Vietnam visa for citizens of Africa countries

To visit Vietnam, one of the most important things travelers should prepare in advance is Vietnam visa, which allows you to enter and stay in the country legally.  According to Vietnam Immigration policy, visa requirement for citizens of each country is not same. Because of diplomatic relation between Vietnam and the countries in Africa (except South Africa), it may be more complicated to issue Vietnam visa for these citizens than citizens from other countries. To have general view and needful preparations to get Vietnam visa for African citizens, below information should be noted down.

1. Applicable Vietnam visa types for African citizens

According to the policy of Vietnam immigration, Vietnam visa is generally divided into 4 sub-types: 1 month single entry visa, 1 month multiple entries visa, 3 month single entry visa and 3 month multiple entries visa. Single entry visa allows you to have only one entry to Vietnam. During valid period of visa, if you leave Vietnam, you single entry visa will expire. In contrast, multiple entries visa allows foreigners to enter and exit unlimited times within visa’s duration. Therefore before requesting Vietnam visa, applicants should pay attention to planning your trip to choose a suitable visa type.

For African citizens, getting 1 month or 3 months visa also depends upon whether you have sponsor company in Vietnam or not. The details about available Vietnam visa types for African citizens is quoted clearly below.

2. Requirements to apply for Vietnam visa for Africans

To get Vietnam visa, foreigners are required to have ordinary passport that has 6 months of validity and 2 blanks pages (1 page for Vietnam visa stamping and the other one for immigration seal) at least. In case, if your passport is going to finish its pages, but you still use it to apply for Vietnam visa, pre-approved Vietnam visa can be still issued for you as Vietnam visa can be requested online without original document and Vietnam immigration department cannot check un-used pages in your passport. However when you go to Vietnam, there is no any airline will accept you to get on plane with a finished passport. Thus, foreigner should check your passport to make sure about its pages and validity length before applying for visa. In case your passport will expire soon or the number blank page is less than 2, you should contact immigration office of your country to extend or renew your passport, and then you can do further needful to get Vietnam visa.

In addition, due to the latest policy about Vietnam visa for citizens from Africa countries, almost countries of Africa are listed in special list of Vietnam visa requirements. To issue Vietnam visa for these citizens, Vietnam Immigration Department requires the proof applicant’s return ticket to Vietnam, scanned passport’s main page copy of applicant, and applicant’s accommodation reservation. Moreover, basing on this policy, these citizens wishing to enter Vietnam for business purpose are required to have an invitation or sponsor letter from company/ organization in Vietnam that you will work for or a legitimated visa agent. For foreigners wishing to request for 3 month visa, you are also required to have invitation/ guarantee letter. According to working regime of Vietnam Immigration Department, any 3 month visa request will be issued as business visa. For travelers from Africa entering Vietnam for tourist purpose and having no any business partner in Vietnam to provide invitation letter, the applied visa type in this case is 1 month single entry visa only.

3. Processing time and Vietnam visa cost for citizens from Africa

If African citizens can have invitation/guarantee letter from a company in Vietnam, your Vietnam visa can be issued within 4 working days. And the cost to get Vietnam visa is USD 240/ person for 1 month single entry visa and USD 290/ person for 1 month multiple entries, 3 month single, 3 months multiple entries visa.

For citizens from Africa wishing to enter Vietnam without invitation letter, we can be your sponsor requesting Vietnam visa at the Immigration Department of Vietnam on your behalf. Because it takes few days to complete guarantee requirements before submitting visa request, waiting time to get Vietnam visa in this case is longer than applying visa with guarantee letter. For details, it may take 8 to 9 working days except Sunday and Saturday to get Vietnam visa approval letter issued. In addition, as guarantee fee will be charged, approval cost of Vietnam visa is also higher. Specific fee is USD 290/ person for 1 month single entry visa. Because of long time processing, foreigners should consider your plan carefully and apply for Vietnam visa about 2 week before travel date to make sure that there is enough time for Vietnam Immigration Department to process your visa request.

4. Procedure to get Vietnam visa for African citizens

After getting all necessary information, travelers can make few simple steps to apply for Vietnam visa as below:

-          Complete Vietnam visa application online

-          Send invitation/guarantee letter (if any), your return ticket to Vietnam, the scan copy of your passport’s main page, and your accommodation reservation to support email support@evietnamvisa.com

-          Make payment for visa approval fee basing on visa type you request by credit card via PayPal, OnePay, or send visa fee via Bank Transfer, Western Union.

-          Receive Vietnam visa approval letter sent to your registered email after processing time

After getting Vietnam visa approval letter, what you should do is to print it out. In addition, you should prepare 2 passport-sized photos with you, and put them into same place together with printed visa approval letter copy and your original passport. Please kindly remember to prepare some dollars in cash for stamping fee also. And now, you are ready to visit Vietnam. Upon arrival at Vietnam airport, by presenting these documents for Vietnam immigration officers to check, you will get official Vietnam visa stamped onto your passport.

For any further information relating to preparation to get Vietnam visa for African citizens, please feel free to contact us via email support@evietnamvisa.com or hotline (+84) 943 25 25 52.