Vanuatu passport holders need a visa to enter Vietnam, and with no Vietnamese mission anywhere in the Pacific islands, the eVisa is not just the easiest route but the only practical one. Here is what the visa requirements for Vanuatu citizens actually are, what the eVisa costs, how long it takes, and what to plan around before you leave Port Vila.
Yes, you need a visa. Two instruments carry Vietnam's 45-day exemption and Vanuatu appears in neither: Resolution 44/NQ-CP of 7 March 2025 names 12 countries, Resolution 229/NQ-CP of 8 August 2025 adds another 12, and there is no bilateral agreement covering ordinary Vanuatu passports.
Length of stay changes nothing. A week in Hanoi, a family visit, a conference: the visa has to exist before you board, and no airline leaves Port Vila without checking.
Satisfying that is the easy part. Since 15 August 2023, under Resolution 127/NQ-CP and confirmed by the Embassy of Vietnam in the United States, the eVisa has been open to every nationality on earth. Up to 90 days, single or multiple entry, delivered as a PDF.
December 2025 widened where it can be used. Resolution 389/NQ-CP of the 2nd added 41 border gates and lifted the total to 83 checkpoints: 17 airports, 27 land border gates and 39 seaports. Long Thanh and Gia Binh only count once they open, leaving about 15 airports in service, which covers everything a route out of the Pacific can reach.
Phu Quoc is the one carve-out. Any nationality gets 30 days on the island without a visa, provided the arrival is direct from abroad by air or sea, a ticket out inside 30 days is held, and the stay never leaves the island. The mainland voids it.
Scale explains much of the rest. The Vanuatu National Statistics Office put the estimated resident population at 343,320 as at 31 March 2025, part of why Vietnam keeps no consular office here. Companions on other passports can check our eligibility index by country.
No embassy trip, no visa-on-arrival queue. Both halves carry unusual weight here, because Vanuatu has no Vietnamese embassy or consulate and nothing closer than Australia. Canberra covers the country: the Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia, concurrently responsible for five South Pacific island states, presented credentials to President Nikenike Vurobaravu in Port Vila on 28 March 2023. A paper visa would mean flying to Canberra, or posting your passport to Australia and waiting for its return. Vanuatu opened a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City in June 2023, but that office is Vanuatu's own and issues no Vietnamese visas.
Visa-on-arrival letters are not something we file. The scheme reaches a handful of airports, no land crossing, no seaport, and it puts you in a counter queue after two days of flying. An eVisa works at all 83 checkpoints and is done with before you leave Port Vila.
Six things, and most stalled applications come apart on the first two.
⚠️ An emergency or temporary passport is an unanswered question, not a safe bet. Whether the eVisa system accepts one is stated nowhere in Vietnamese government or embassy material, and we are not going to guess for you. Use your ordinary Vanuatu passport if you have it. If the temporary document is all there is, call +84 832 320 320 before paying 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 people should: with three weeks in hand and patience for the form, that is the cheaper path. What you pay us for is the review, the correction, and a person who answers when your own day has ended. The full fee breakdown lists every add-on, and the stamp fee is not refunded if an application is refused.
Three speeds, each priced per applicant:
Counting begins when the file reaches Vietnam Immigration, not when you pay, and that handover usually takes about 2 business hours. The statutory standard is 3 working days, the practical figure is 3 to 5, and Tet closes offices for several days. You read those numbers from an unusual position: at UTC+11 you are 4 hours ahead of Hanoi, so a Vietnamese working day opens at midday in Port Vila and a question sent at breakfast is picked up the same day.
None of that timeline is ours to set. Filing fast, chasing and correcting are what we control; the issuing decision sits with the department. File one to two weeks out and the speed tiers stop mattering, which counts for more here than most places, because the flight out of Port Vila is the leg most likely to move.
The itinerary decides this, not the label on the visa. Arrive once, leave once, and single entry covers every day in between.
Multiple entry becomes the right call the moment your route leaves Vietnam and comes back. Nobody flies thirty hours from the Pacific for one country, and that much connecting usually picks up Cambodia, Laos or Thailand. Land in Hanoi, spend a few days in Luang Prabang, fly back into Ho Chi Minh City, and a single-entry visa was spent at the crossing out. The upgrade is $30 on a one-month visa, $10 on a three-month one. When in doubt, choose multiple entry.
A photograph taken straight on, no glasses, is the whole of what the portal specifies. It is also easy to get wrong, and a rejected image stalls the file. Five points keep an image out of trouble:
A phone, daylight and a white wall will do it. A face cut out of a beach photo will not.
Almost every Vanuatu traveler lands at Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN), and the route map decides that, not the rules. Brisbane is the one hub within easy reach of Port Vila with a nonstop into Vietnam, and it goes south: Vietjet flies Brisbane to Ho Chi Minh City without a change of plane.
Noi Bai in Hanoi (HAN) is next, through Sydney, which Jetstar serves nonstop from Port Vila. Da Nang (DAD) is an eVisa checkpoint and the gateway to Hoi An and Hue, but always costs two stops. Phu Quoc (PQC) is a checkpoint in its own right, a domestic hop away.
Once you are in the region, land and sea coverage starts to matter. Twenty-seven land crossings accept eVisa holders and so do 39 seaports, which makes a return overland from Cambodia or Laos straightforward. Nothing on the issued document names a port of entry any more, so the checkpoint you nominated is not binding.
