Short answer: Vietnam exempts 18 of the 27 EU member states from needing a visa, for stays of up to 45 days. The other nine need one: Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Portugal. There is no EU-wide rule — Vietnam decides country by country, and the two lists sit right next to each other on the map.
This page exists because that gap catches people out in a specific and expensive way. An Austrian reads German advice. An Irish traveller reads British advice. An Estonian reads Finnish advice. In all three cases the neighbour is exempt and they are not, and the place they find out is the check-in desk.
Ask online, we answer right awayType your question on this page. No app to install, no number to save.Ask onlineThe nine EU countries that need a visa
If your passport is from one of these, you need an e-visa before you fly. No length of stay is exempt.
- Austria — Germany and Switzerland are both exempt; Austria is not
- Cyprus
- Estonia — Finland and Sweden are exempt; Estonia is not
- Greece — Italy, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia are all exempt; Greece is not
- Ireland — the UK is exempt; Ireland is not
- Latvia
- Lithuania — Poland is exempt; Lithuania is not
- Malta
- Portugal — Spain is exempt; Portugal is not
Every one of them borders or sits beside an exempt country. That is not a coincidence in the rules — it is why the confusion is so consistent.
The 18 EU countries that are exempt
Citizens of these countries may enter for up to 45 days without a visa, on any passport type, provided they meet Vietnam’s ordinary entry conditions. The purpose rule is not the same for all of them: the seven under Resolution 44 — Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden — may come for any purpose, while the eleven under Resolution 229 are exempt for tourism only:
Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
Outside the EU, the same 45-day exemption covers the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland and Russia, along with Japan and South Korea. Belarus is visa-free too, but for 30 days, under its own bilateral agreement.
Where these lists come from
Two Vietnamese government resolutions, and it is worth knowing which is which because they have different histories:
| Instrument | Countries | Purpose | In force |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution 44/NQ-CP (7 March 2025) | Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland | Any | to 14 March 2028 |
| Resolution 229 (15 August 2025) | Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland | Tourism only | to 14 August 2028 |
Resolution 229 doubled the list in August 2025. That is recent enough that a great deal of published advice — including some official pages — has not caught up. It is also why anything you read that lists “12 exempt countries” is describing the situation before August 2025.
They do not expire together: Resolution 44 runs to 14 March 2028 and Resolution 229 to 14 August 2028. Both are renewable and have been renewed before, but they are not permanent, and a page written today cannot promise you what 2029 looks like.
Why so many people get this wrong
The EU is not a bloc here. Schengen, the single market and EU passport rights create a reasonable expectation that entry rules are shared. For Vietnam they are not. Eighteen member states are exempt and nine are not, and nothing about which is which follows a pattern you could guess — Bulgaria and Romania are exempt while Austria and Ireland are not.
Advice travels across borders, rules don’t. The English-language travel internet is dominated by British writing, and “you can visit Vietnam without a visa for up to 45 days” is accurate on gov.uk. It is wrong for an Irish passport. The same happens in German between Germany and Austria, and in the Nordic-Baltic media space between Finland and Estonia.
Some pages are simply out of date. Vietnam’s own Ministry of Foreign Affairs exemption page was last updated on 30 June 2025 — before Resolution 229 — and still shows the shorter list. If the ministry’s own page can lag, a travel blog certainly can.
If you are in the nine: what you actually need
The standard route is the official e-visa at evisa.gov.vn:
- Up to 90 days — twice what the exempt countries get
- Single or multiple entry, chosen at application and not changeable afterwards
- USD 25 single entry, USD 50 multiple, paid on the government portal
- 3 working days in normal conditions, counted in Vietnamese working days
Two things about that timing that the form does not tell you. The clock starts at payment, not submission — and Vietnamese gateways decline a lot of European cards on first attempt, which means the application does not exist and nothing tells you so. And “working days” means Hanoi’s calendar: weekends and Vietnamese public holidays do not count, and Tet closes the immigration department for roughly a week.
Nobody can buy priority from the government
There is no official express tier and no priority fee on the portal. Any service claiming to sell “official express processing” is describing something that does not exist — and that claim is the single most reliable way to identify a service worth avoiding.
What agencies actually do is narrower and real: check the application before it is filed so it does not bounce, submit inside Hanoi working hours, and follow it up through channels available to people filing in volume. That compresses the tail. It does not move you up the queue.
If you have three weeks, file it yourself and keep the fee. The form is tedious but not difficult. Paying someone starts to make arithmetic sense when you are inside a week, unsure about the photo rules, or already in trouble.
The mistakes that actually cost people their trip
The photo. This rejects more applications than every other cause combined — plain white background, no glasses, no head covering, ears visible, face square to the camera. A phone photo against a cream wall fails, and the rejection notice does not say which rule you broke. See photo rejected.
Assuming a rejection can be appealed. It cannot. You file again and pay again, which is why finding the real cause first matters: rejected and reapplying.
Reading “Processing” as a warning. It is not, at any duration. There is no partial approval and the status does not degrade — see still processing.
Checking the PDF at the airport. Check it the day it arrives. Name, date of birth, passport number, validity window, entry port. A wrong field cannot be amended — it needs a fresh application — and Vietnamese border control matches the document to the passport by machine.
Staying longer than 45 days
The exemption is 45 days per entry, counted from the day you arrive. If the trip is longer, the clean route is the e-visa before you fly: up to 90 days, USD 25 single or USD 50 multiple entry — being on the exempt list does not stop you applying. Once you are in Vietnam you cannot file an e-visa for yourself. The options there are leaving and re-entering, which starts a new 45 days, or an extension filed through a Vietnamese sponsor, such as a company or relative, which is not automatic.
If your passport is from a Resolution 229 country and the trip is not tourism — a conference, client meetings, a trade fair — the exemption does not cover it at any length. Enter on an e-visa issued for that purpose.
The terms for every visa-free country, including those outside Europe, are on Vietnam visa exemption countries.
Country guides
Detailed pages for the larger of the nine, each covering the local timing quirk and the specific confusion that country runs into:
- Ireland — and why British advice does not apply to you
- United Kingdom — for comparison: exempt, 45 days
Common questions
Does Schengen membership help? No. Vietnam’s list is not connected to Schengen, the EU or the euro. Ireland is in the EU and not exempt; Switzerland is in neither the EU nor the euro and is exempt.
My friend flew from the same airport without a visa. The exemption follows the passport, not the departure airport or the airline.
I have dual nationality — can I use the exempt passport? Yes, provided you enter and exit on that passport consistently and it is valid for six months beyond your stay.
Can the 45-day exemption be extended inside Vietnam? Not by you. An extension, or a new visa issued inside the country, has to be filed by a Vietnamese sponsor — a company, organisation or relative — and approval is not automatic. If you know you need longer, apply for the 90-day e-visa before you travel — see extensions for what is and is not possible once you are there.
Ask online, we answer right awayUnusual case, or flying tomorrow? Ask before you order.Ask onlineThe short version
- Nine EU countries need a visa: Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal
- The other 18 get 45 days visa-free — as do the UK, Norway, Switzerland and Russia. The eleven EU states added in August 2025 are exempt for tourism only
- The lists come from Resolution 44/NQ-CP (in force to 14 March 2028) and Resolution 229 (to 14 August 2028)
- Check your own passport, not your neighbour’s — that is the error that puts people at the check-in desk without a visa
- If you need one and have three weeks, file it yourself at evisa.gov.vn