The rumors are everywhere. Social media is abuzz with talk about this rumor and it has even been published in English language online news sites as well as ones in Vietnamese. The people overwhelmingly support the renewal of the 90 day tourist visa especially here in Da Nang, which is one of the most popular tourist and digital nomad destinations in the entire country.
These rumors have happened in the past though and nothing ever came of them, so I am hoping for the best but preparing for nothing to change. There are a lot of people that would benefit from changing the 30 day visa back to 90 days, as it was for many years prior to the program abruptly ending during Covid and never being reinstated.
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Back when I first moved here things were even better for Americans because for some reason, USA citizens were entitled to a 1-year visa that was a mere $100. This was a multiple entry visa and you still had to depart the country once every 90 days but you didn't have to re-apply for a visa each time. This saved a lot of time and a little bit of money even though the cost of 3 month visas was exactly 1/4 what the 1-year visa cost. I suppose that it was nice because you only had to do paperwork once a year instead of 4 times. Paperwork sucks so anytime we can cut down on that, I'm for it!
There is no talk about re-instating the USA only 1-year visa and that is fine if they don't. Them limiting the visas to just 30 days is something I have never understood and there are a lot of business owners in tourist areas that have been appealing to the government to change it back.
While to some people it seems absurd that someone would go on vacation for 90 days, there are actually a lot of people that do it. These people tend to be older and have quite a lot of money as well, and this works out very nicely for the people who own tourism oriented condos, restaurants, and bars. With the government changing it to 30 days per go, a lot of people have already left and many more are talking about doing the same if it doesn't change. It is simply too much of a pain in the butt to get on a flight, sit in an airport in another country, go though Immigration 4 times and then return to your condo 10 hours later. The government is very aware that people are doing this and they don't make any effort to stop people from doing them endlessly. The government also isn't getting more money because of forcing people to do additional visa runs so it really don't make a lot of sense.
They don't care that people live here for years on end on tourist visas, so returning to the 90 day visas would make a lot of sense. I would like to see the introduction of retirement visas as well, which are oddly unavailable here despite the fact that they exist in almost every other SE Asian country.
Each visa run on a plane ends up costing somewhere between $150 to $200 and very little of this money actually ends up in the pockets of the government so I ask again, why are they doing this? They clearly don't care that people stay here long-term, so why bother? There was some talk about how this was intended originally to boost the numbers for Vietnamese owned airlines but now there are a bunch of non Vietnamese airlines that are doing the same routes that previously were only initially allowed for Vietnam Airlines and other airlines owned by Vietnam. It is a little suspicious that right around the time that other nation's airlines get involved with international travel and are offering it for less than the Vietnamese airlines do, that the visas become something that they are possibly going to change. I suppose that is how corruption works around the world though.
I normally wouldn't take these rumors seriously but lately major visa service providers who organize multiple buses many times a week are talking about how the schedule will change in May due to the 90-day visa being re-introduced.
Lynn Visa makes a ton of money off of ushering hundreds of people a day up to Laos and back simply for the sake of getting a new Vietnam visa, so there is no incentive for them to lie about this. I would imagine that visa agents are probably a lot more tuned in to what is going on as far as Immigration is concerned so this is a good sign for those of us that are keeping our fingers crossed about this passing.
The government only meets a couple of times a year to pass new laws from what I hear and one of the things that they will be voting on is the 90 day visa. According to various sources there is overwhelming support in the lawmakers to pass this rule, and I certainly hope that this is true.
For now, all we can do is hope and wait!