Earlier in 2022 the Vietnamese Immigration department dropped a bomb on all of us that live here and work as digital nomads and it has stung a lot of people to the point where a great many people who work remotely have just left to go to a different country rather than have to jump through hoops every 30 days.
At first I thought that it wouldn't be so bad to be forced to go on a short vacation somewhere...anywhere... it didn't really matter. The only thing that Vietnam was requiring was that people leave Vietnam in order to get a new stamp to come back in. This is something that happens in many countries all around the world although the 30 day limit is a bit much to ask of people particularly when the airport in the city you choose to live in doesn't really go to very many places. It used to, but Covid kind of put a stop to all of that as tourism here has taken a massive hit and doesn't seem likely to recover anytime soon.
The visas prior to Covid were 3-month visas and they could be extended by leaving the country for just an instant and then paying $25 for a new visa. I know people that have been here for years and never had a problem renewing these visas. It did kind of seem like the Vietnamese Immigration were a bit annoyed about the fact that people would have dozens of consecutive visas in their passports and I don't know if this annoyance was because they had to do unnecessary extra work, or annoyance because people were getting visa after visa and nearly no one was ever refused. I've never heard of it happening anyway. Well, that is until earlier this year when the entire visa game got flipped on its head.
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These days the people who have built a life for themselves in Vietnam have the same options as far as staying basically indefinitely, it is just a case of being inconvenienced every 30 days with needing to do a border run. This got particularly bad in March-June when there were many instances of people needing to get something called and E-Visa and this could only be applied for once someone had already exited Vietnam. Therefore, sometimes people would lose their return flights from wherever they were because they had not yet gotten their E-visa and no reason for why this was the case was ever provided. Some suspect it was because Vietnam no longer wants digital nomads living in the country and this was odd seeing as how they spent a lot of time and money advertising this place as a great place for people to do exactly that.
Whatever the reason was, the E-Visa program seems to have improved and now everyone that I know is approved for their E-Visa almost immediately. It could be a complicated computer system or database for all we know but the fact of the matter is that getting this visa is almost always a one or two day thing whereas earlier this year there were instances of it taking a week, which is ridiculous.
I don't know if the government has decided to start playing nice with digital nomads or not but the appearance is that people are not having any difficulty renewing visas at all, at least for now.
I suppose the next step that would make me really happy would be if they were to come up with some sort of REAL digital nomad visa that someone could apply for. If it is money they are after (and what government isn't) they could simply ask for it and I think most of the nomads would probably pony up for it. Every 30 days almost everyone I know is forced to spend hundreds of dollars to go on these visa runs and I am sure that most of them would much rather just give that money to the government for the ease of being simply allowed to stay here.
Time will tell I guess. For the time being it at least appears as though the government is taking a more relaxed approach and approving almost anyone that applies in a rapid manner. I suppose that is about as good of news as we can hope for right now.