Vietnam from Bangkok

Entry rules

The e-visa is the standard route for a holiday or a short stay. You apply online, receive the document electronically, and present it on arrival. There are also visa exemption schemes for some nationalities and a separate process for certain longer stays, but for an Australian passport on a normal trip, the e-visa is what you're buying.

The 90-day figure comes from Smartraveller, the Australian Government's travel advice, checked on 26 October 2026. It also makes a point worth repeating: your details must match your passport exactly. A misspelt middle name can mean a significant charge at check-in, or being refused boarding.

On visa on arrival. Australian passport holders can use it, but it needs a pre-approval letter arranged before you fly, and that letter is a separate cost on top of the US$25 or US$50 stamping fee. In 2025, of roughly 548,000 Australian visitors to Vietnam, 83% applied for an e-visa and only 3% used visa on arrival. That ratio is the useful signal: it works, and almost nobody bothers, because the letter adds a step and a fee for a result the e-visa gives you outright.

There is one loose end worth knowing about. Smartraveller, the Australian Government's advice, currently states that Australian passport holders can't get a visa on arrival — which contradicts the visa agencies and the scheme itself. I've left both claims on this page rather than pick a winner. If you'd rather not carry that uncertainty to a check-in desk, take the e-visa; it has no such ambiguity.

Carry a printed copy. You may be asked for one at check-in and again on arrival, and a PDF on a phone that has run out of battery is not a visa.

Getting there from Bangkok

Bangkok is one of the easiest places in the region to fly from, and Vietnam is one of the shortest hops. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are both roughly two hours, which means a weekend is genuinely feasible rather than optimistic. Da Nang sits in the middle and is the useful entry point if you want Hoi An without a domestic connection.

Direct flights go from Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang, and the low-cost carriers fly the route heavily. Because it's short and contested, prices move a lot — booking a few weeks out is usually cheaper than either last-minute or months ahead.

When to go

Vietnam is long and thin, and this is the thing that catches people. The north and the south do not share a season, so "when is Vietnam best" has no single answer.

If you only have a week from Bangkok, pick one region rather than trying to see the country. Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City is a 1,600-kilometre trip. People do it in a week and regret it.

One date worth knowing regardless of region: Tet, the lunar new year, falls in late January or February. It's a wonderful time to be in the country and a terrible time to move around it — trains and buses sell out, and plenty of businesses close for a week or more.

What I haven't covered

One exemption worth knowing

Phu Quoc, the island in the Gulf of Thailand, has its own visa exemption: travellers arriving directly from abroad can stay up to 30 days without a visa. If your whole trip is the island, that may mean you don't need a visa at all.

The detail that matters is "arriving directly from abroad". Fly into Phu Quoc from outside Vietnam and the exemption applies; route through Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi first and you're in Vietnam proper, needing a visa for the domestic leg. Check the current conditions on the official site before you build a trip around it.

Who needs a visa, by passport

Vietnam is not one rule for everyone. It grants a 45-day visa exemption to a specific list of countries, and everyone else buys an e-visa. That single fact changes what you do before you fly, and it splits the English-speaking world in half.

The 45-day exemption covers: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Read that list carefully if you hold an EU passport, because it is not all of the EU. Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Portugal are not on it — those travellers need an e-visa like Australians and Americans do. A French and a Greek passport face different rules for the same trip.

If you're on the exemption list, you still get stamped on arrival, and the stamp is what matters. Check the exit date written in your passport before you leave border control.

What things cost

These are scraped from Numbeo on 26 October 2026 and converted at the rates in the sources. Numbeo is crowd-sourced, not a price list, so treat each figure as the level you should expect rather than a quote. It's the best independent comparison available, and it's honest about being an average.

Compare against Bangkok on the Southeast Asia hub — it's the baseline most people reading this site are working from.

The cost table above is crowd-sourced, not first-hand — I've labelled it that way because this site's other pages quote our own receipts and this one can't. What's still missing is accommodation and flight pricing, and I'd rather leave that gap visible than fill it with numbers nobody can check.