Visa exemption or visa run? Depends on your passport.

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Vietnam sorts visitors into three buckets, and your passport picks the bucket

Not your itinerary, not your budget, not how long you planned to stay in Da Lat. The stamp you get at the window comes down to the nationality printed on the passport you hand over.

Bucket one is visa exemption: you land, the officer stamps you in for 45, 30, 21, 14 or 90 days depending on your passport, and you pay nothing. Bucket two is the visa route. Vietnam issues a 90-day e-visa to every nationality on earth for 25 USD through evisa.gov.vn, and that is the standard answer for passports with no exemption. Bucket three is where this site lives: you already hold a stay of some kind, and you need a fresh one without leaving Vietnam for good.

The practical question for most people reading this is not "am I exempt". It is "when does my current stamp run out, and what exactly does the border have to do with it". On an exemption stamp there is no renewal desk inside Vietnam. You exit at Moc Bai, step into Cambodia for an hour or two, and re-enter for a new period counted from the day the officer stamps you back in. Run the numbers on a 45-day stamp that started on 3 August: day one is the entry date, so the last day is 16 September, and the smart booking window is the week before that.

Everything below is the 2026 version of those lists, plus what each group means for a Da Lat runner. If you already know your bucket and just want the logistics, skip to the step-by-step run guide or the 2026 price breakdown.

Bucket one, longest stamp

The 45-day group in 2026

Forty-five days is the longest exemption most visitors can get, and Vietnam hands it out two different ways. The first is a government decision that does not depend on reciprocity: Resolution 128/NQ-CP named thirteen countries in August 2023, and Poland, Czechia and Switzerland were added later. The policy runs to 14 March 2028.

The second route is bilateral, signed country to country. Nine more European passports get 45 days that way: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Same stamp length, different legal paperwork behind it, and it is why a Belgian passport sails through while a Portuguese one needs a visa. Schengen membership means nothing at a Vietnamese immigration window; each nationality is handled on its own decision.

Forty-five days is enough for a season in Da Lat and nowhere near enough for a year. Two runs a year is a realistic rhythm for someone living here on an exemption, and a red-eye run costs you one day, not a week: the sleeper bus leaves Da Lat at 22:00 or the private car collects you at 04:00, and you are back the same evening. The schedule page has the departure windows.

Shorter stamps

30, 21 and 14 days: the ASEAN group and the neighbours

Every ASEAN member enters Vietnam without a visa, but the stay limits are not uniform, and people get caught out by that. Seven of the nine get 30 days: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. The Philippines gets 21, Brunei gets 14. Outside ASEAN, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia also sit on 30 days.

A 30-day stamp is the tightest of the lot for anyone actually living in Da Lat rather than passing through. It means a run every month, which is a real cost and a real chunk of a day, so most long-stayers from those nationalities take the 90-day e-visa instead and use the border once a quarter. If you hold a valid APEC Business Travel Card with Vietnam endorsed on the back, that gives 60 days multiple entry and beats the standard exemption, so dig the card out of the drawer before you book anything.

One quirk worth knowing for families: each traveller gets their own stamp under their own nationality. A British parent on 45 days and a Filipino child on 21 days have different clocks, and the child's runs out first. The FAQ covers how the desk plans for mixed-nationality families, and the Moc Bai crossing guide shows what happens at the windows for each of them.

No exemption

The passports that always need a visa, and what that costs

The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are not on any exemption list, and neither are most of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Being in the Schengen Area does not help either: Austria, Greece, Ireland and Portugal are all visa nationals for Vietnam. If your passport is in that group, the e-visa is your route, and the only real decision is single or multiple entry.

On an e-visa the trip geometry changes. You are not running to reset an exemption stamp; you are running because a visa expires and a new one only gets issued once you are outside Vietnam. That is why the visa desk files the replacement application the moment your exit stamp is photographed at Moc Bai, and why the 90-day e-visa guide is the page US, Canadian and Australian readers should open next. The other thing to get right is the entry port on the approval letter, which has its own guide for good reason.

Two exceptions worth naming. Phu Quoc island grants 30 days visa-free to every nationality, but only on a direct arrival to the island; land in Hanoi first and the island rule does not apply. And if you are an overseas Vietnamese or the spouse or child of one, the five-year certificate of visa exemption gives 180 days per entry with multiple entry, which mostly removes the need for runs. Details live on 5yearvisa.com.

The timing

Counting the clock from Da Lat

The entry date is day one of your stay, not the day after. A 45-day stamp issued on 3 August therefore ends on 16 September, and the stamp shows both dates so you never have to do the arithmetic at the last minute. Same rule for 30 days and 90 days.

There is no grace period on the way out. Overstay carries a fine that climbs with the number of days, and a long enough overstay turns into a departure hold until the penalty is settled. More practically for a runner, an unpaid overstay is exactly the sort of flag that gets you stopped at the re-entry window, which is a 300 km problem to have. The denied re-entry guide walks through what that looks like and how people recover from the Cambodian side.

So the booking habit is simple. Work out the last day of your stamp, then book the run for the week before it, not the day before. Runs go every day of the year, including weekends and public holidays, and the car leaves Da Lat at 04:00 with a border window of roughly 07:30 to 08:30. Booking early also gives the desk time to catch a passport with under six months of validity, or a name that does not match the booking form, in Da Lat rather than at the border.

One caution for frequent runners: repeatedly crossing the same land gate in a short span, especially on same-day turnarounds, can draw questions from an officer who has seen you before. The stamp is a right, not an automatic pass, and the officer has the final say. If you are crossing monthly on a 30-day exemption, a 90-day e-visa is the calmer way to live.

Side by side

Exemption, e-visa, or e-visa filed during a run

Three ways to be legally in Da Lat for the next few months. They cost different amounts and they suit different passports.

The transport side is separate and runs on the same booking: the sleeper bus combo costs 900,000 VND per person plus 1,600,000 VND for the shared car leg, while the private car is 6,000,000 VND for up to four people door to door. Full numbers, including the Cambodia visa at the border, are on the cost page, and the payment guide covers how and when you settle it.