The short answer
Not at Moc Bai. Yes if you are flying into Vietnam
If your Da Lat trip is a land run, out through Moc Bai and back in again the same morning, the pre-arrival declaration does not apply to you. The requirement was built for airports. Nobody at the Vietnamese exit window or the re-entry window has ever asked a Moc Bai runner for it.
It does apply to the flight at either end of a longer trip. Arriving at Tan Son Nhat with a fresh e-visa and then taking a bus up QL20 to Da Lat means you clear an airport first, and the airport is where the declaration lives. The same goes for flying out of Vietnam and back in instead of driving to the border.
So the question is not really "does a visa run need the arrival card". It is "which part of my trip is a flight", and the answer changes what you file and when.
What it actually is
A free online declaration, not a visa
The Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security runs a Pre-arrival Information system at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn. You enter the details that used to go on the paper slip handed out on the plane: passport data, flight number, arrival date, where you are staying. The system returns a QR code, and the officer scans it instead of typing your details by hand.
Three things people get wrong about it. It is free, at every stage, on the official portal. It does not replace a visa, an e-visa or a visa exemption: the department's own note says the system is for pre-arrival travel information and is not a visa application. And it says nothing about your entitlement to enter, which is still decided by whatever visa or exemption you hold.
The dates, briefly
The system was piloted at Tan Son Nhat from 15 April 2026. By late June the same declaration was in place at five airports, and the US Embassy's notice of 17 June 2026 described the rollout as extending to all airports in the country. If you fly into Vietnam, assume it applies to you and check the portal for your arrival airport.
Airports
Which airports, and where Da Lat fits
The five airports named in the June 2026 rollout are Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City, Noi Bai in Hanoi, Da Nang, Cam Ranh near Nha Trang, and Phu Quoc. Tan Son Nhat is the one that matters most to a Da Lat trip, because it is where almost every long-haul arrival into the region lands before the 300 km drive up QL20.
Da Lat has its own airport, Lien Khuong, and it restarted international flights on 2 September 2026 after a runway rebuild. The only scheduled international route is Kuala Lumpur, four times a week, with Singapore following in December. From anywhere else you connect through Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, or you land at Cam Ranh and come in from the coast.
That is the practical shape of it. A Da Lat arrival from Europe, North America or Australia is a Tan Son Nhat arrival, so the declaration applies. An arrival on the Kuala Lumpur flight is a Lien Khuong arrival, and because the expansion is still moving airport by airport, the honest advice is to check the portal on the day you book rather than trusting a list written last month.
Have your stay address ready
The form asks where you are staying in Vietnam. A Da Lat hotel or homestay name and street is enough. If you have only booked the first night, that is the address to give.
The land crossing
Moc Bai is not in the rollout, and that will not last for ever
The declaration was designed around airports. When the department announced the pilot it also said it was coordinating with other agencies to study a similar system for people entering Vietnam through land border gates. Nothing has been installed at Moc Bai yet, so on the day you cross, the four windows are exactly as they have always been: exit stamp, Cambodia visa, Cambodia exit stamp, Vietnamese re-entry stamp.
Two conclusions follow, and they point in opposite directions. Right now, do not spend an evening filing a declaration for a land run, because no one at Moc Bai will look at it. And do not assume that stays true indefinitely. Land gates are on the department's own roadmap, so when it does arrive, it will arrive the same way it did at the airports: quietly, and announced to airlines before it is announced to travellers.
What our desk asks for the night before a run
Your passport, the arrival date we have on file, and the e-visa approval letter if a new visa is part of the run. The declaration is not on that list, because it is an airport document and the run never touches an airport. If that changes we will add it to the same message.
Filing it
Three minutes on the portal, any time inside three days
You can file it on arrival at the airport, and the arrival hall does post QR codes for that. Doing it beforehand costs a few minutes and takes you out of the queue of people filling it in at the counter at the same time as their flight. The window opens three days before you land and you can do it from anywhere with a connection.
Open the official portal
prearrival.immigration.gov.vn, or the QR code the Immigration Department publishes. No fee, no agent, no account.
Pick your language
Vietnamese, English, Chinese, French and others are offered, so file it in whichever you read most comfortably.
Create and submit the declaration
Pass the CAPTCHA, then your passport details, visa details, flight number, arrival date and the address where you are staying. Read it back before you send it.
Save the QR code
Download it or screenshot it, and print a copy if you are the cautious sort. You show it at the immigration counter when you land.
Watch out for
Six things that catch people at the counter
You will not have signal at the counter
Save the QR code to your phone before you fly, or print it. Waiting to reload the page in the immigration hall, on airport wifi, with a queue behind you, is a bad time to discover you needed to.
Every traveller needs their own QR code
Each declaration is tied to one passport number, so a child on their own passport needs their own. The portal lets you add passengers into a single submission, and each one still comes out with a matching code.
If the flight moves, file again
A QR code carries the arrival date and flight you declared. Move the flight and the code no longer matches your trip, so submit a fresh declaration with the new details, as long as the new date is still inside the three-day window.
Anyone charging you for it is not the government
The declaration is free on the official portal. Sites that charge a "processing fee" for the same form are selling you a free step, and the only thing they add is your card details in someone else's hands.
Three groups are exempt
Vietnamese passport holders, passengers in transit who stay airside and never pass through immigration, and anyone arriving overland. If you are doing a Moc Bai run, that last one is you.
It is not the health or customs form
Separate documents, separate desks. Filling in the pre-arrival declaration does not cover a customs or health declaration if one applies to your flight, and the arrival card is not a substitute for your e-visa with the right entry port on it.
Missing it is not a refused entry. The Immigration Department's advice is that an unfiled declaration makes the queue at the counter longer, which is worth avoiding on a late arrival but not worth panicking about.
Checklist
Before you fly, and before you drive
If a flight into Vietnam is part of the trip
- •File the declaration inside the three days before arrival
- •Check the flight number and the arrival date on the QR code match
- •Save the QR to your phone and bring a printed copy
- •Have the address of your first night in Da Lat in the form
- •Keep the visa or exemption that actually gets you in separate in your head, and in your hand luggage
If it is a land run to Moc Bai
- •No declaration to file, on either leg
- •Passport with six months left and blank pages for the two pairs of stamps
- •Small US dollar bills for the Cambodia visa at Bavet
- •The e-visa approval letter if a new visa is part of the run
- •Nothing else. The run is 600 km of road and four stamps
If you are not sure which visa you are entering on, or whether your passport resets on exit at all, the exemption guide sorts passports into the three buckets that matter: exempt, e-visa, or run to reset. The Decree 286 guide covers what immigration can see at the re-entry window since the data-sharing rules changed.
Land at Tan Son Nhat and need to get to Da Lat?
The desk runs the Moc Bai crossing from Da Lat and Bao Loc, and answers document questions before you book. Tell us your arrival date and what visa you hold.
Landing somewhere else
The declaration is national, the run is local
The pre-arrival declaration applies to any flight into Vietnam, whichever city desk you use. Arriving at Tan Son Nhat and running the border from there is the HCMC visa run desk, two hours to Bavet instead of six. Flying into Cam Ranh puts you within reach of Nha Trang visa runs on the same corridor. The visarun.vn hub compares every crossing if you are still choosing one.
More Da Lat reading: the step-by-step guide walks the whole day, the Moc Bai crossing guide takes the four windows one at a time, and the cost guide prices the run end to end.