Vietnam visa procedure and travel guide for South African expats

Vietnam, one of the most attractive tourist destinations in Southeast Asia with many things to offer: Amazing landscapes, delicious food, cheap living expense and friendly people. With a population of more than 94 million people, Vietnam owns a young, active workforce, and an enormous market. Vietnam is definitely a promising destination for South African as well as other people from all over the world to travel and to experience an extraordinary expat life.

When one South African thinks of travelling to Vietnam for any purposes either for spending a holiday or to look for a new life as expat in Vietnam, they would need to know about Vietnam visa requirement, how South African can get Vietnam visa easily. Basically, there are 2 options for South African to get visa to Vietnam.

1. Applying Vietnam visa for South African at Vietnamese Embassy/ Consulate

Definitely the first idea which comes to one’s mind when they think of getting Vietnam visa in South Africa is to applying for Vietnam visa at Vietnam Embassy in South Africa. For South African citizen who live in South Africa, they tend to apply for Vietnam visa directly at Vietnam Embassy with a belief that this is the only way to get legal visa for Vietnam on their passport before travelling to Vietnam. In order to apply for Vietnam visa, it is required that applicants must present necessary documents in person at Vietnam Embassy which includes:

• Completed Vietnam visa application form
• Original passport (with 6 months validity from date of entry)
• 01 passport sized photo (color)
• Return flight ticket (South Africa- Vietnam- South Africa)
• Payment for Vietnam visa fee in cash

It is highly recommended that you should read detail requirements and instruction for Vietnam Visa at Official website of Vietnam Embassy in South African before submitting your Vietnam visa request there in order to avoid any unwanted troubles.

Also, you must prepare a completed file of documents as informed or else your visa application will be failed to be approved. Consequently, you must change your schedule to Vietnam and you will lose the Vietnam visa fee which is paid at Vietnam Embassy. Furthermore, processing time at Vietnam Embassy would take upto 7 working days to get Vietnam visa issued, you should pay attention to this time frame and arrange appropriate date for getting your Vietnam visa issued in time.

If you would need any further detail about getting Vietnam visa at Vietnam Embassy in South Africa, you should contact them directly.

Embassy of Vietnam in Pretoria, South Africa

Address: 87 Brooks St., Brooklyn, Pretoria, 0083, PO Box 13692, Hatfield 0028,Republic of South Africa

Phone: (012) 430 7378

Fax: (012) 342 8441

Email: embassy@vietnam.co.za

2. Applying Vietnam visa on arrival for South African at: Vietnamvisavoa.com

While talking with South African travelers, we realized that South African have no ideas about Vietnam visa on arrival. They do not know that Vietnam visa on arrival is applicable for South African citizens. They believe that applying for Vietnam visa at Vietnam Embassy is the unique method to get visa for Vietnam legally and we are pleased to announce that South African passport holders have an alternative much simple way to get Vietnam visa, which is Vietnam visa on arrival.

How does Vietnam visa on arrival work?

When talking about visa on arrival, almost people would assume that they will just simply take with them the passport and then collect stamped visa upon arrival. This is true for Thailand visa on arrival or Cambodia visa on arrival but it is completely NOT TRUE for Vietnam visa on arrival.

In order to get Vietnam visa on arrival, one must submit a Vietnamese visa application form; have a Vietnam visa approval letter issued by Department of Vietnam Immigration to check in your flight, finally to have Vietnam visa stamped at Vietnam International airports. Please note that you will not be able to skip the process of submitting Vietnam visa application form online as without this document, no airlines will allow you to check in the flight.

What are requirements for South African to get Vietnam visa on arrival?

There is no special requirement for South African when they want to apply for Vietnam visa on arrival. Like other nationalities, applicants just need to submit a Vietnam visa application form online with their passport details for instance: Full name, nationality, date of birth..Etc and some necessary information for their trip like: Entry/exit date, arrival airport, visa type.

How does South African apply for Vietnam visa on arrival?

Step 1. Submit Vietnam visa application form:

The first step is to fill in a visa application form for Vietnam online at Vietnamvisavoa.com with your passport detail and information for your trip. It just takes you several minutes to finish the online form. In case there are other people to travel with you, you should group them in 01 form to save your time and also you will be offered a much better discount on service fee for group from 2 applicants.

Step 2. Pay Vietnam visa service fee

You will pay service fee for Vietnam visa for us by different methods: Bank transfer, Pay online with Credit Card/ Debit Card, Paypal or Western Union. We will do all legal necessary procedure to have your Vietnam visa order approved at Vietnam Immigration Department. Vietnam visa service fee would be different for specific cases depend upon your Vietnam visa duration (01 month single/ multiple, 03 months single/multiple, 06 months multiple or 01 year multiple entry), your Vietnam visa type whether it is a Tourist/DL visa or Business/ DN visa.

Currently, we offer the below price to applicants who have South African nationality:

Vietnam Tourist visa fee

Tourist visa	Service fee	Stamping fee (cash only)
	Processing time within 2 working days
1 month single	$18	$25
1 month multiple	$22	$50
3 month single	$30	$25
3 months multiple	$50	$50

Vietnam business Visa fee

Business visa	Service fee	Stamping fee (cash only)
	Processing time within 5 working days
1 month single	$79	$25
1 month multiple	$90	$50
3 month single	$110	$25
3 months multiple	$119	$50
6 months multiple	$250	$95
1 year multiple	$450	$135

Step 3. Collect your Vietnam visa approval letter

After submission of your Vietnam visa application form, you will receive your Vietnam visa approval letter in your email inbox within 2 working days for tourist visa, if you apply for Vietnam business visa; you expect to collect your Vietnam visa approval letter after 5-7 business day. In urgent cases, you can ask for upgrading to RUSH service with extra fee.

Once you receive the Vietnam visa approval letter, you are recommended to double check the information includes: Full Name, nationality, passport number, gender, visa type, and visa validity. If you find any mistakes, immediately you must let us know to find the solution in time. In some cases, for some special reasons that your Vietnam visa request is not approved by Vietnam Immigration Department, we will write a notice to your email and 100% service charge will be refunded to your account.

Step 4. Stamp Vietnam visa on arrival

To get permission for flying into Vietnam, you need to show the copy of Vietnam visa approval letter, your passport. Upon Vietnam airport, you deliver Vietnam visa approval letter, Vietnamese Visa application form attached with 01 passport photo and pay for stamping fee in cash to Vietnam Immigration officer at Visa on arrival or Landing visa to have a Vietnam visa sticker on your passport. You should check carefully your Vietnam visa validity and your visa category once receiving the passport back. If you find any mistakes, you must inform to the Immigration officer right there or else they will disacknowledge their faults.

For any other concerns or inquiries about Vietnam visa for South African or need any tips on travelling to Vietnam, feel free to let us know at:

Website: Vietnamvisavoa.com

Hotline: +84969255515

Email: Support@vietnamvisavoa.com