Visas and Residency in Vietnam: What Locals Actually Say

The relocation guides reduce a Vietnam visa to a menu: tourist, business, work, investment, pick one. Vietnamese-language sources describe the same system as genuinely difficult to navigate — and reveal a residency crackdown quietly taking effect this September that no guide written before July mentions.

August 2026 · Researched via local Vietnamese and Thai internet sources using LikeLoc · 24 Vietnamese sources · 20 Thai sources

---

English-language relocation blogs cover Vietnamese visas as a straightforward menu: a 30-day tourist visa if you're visiting, a business visa if you're working with a local partner, a work visa if you're employed long-term, an e-visa if you just want to book online. Pick the category that matches your trip, submit the paperwork, done.

I searched "getting a visa and legal residency as a foreigner" in Tiếng Việt through local Vietnamese sources — and the picture locals paint isn't the tidy menu the guides describe. It's a system residents call difficult and time-consuming even before accounting for a residency-tracking law that just tightened.

The expat guides say "pick your visa type." Vietnamese legal and government sources say: the paperwork is only the entry point — a new decree now requires foreigners to report their stays far more closely, starting this September.

---

Vietnam

The menu is real. So is the paperwork behind it.

Vietnamese sources confirm the visa categories the English guides list: a tourist visa (maximum 30 days, extendable), a business visa for those coming to work with a local entity, a work visa that requires a separate work permit for long-term employment, an investment visa for foreign investors, and an e-visa available online to eligible nationalities for stays up to 90 days. The application dossier is consistent across types — a visa application form, a passport valid at least six months, a photo, and documents proving the purpose of entry, such as an employment contract or invitation letter — submitted directly to the Immigration Department or through the government's online portal.

What the guide version skips is the step after the visa: the temporary residence card, valid for one to five years, which functions as a longer-term replacement for repeated visa renewals. It's granted mainly to the spouses of Vietnamese citizens or holders of a valid work permit, requires its own dossier, and takes roughly five working days to process once submitted — but only after the underlying visa and eligibility documents are already in order. Local sources are blunt that incomplete dossiers are the single biggest source of delay, and that regulations "may change" without much warning, so staying current matters as much as the initial application.

That warning turned out to be more than boilerplate. Two significant changes are landing in 2026: from July 1, the government added new visa categories to the existing letter-coded system (alongside long-standing types like NN3 for foreign representative-office staff, DH for students, and LĐ1/LĐ2 for foreign workers), and — more consequential for anyone already living there — Decree 286/2026, which tightens residency management and temporary-stay declaration requirements for foreigners, takes effect September 15, 2026. Vietnamese legal coverage frames it as a coordination mechanism between local authorities to track where foreign residents are actually staying, not just where their paperwork says they are. None of this shows up in a relocation guide published before the decree existed.

For the fuller picture on the country locals are actually describing, what Vietnamese sources say about the cost of living and how safe daily life feels to residents are worth reading alongside the visa mechanics above — the paperwork friction described here is a separate axis from either of those.

→ Explore the live Vietnam search on LikeLoc

---

Thailand, for contrast

Thai-language sources land on the same frustrated register as Vietnam's, but with a sharper edge: alongside "complex" and "complicated," locals describe the rules as genuinely unclear. Thailand's visa menu covers similar ground — a tourist visa for up to 60 days, a business and work visa requiring a separate work permit, a student visa, and a retirement visa for applicants 50 and older that grants an initial five-year stay, extendable for another five. Applications can go through an embassy, an online portal, or on arrival at the airport depending on nationality, with a passport valid at least six months, photographs, and financial evidence of the ability to support oneself in Thailand.

Beyond the visa, Thai sources describe two further routes: a standard Permanent Visa, and the newer Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa aimed at wealthy retirees, remote professionals, and skilled workers, each with its own proof-of-investment or proof-of-income requirements. What the tidy English version leaves out is the social undertone local sources are candid about: most Thai commentary describes an open, welcoming stance toward foreigners, paired with real and openly stated resentment when foreign residents appear to receive privileges Thai citizens don't get, or are seen as straining local resources. One Thai source put it as a "two-way street" — foreigners are welcome, but only alongside visible respect for local law and culture, a framing that rarely survives translation into an expat blog's "why you'll love living in Thailand" pitch.

→ Explore the live Thailand search on LikeLoc

Anyone comparing the two beyond paperwork should also check what locals in Thailand say about the cost of living and what expat life there is actually like — visa friction and day-to-day quality of life are different questions, and a country can score very differently on each.

---

The gap, in one line

The relocation-guide version of both countries treats the visa as a checklist to clear once. Local sources in both languages describe it as an ongoing relationship with the state that keeps adding conditions — Vietnam tightening how closely it tracks where foreign residents actually live, Thailand carrying an undercurrent of "welcome, but earn it" that a glossy expat blog has no reason to mention. A relocation plan built only on the English-language visa menu will miss both, because neither shows up until you're reading the local coverage instead of the guide written about it.

Selected sources

• Từ 01/7/2026, bổ sung thêm 2 loại thị thực cho người nước ngoài — "From July 1, 2026, two more visa types added for foreigners" (Thư Viện Pháp Luật, legal-document portal, on the new visa categories and Decree 286/2026 residency-tracking tightening)
• Luật Nhập cảnh, xuất cảnh, quá cảnh, cư trú của người nước ngoài — "Law on Entry, Exit, Transit, and Residence of Foreigners" (LuatVietnam, the consolidated legal text governing foreign visas and residency)
• Thủ tục xin visa, gia hạn visa du lịch cho người nước ngoài theo quy định mới — "Procedures for visa applications and tourist visa extensions for foreigners under new regulations" (Vietnam Immigration Department portal)
• So sánh, phân biệt visa và thẻ tạm trú cho người nước ngoài — "Comparing visas and temporary residence cards for foreigners" (Luật Tín Minh, immigration law firm, on the visa-vs-residence-card distinction)
• Thông tư 70/2026/TT-BCA: Sửa đổi quy định nhập cảnh, xuất cảnh cho người nước ngoài — "Circular 70/2026/TT-BCA: Amending entry and exit regulations for foreigners" (LuatVietnam, on updated immigration paperwork)
• ประเภทและหลักเกณฑ์การขอ Visa — "Visa Types and Requirements" (Thailand's Department of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• คนอยู่ชั่วคราว (Non-Immigrant Visa) — "Non-Immigrant Visa (Temporary Stay)" (Thailand's Department of Consular Affairs, on the visa category behind work and retirement permits)
• ขั้นตอน การทำวีซ่า คู่มือฉบับสมบูรณ์! — "Visa Application Steps: The Complete Guide" (FDI Group, on the practical application process including work permits)