Effective immediately, business visas for Vietnam will no longer be issued on arrival to any applicant, regardless of nationality. All foreign nationals must apply for business visas to be endorsed into their passports at the Vietnamese Consulate or Embassy in their home country or country of residence prior to entry to Vietnam. Processing time of one to two weeks, depending on filing location, should be allowed for.

Previously, it was possible to obtain business visas on arrival for most applicants, provided a pre-approval application had been submitted and approved in Vietnam prior to arrival.

This new regulation affects the corporate work approval process, since the standard corporate immigration process for Vietnam is to arrive on business visitor status and to make the work permit application post arrival. That business visitor status can now only be obtained by applying for business visas at the Vietnamese consulate/Embassy prior to entry, once pre-approval has been obtained. The additional processing time of one to two weeks should be factored in to the total lead time before an assignee may arrive in Vietnam.

Business visas will be multiple entry, valid for three months. It is important to note that the three months will be counted from the date of arrival as noted in the visa request letter when the pre-approval application is filed and not from the date of actual visa issuance. For example, if a visa pre-approval application is submitted with a visa request letter stating date of arrival as 1st March 2010, the three months of validity will start from this moment, and the visa will be valid until 1st June 2010 – even if the visa itself was issued on 20th February 2010.

Tourist visas are unaffected. Tourist visas may still be applied for at the Vietnamese consulate/Embassy in the home country or a pre-approval application may be submitted in Vietnam which will allow the visitor to obtain the visa endorsement at the airport upon arrival. Note that tourist visas on arrival are not available for visitors entering by land.

Source: Emigra