Serbian passport holders need a visa to enter Vietnam, and the eVisa is the route almost all of them take. Here are the visa requirements for Serbian citizens: what it costs, how long it takes, and what matters when you leave Belgrade with no nonstop flight and no Vietnamese embassy at home.
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. Serbia appears on neither, and Serbia's own foreign ministry says so plainly: its travel page for Vietnam lists the position for holders of national passports as visa required.
Worth pinning down, because the two countries go back to 1957 and it's easy to assume something older still covers you. The Serbian foreign ministry's list of bilateral instruments in force with Vietnam contains exactly one visa agreement: the agreement on eliminating visas for holders of diplomatic and official passports, signed 5 June 2000, good for 90 days. Nothing in it, and nothing surviving from the Yugoslav era, touches ordinary Serbian passports. On a regular biometric passport you need a visa, however short the trip.
The comparison with the neighbors stings. Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania all sit on Resolution 229/NQ-CP with 45 days visa-free, so friends from the region walk through on a passport alone, as our Croatian eligibility page shows. Proximity does not extend that to Serbia.
The eVisa covers you completely. Vietnam opened it to citizens of all countries and territories 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. Resolution 389/NQ-CP then added 41 border gates at the end of 2025, taking the total to 83 checkpoints made up of 17 airports, 27 land border gates and 39 seaports. Long Thanh and Gia Binh count only once operational, so roughly 15 airports work today, all of them ones a Serbian traveler would use.
One carve-out exists, geographic rather than national. Any passport, Serbian included, is good for 30 days on Phu Quoc, provided the island is reached straight from abroad by air or sea, an onward ticket falls inside those 30 days, and you never leave it. Involve the mainland and the concession disappears.
The Serbian passport has gained ground fast. The Henley Passport Index published on 13 January 2026 put Serbia 34th, a climb of 30 places over twenty years and one of the strongest showings in the Western Balkans. Vietnam is not part of that, which is why people assume they're covered and find out at check-in. Companions on other passports can check our eligibility index.
No embassy trip, no visa-on-arrival queue. That first half matters here: there is no Vietnamese embassy in Belgrade to visit. The gap runs both ways, because Serbia has no resident mission in Hanoi either, and its foreign ministry states that Vietnam is covered on a non-residential basis from the Serbian embassy in Jakarta, with an honorary consul in Ho Chi Minh City. Both governments committed to reopening missions in Belgrade and Hanoi in May 2023. It hasn't happened yet.
A paper visa would therefore mean posting your passport abroad and waiting. You apply online instead, we review and file it, and the eVisa arrives as a PDF you print and carry. We don't process visa-on-arrival letters; that route works at a handful of airports, never at a land or sea border, and leaves you queuing after a very long flight.
Six things. Most stalled applications trip on the first two.
⚠️ Emergency and temporary travel documents sit in a gray area, so don't assume yours will work. No Vietnamese government or embassy source says whether they're accepted for an eVisa, and we won't guess. Apply on your ordinary Serbian passport. If a temporary document is 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. 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 it.
You can skip us and apply yourself at evisa.gov.vn for the stamp fee alone. Some travelers should: with three weeks, a clean passport and patience for the form, that's the cheaper path and we won't pretend otherwise. What you pay us for is the review, the correction, and a human when something goes wrong. Our full fee breakdown lists every add-on. The stamp fee is non-refundable if you're refused.
Three speeds, priced per applicant:
Counting begins when Vietnam Immigration has the file in front of it, usually about 2 business hours after payment clears rather than the second you press submit. Three working days is the statutory standard; the lived average is 3 to 5, and Tet stretches it, because Vietnamese offices shut for the better part of a week.
None of that schedule is ours to set. Filing quickly, chasing and correcting mistakes are ours; the day the department signs an approval is not. Leave a week or two of margin and the speed question becomes academic.
Your route settles this, not the label on the product. Belgrade out and Belgrade back with nothing in between, and single entry has carried the whole trip.
Multiple entry earns its money the moment your route leaves Vietnam and comes back. Few people fly 12 hours from Belgrade for one country, and a long summer trip usually picks up Cambodia, Laos or Thailand. Fly Hanoi to Siem Reap and return into Ho Chi Minh City on single entry and the visa is spent the moment you cross out. The upgrade costs $30 on a one-month visa, $10 on a three-month one. When in doubt, choose multiple entry.
Vietnam's own instruction here is minimal: a photograph, straight on, no glasses. The distance between that and what actually gets accepted is where applications stall, so check five things before uploading.
A phone photo against a white wall in daylight works. A cropped snap from Zlatibor doesn't.
Nearly every Serbian traveler lands at one of two airports, decided by the route map rather than the rules. Noi Bai in Hanoi (HAN) and Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) take the overwhelming majority, because the hubs Belgrade reaches nonstop are the hubs flying nonstop into those two cities: Istanbul, Doha, Dubai and Guangzhou.
Da Nang (DAD) is an eVisa checkpoint and the gateway to Hoi An and Hue, but from Belgrade it needs a second connection, usually via Bangkok, Singapore or a Chinese hub. Phu Quoc (PQC) is an eVisa checkpoint too, reachable on a domestic hop.
