi Puja to the day after Bhai Tika, 8 to 12 November 2026. Those are the longest closures of the Nepali year, and they take government counters and courier offices with them, so renew a passport or clear a payment before Fulpati. Both blocks fall inside the September to November peak the Nepal Tourism Board names, which is when Nepali families book long trips abroad.
Payment is in US dollars. Your issuer converts from rupees at its own rate, so expect a small gap between the price on screen and the figure on your statement. Vietnam runs on the dong once you land, and cards are widely accepted in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. Our Vietnam visa guide and our answers to common visa questions cover the rest.