When searching for Vietnam visa for UK citizens, you, like me, may get loads of information. To make it easier for you, I wish to share you here the information I got chance to know into => When searching for Vietnam visa for UK citizens, you, like me, may get loads of information. To make it easier for you, I wish to share you here the information I got chance to know from Vietnam-visa.com – a Vietnam visa service provider since 2007. Hopefully with my post, you, as holders of UK passports, do not have look around elsewhere when your issue comes from visa to this country.
- Vietnam visa requirements for UK passport holders
Great news is that the Vietnam government has granted us 15 days staying in their country without a visa. But it’s just a unilateral agreement, it means that we get visa exemption in case our arrival date does not fall within 30 days from exit date of our last stay in Vietnam with visa exemption.
What if we wish to stay there for more than 15 days?
The answer is that we should obtain a visa. Why? We can extend our visa exemption when we are in the country, however, as long as I know, the process is much more complicated and costly than obtaining a visa while getting the visa there is a hassle-free process. So, what should we do? J
What if we wish to back to Vietnam within 30 days from exit date of our last visit with visa exemption?
The answer is that we must obtain the visa.
- Guide to get a visa to Vietnam for UK passport holders
Another great news for UK passport holders is that we now have 2 ways to obtain the visa for Vietnam, as follows:
- Get visa via Vietnam embassy (in our UK or in any country convenient for us); OR
- Get a Vietnam visa on arrival (VOA).
Which one is better? I will give a brief guide here for you.
2.1 Vietnam embassy visa
With this option, we will get full visa before our departure for Vietnam. The issuing authority in this case is the Vietnam embassy.
Required documents: At minimum, we will need to submit our original passport and a hard copy of completed application form to the embassy. Remember to download the form on website of the embassy or take it from the embassy you wish to submit your application to as they will not accept application form of others. Some embassies also ask you to submit flight ticket, and others. So, you should contact them in advance for details.
How to submit: Some embassies may accept application documents submitted in person, by post or by a third party with letter of authorization. So, you are once more recommended to contact them for details.
Processing time: normally, it takes 5-7 working days to get the visa processed by the embassy.
Visa cost: in obtaining this kind of visa, we only need to pay once. However, its fee is not often published.
I suggest this way for those traveling to Vietnam via borders crossing. While for those traveling to Vietnam by air, the latter may be better.
2.1 Vietnam visa on arrival
In my opinion, this option is much more convenient, but, for air travelers only. If you travel to land or cruise, the former is still the single option.
Unlike the former, with this option, we will not get the full visa beforehand, but the visa approval letter (issued by the Vietnam Immigration Department via a travel agent) which lets us board the flight and get visa stamped upon arrival at Vietnam airport. But REMEMBER to get the visa approval letter before departure as without it, we cannot get our flight.
Required documents: None at all for application.
How to submit: With VOA, we only need to fill out an online form for visa approval letter. This whole process is completed online.
Processing time: Within 2 working days from our submission of application form and payment of service fee, we will get the visa approval letter processed and sent to our email. And then we will need approximately 15-30 minutes at Vietnam airport to get visa stamped onto passport.
We can speed up processing of visa approval letter (even within 2-4 working hours) with a bit more money.
Visa cost: with VOA, we need to pay 2 kinds of fee: service fee to be paid to the travel agent to get visa approval letter, and stamping fee to be paid in cash to the immigration officer to get visa stamped. Its total cost may be less or higher than the cost of embassy visa, but it is clearly published.
So, to conclude, all UK passport holders do not need a visa if we are just to stay in the country for less than 15 days and our arrival date is more than 30 days from exit date of our last visit with visa exemption. In case a visa is needed, we have two ways to so do: do it via the embassy or do it via a local travel agent to get VOA. If you like to latter, I suggest you https://www.vietnam-visa.com/ which I have read a lot of positive reviews about them.