Once the trip widens beyond Vietnam, the other gates count. Twenty-seven land crossings sit on the eVisa list, so a return by road out of Cambodia or Laos is straightforward, and 39 seaports handle cruise arrivals. Port of entry is no longer printed on the issued eVisa, so nominating one checkpoint does not tie you to it.
⚠️ A declaration before arrival is now expected at the Vietnamese airports Serbians actually land at. The Immigration Department's Pre-Arrival Information system at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn reached Tan Son Nhat on 15 April 2026, Phu Quoc on 1 June, then Noi Bai and Da Nang on 15 June 2026. File passport, flight and accommodation details inside the three days before you land and a QR code comes back. Whether it is legally compulsory is contested, Vietnamese state media saying yes and the UK Foreign Office saying not at present, so do it anyway. It replaces no part of the visa.
Overstaying became far more expensive in December 2025. Decree 144/2021 gave way on the 15th to Decree 282/2025, which lifted the fine ceiling from VND 20 million to VND 40 million, around USD 1,520.
How much you pay turns on how far past your date you went. Under 16 days is priced at VND 500,000 to 2 million, USD 19 to 76 or thereabouts. The 16-to-30-day band moves to VND 5 to 10 million, USD 190 to 380, with heavier bands stacked above that up to the ceiling. The dollar equivalents were struck in December 2025, so read them loosely.
The fine isn't the problem. An overstay is grounds for deportation and a future entry ban, and UK Foreign Office guidance notes that Vietnamese authorities can stop you leaving until it is settled. With no Serbian embassy in Hanoi to lean on, untangling that costs far more than the fine.
⚠️ Issue date sets your exit date, and landing late does not move it. The PDF's validity window is calculated from the entry date you typed into the form. Turn up 72 hours behind it and you have lost 72 hours, not gained them. The printed exit date governs; the stamp in your passport says nothing about it.
A great many, and more each year. Serbia ranked 34th on the January 2026 Henley Passport Index, with the Schengen area, China and Russia all visa-free. Vietnam sits outside that group: neither exemption resolution names Serbia, so you need a visa before you fly.
No, and this is the one real exception. The 2000 agreement removes the visa for holders of diplomatic and official passports for stays of up to 90 days, and Serbia's foreign ministry lists it as in force. It is the only visa agreement between the two states, and family traveling on ordinary passports still need an eVisa.
Not through us. We stopped processing visa-on-arrival letters. It survives as a pre-approval scheme at a handful of airports, never at land borders or seaports, and still needs paperwork before you fly. After 12 hours in the air, a counter queue is the last thing you want.
Strictly, no. Phu Quoc waives the visa for 30 days if you arrive directly from abroad by air or sea and stay on the island. Nothing flies from Serbia to Phu Quoc, so you would transit airside through Ho Chi Minh City onto a domestic hop, which still counts. Many apply anyway, because one night on the mainland voids it.
Getting there eats most of a day. There is no nonstop service between Serbia and Vietnam. Flight-route data puts Belgrade to Ho Chi Minh City at 12 hours 5 minutes to 15 hours 45 minutes in the air depending on the hub, and Belgrade to Hanoi at 11 hours 15 minutes to 14 hours 30 minutes, before layovers. Istanbul is usually the quickest single stop, with Doha and Dubai close behind. The distinctly Serbian option is Air Serbia's long-haul to Guangzhou, launched on 30 September 2024 with an A330-200 twice a week, one short hop from either Vietnamese city.
Vietnam runs five or six hours ahead, and the season decides which. Vietnam sits at UTC+7 and doesn't observe summer time. Serbia keeps Central European Time at UTC+1 and shifts to UTC+2 between the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October, under the law on the calculation of time. That leaves Belgrade 5 hours behind Hanoi in the European summer and 6 hours behind in winter. Our 08:00 to 21:00 support window runs about 03:00 to 16:00 Belgrade time in summer, 02:00 to 15:00 in winter, so email overnight and the reply is usually waiting by morning. Our guide to time in Vietnam has the detail.
Plan around the Serbian calendar too. January is the awkward month. The National Bank of Serbia lists 1 and 2 January, then Orthodox Christmas on 7 January as non-working days in 2026, and the stretch between them, taking in the Serbian New Year on 14 January, is when the country stops. Statehood Day covers 15 to 17 February, Orthodox Easter falls across 10 to 13 April, Labour Day takes 1 and 2 May, and Armistice Day lands on 11 November. The holidays law also gives Orthodox believers the first day of their Slava as a day off, scattered through the year. July and August are the traditional holiday weeks, and the hardest time to reach anyone at home.
Payment is in US dollars. Dinars convert at whatever rate your bank applies, so the figure on your statement will not match the screen exactly. On the ground it is dong, and cards work well in the big cities and poorly beyond them.
The two countries are getting closer. Serbian foreign ministry figures put bilateral trade at 275.5 million euros in 2025, and the two states reach 70 years of relations in 2027. Our Vietnam visa guide and answers to common visa questions cover the rest.