Visas in Vietnam: Things are getting a bit scary for the expat community here

Vietnam has been very accommodating as far as extending visas amid these covid times but their generosity could perhaps be coming to an end soon. So far, a lot of this is speculation but of the 50 or so people that I know here one person has already been given his visa with a stamp in it that indicates that he will not be receiving any additional visas and that the time has come to make arrangements to go elsewhere.

While I only know one person that this has happened to, it could be happening to many more in the not very distant future.

src

While I do not spend much time on Facebook because it is a toxic environment where people simply waste time for the most part, it does have its purpose as far as finding local information (mixed in with people trolling and being jerks, of course) but lately there has been a lot of chatter about people who have been here for more than a year on tourist visas that are getting either amnesty visas for free or paying for visa extensions.

For a time there, it looked as though this was going to carry on indefinitely, but for reasons that I do not know and no agent can explain - presumably because they do not know either - people are getting picked out in what appears to be completely random fashion, and denied visa extensions any further.

The reason why Vietnam appeals to so many people in the South East Asian expat community is because prior to Covid, they had what might be the easiest visa procedure of all the countries in this part of the world. If you wanted one and were willing to pay a small fee to get one, the answer was basically "yes" all the time. This was especially good for Americans who for some reason, are the only nationality that was granted a 1-year tourist visa.

Most of these visas required at various intervals for the person to leave the country for a day and re-apply for another visa of the same sort in order to get back in. In the years that I have been living here I have never heard of anyone being denied this. Things of course have changed during Covid because Vietnam has not been allowing anyone into the country outside of very rare and very controlled situations.

Those of us that have been here since before March 1st 2020 have likely already been tested for Covid and anyone who leaves the country does so in a one-way fashion because unless you are Vietnamese, you can not get back into the country.

According to my agent, the "crackdown" doesn't make any sense to them either and they don't know why it is happening but still insist that there being a purge of all people on tourist visas are simply rumors that are being made bigger than they are by social media

Basically, every time you send your passport to be extended again it could come back with an extension, it might not. The good news is that most of the people I know are actually still getting their extensions but we are all a bit afraid right now because you never know if it is going to be you next time. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it either.

Take for example my American friends: They are a couple, they entered the country on the same day, they have the same visa, they live at the same address - which they registered like you are supposed to, they have not traveled a great deal in the country, neither of them have left the country, and one of them volunteers their time to orphanages. Their visa situation is exactly the same yet one of them was denied any further extensions and the other one got their extension. Why is this? Well, nobody knows.

A lot us work here but not illegally: We work online for companies that are not Vietnamese and there is nothing against the law about this. We choose to live in Vietnam because it is close to China and therefore the online teaching of English has pretty great hours as opposed to back in our home countries where we would have to do this in the middle of the night. Also living in Vietnam is a LOT cheaper than in USA/Canada/most of Europe.

This situation is understood by the Vietnamese government and up until now, nobody seemed to have a problem with it. I have been using this exact system for years and there is nothing illegal about it. The government is very aware that I teach online and I do not try to hide this fact.

I think the reason why they were "cool with it" is because we spend a lot of money on condos, food, drinks, and everything else you need in life. Plus aside from the odd scuffle at a bar, the expat community doesn't really create any problems, at least not any that I am aware of.

The official word looks like this

foreign nationals who entered Vietnam with a visa exemption certificate, e-visa, or tourist visa on or after March 1, 2020, will be granted an automatic extension of stay through June 30, 2021, and may exit Vietnam during this period without having to apply for an extension of stay.

However, everyone needs to understand above where it says "June 30, 2021" has in the past said every other month of the year extending all the way back to June of 2020. It is a constantly evolving situation and no one, including Immigration officials has any official word as to what is going on right now.

If you get unlucky, you are going to get an "exit visa" which means they are going to give you 6 weeks to get out and this can be more difficult than you might expect seeing as how there aren't very many international flights at the moment and honestly, why would there be? Nobody is traveling in and out of Vietnam right now.

So for the time being all of us that have been living here and either retired or working (again, there is nothing illegal about working online for a foreign company) here might one day get our "kicky outey papers" and there probably isn't going to be anything you can do about it.

I'm just hoping it isn't me but I have no illusion that I am special so just like everyone else, when I send my passport off with my agent I am just afraid as anyone that it may or may not return with a new stamp. We just have to keep our fingers crossed at the moment.

My apologies for the long post, I just got in a stream of consciousness flow there