Staying longer

Overstaying costs much more than it used to

Read this even if you skim the rest. Vietnam tightened its rules under Decree 282/2025, in force from December 2025, and again under Decree 59/2026 on deportation from 1 April 2026. Fines roughly doubled and deportation is considered much earlier.

At the top end, penalties can reach 40,000,000 VND, around 1,500 USD.

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The money is not the real risk. From 16 days over you can be deported and banned from returning for a set period. And it follows you. Plenty of countries ask on their visa forms whether you have ever been refused entry or removed from anywhere. That question has no expiry date.

You will still find people online saying the fine is 500k to 2 million, no big deal. That was true before December 2025. Set a reminder for a week before your permission to stay ends. That is the whole trick.

Resetting your stay

On the 45 day visa-free entry, you reset by leaving the country and coming back. The old rule that made you wait 30 days before re-entering has been removed. You can leave and re-enter the same day.

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That said, officers can see every stamp in your passport. Someone on their eighth same-day turnaround will get questions, and the officer can decide how to handle it. If you are settling here for a while, a 90 day e-visa at 25 dollars is calmer and cheaper than repeated border runs.

The advertised price is never the price

Almost every price quoted for a visa run is the transport fee only. There are two more costs on top, and they are not small.

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So an 800,000 VND visa run is really somewhere around 2,200,000 to 2,700,000 once you are standing at the border. Nobody is hiding this. They quote what they sell, and the visa fees are not theirs to sell.

Four things that will ruin your day at the border

• The Laos visa must be paid in cash, in US dollars. Thai baht is sometimes accepted. Vietnamese dong is not. Turn up with only dong and you are stuck at a border in the middle of nowhere.
• Bring a passport photo. You need one for the Laos visa, and not having it costs extra.
• A Laos e-visa does not work here. Lao Bao issues visas on arrival, and e-visas are not valid for crossing overland from Vietnam. Do not pre-buy one online thinking you saved yourself the queue.
• There is a small overtime fee at weekends, on Lao public holidays, and outside about 8am to 4pm on weekdays. Cash too.

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Full service, if you would rather not think about any of that

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That is roughly 1.2 to 1.7 million more than doing it yourself with a cheap bus. What the extra buys is that none of the four things above can go wrong, because somebody else is carrying them. First run, or your visa runs out this week: pay for full service. Done it before and comfortable at borders: take the cheap bus, bring dollars and a photo, and keep the difference.

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