⚠️ A pre-arrival declaration is now expected at the airports you will genuinely be using. The Immigration Department's Pre-Arrival Information system sits at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn, running at Tan Son Nhat since 15 April 2026, Phu Quoc since 1 June, and Noi Bai and Da Nang since 15 June 2026. Passport, flight and accommodation details go in during the three days before you land, and a QR code comes back. Vietnamese state media treats it as mandatory, the UK Foreign Office says it is not currently a legal requirement, so file it. It is not a visa.
The end of 2025 made this a much costlier mistake. Decree 282/2025 replaced Decree 144/2021 from 15 December and took the maximum fine from VND 20 million to VND 40 million, a doubling to something close to USD 1,520.
Bands govern what you pay. Under 16 days falls in VND 500,000 to 2 million, around USD 19 to 76. From 16 to 30 days it becomes VND 5 to 10 million, around USD 190 to 380, and the bands continue up to the VND 40 million ceiling. December 2025 exchange rates produced those dollar figures.
Money is the least of it. Deportation and a bar on returning are both on the table, and UK Foreign Office guidance notes that Vietnamese authorities can stop you leaving until the fine is paid. Being held in Vietnam while that clears, with a Port Vila service running three or four times a week, costs far more than any fine.
⚠️ Issue date, not arrival date, sets when your stay ends. The entry date you typed into the form generates the validity window printed on the PDF, so turning up three days late takes three days off the trip rather than adding them to the end. Count from the printed exit date, and in cyclone season build slack in at both ends.
No, and no Vietnamese consulate anywhere in Vanuatu. Responsibility sits with the Vietnamese Embassy in Canberra, whose ambassador is accredited to five South Pacific island states. That is the practical case for the eVisa here: the alternative is your passport in the post to Australia.
Fewer than a few years ago. The European Union moved Vanuatu to its visa-required list under Regulation (EU) 2025/11, in force 3 February 2025, and the UK imposed a visa requirement on ni-Vanuatu visitors in July 2023, both citing the citizenship-by-investment scheme. Vietnam is separate and unchanged: it has never exempted Vanuatu.
Not through us. Those letters are outside what we file. The scheme survives as pre-approval paperwork, covers a handful of airports and no land or sea border, and still has to be arranged before departure. With two flights and an overnight behind you, a counter queue is the last thing you want.
It depends on the dates printed on it. The eVisa carries fixed valid-from and valid-to dates taken from the entry date you gave, and arriving later does not move the exit date. Entry is allowed on or after the valid-from date, so a short delay is survivable, but the PDF cannot be edited once issued.
Strictly, no. A direct arrival from abroad by air or sea, followed by a stay confined to the island, earns 30 days without one. Nowhere in the Pacific flies to Phu Quoc, so the trip goes airside through Ho Chi Minh City and onto a domestic sector, and that still qualifies as direct. Most travelers buy the eVisa anyway, since a single mainland night voids the waiver.
Getting there takes a full day, often two. Bauerfield in Port Vila (VLI) handles nearly every international journey out of Vanuatu, and nothing leaves it for Asia. Two flights is the shortest version: Port Vila to Brisbane, about 2 hours 40 minutes nonstop with Virgin Australia, then Brisbane to Ho Chi Minh City nonstop, which still eats close to a day because the Vietnam departure goes late at night. Sydney is the alternative, served nonstop by Jetstar, and Vietnam Airlines puts Sydney to Ho Chi Minh City at about 8 hours 50 minutes and Sydney to Hanoi at about 10 hours 5 minutes. Auckland is 3 hours 15 minutes away with Solomon Airlines, but neither it nor Nadi has a nonstop to Vietnam, so those routings add a third sector through Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. Frequency, not distance, is the constraint: most Port Vila services run three or four times a week, so an overnight in Australia is common and 30 hours door to door is normal.
Vietnam is four hours behind you, not ahead. Vanuatu keeps Vanuatu Time at UTC+11 with no daylight saving, repealed by its Summer Time (Repeal) Act of 1993, against Vietnam's UTC+7. Our 08:00 to 21:00 support window is therefore midday to 01:00 the next morning in Port Vila, so even a late-evening message still lands inside our working day. Our guide to time in Vietnam has more.
Plan around the Vanuatu calendar, and around the weather. The Prime Minister's Office holiday list for 2026 puts Independence Day on Thursday 30 July, straight after Children's Day on 24 July, with Chiefs Day on 5 March, Constitution Day on 5 October, National Unity Day on 29 November and Family Day on 26 December. Late July is the busiest stretch of the year and the worst week to need a document reissued at home. Weather is the bigger constraint. The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-hazards Department describes November to April as the tropical cyclone season, peaking in January and February, with two to three cyclones crossing the area in a season. Flights out of Port Vila are the first thing to go when a system tracks through, so leave margin between the entry date on your eVisa and the day you fly.
Payment is in US dollars. Your card issuer converts from vatu at its own rate, so expect a small gap between the screen price and your statement. Vietnam runs on the dong once you land, and cards work well in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City but thin out beyond them. Our Vietnam visa guide and our answers to common visa questions cover the rest, and anyone in your group on an Australian passport should read the Australia page.