Ho Chi Minh City Hall glows at night with its French colonial facade and flag-topped clock tower.

Practical

Visas and entry, explained as a system

Entry rules in all three countries change without much notice, and any page that quotes a fee or a duration as settled fact is out of date sooner than it looks. What does not change often is the shape of the system. That is what this page covers.

Plan my trip How booking works with us

separate systems, no shared visa: 3
months passport validity, everywhere: 6
blank pages we ask you to keep free: 2

Read this before anything else

This page is a guide, not an authority

Visa rules, fees, validity periods and the list of eligible nationalities in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are changed by the governments concerned, sometimes at a few weeks notice. Nothing here is a guarantee. Before you book flights, and again in the month before you fly, confirm the current rules with the embassy or consulate of each country for your own nationality, or with the official government portal of that country. We will send you the relevant links with your booking confirmation and we check them again before departure, but the responsibility for holding the correct visa is yours.

With that said, the structure of the system is stable even when the details move, and understanding the structure is what prevents the expensive mistakes.

The four things that are true in all three countries

Three countries, three visas

There is no Indochina visa and no shared arrangement. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos each issue their own permission, each with its own fee, its own validity and its own application route.

Six months passport validity

All three expect at least six months remaining from your date of entry, and airlines enforce this at check-in before any border official sees it. Count from the date you arrive, not the date you booked.

Blank pages matter

Keep at least two facing blank pages free. A full passport is refused even when the visa is valid, and this catches frequent travellers more often than anyone else.

Exit proof is sometimes asked for

Airlines and, occasionally, immigration ask for evidence of onward travel. Your trip itinerary and flight confirmations cover this; carry them, printed, rather than only on a phone.

The three routes to a visa

Whatever your nationality and whichever country you are entering, your visa will come through one of three channels. Knowing which one applies to you is the first question to answer.

Visa exemptionSome nationalities may enter without a visa for a limited stay. The list and the permitted length differ by country and are revised periodically. Exemption is not permission to stay as long as you like, and overstaying an exemption is treated as an overstay.

Apply before you travel, onlineAll three countries operate some form of electronic visa applied for in advance, with an approval document you print and carry. This is the route most of our guests use. Apply through the official government portal, never through a search advertisement.

Apply before you travel, at an embassyThe traditional route, still required for some nationalities, for some visa types, and for longer or multiple-entry stays. Slower, and it takes your passport out of your hands for a period.

A fourth route, a visa issued on arrival, exists in some cases but not all, and depends on your nationality, your entry point and whether you arrive by air or by land. Treat it as a fallback to confirm in advance, not a plan. Arriving at a land border expecting a visa that is only issued at airports is the single most common entry problem we see.

Costs and durations, as ranges

These are the ranges our guests have reported over the past two years, in US dollars, for a single-entry tourist visa. They are here to help you budget, not to be quoted back to an official. Every one of them can change, and the service charges added by third-party websites vary enormously.

Country	Typical official fee range	Typical tourist validity discussed	Usual processing time
Vietnam	USD 25 – 55	Commonly quoted in weeks to a few months	A few working days to about a week
Cambodia	USD 30 – 50	Commonly quoted in weeks	Often faster, sometimes same week
Laos	USD 30 – 60	Commonly quoted in weeks	A few working days

Why the numbers above are deliberately vague

Because precise numbers on a page like this age badly and people rely on them. Official fees also differ by nationality and by visa type within the same country. Use these ranges to set aside roughly USD 100 to USD 160 per person for a three-country trip, then confirm the exact figure for your own passport before you pay for anything.

Budget separately for service charges. Unofficial visa websites often rank above the official portal in search results and charge two to four times the government fee for filling in the same form. We tell every guest which portal is the official one for their nationality, and we do not take a commission from any visa service.

Crossing between the three countries

On our routes you will normally move between countries by air, and airports are the simplest place to enter all three. Where a land crossing is part of a trip, it changes what you need.

Some visa types and exemptions are valid at airports but not at every land border. Confirm your specific crossing point, by name, before you commit to it.
Land borders in this region keep shorter hours than airports and can close for national holidays in either country. We build a buffer day around any land crossing for that reason.
Carry passport photographs. Several crossings still ask for a physical photograph even when the visa was issued electronically, and the photo booth at a remote border is a man with a phone and a printer.
Carry small US dollar notes in good condition. Torn or marked notes are refused at borders across the region.
Leaving and re-entering a country on one trip usually needs a multiple-entry visa or a second single-entry one. This catches people who fly Hanoi to Luang Prabang and back into Vietnam, so tell us if your route does that.

What we do, and what we cannot do

We are a tour operator, not an immigration adviser, and the line between those matters when something goes wrong.

We do	We do not
Send you the official portal link for each country, for your nationality	Apply on your behalf or hold your passport
Provide the hotel addresses, dates and itinerary that application forms ask for	Guarantee that a visa will be granted
Re-check the current rules in the month before you travel	Advise on non-tourist visas, work permits or long stays
Write a confirmation letter of your booked arrangements if a consulate asks for one	Refund a trip missed because a visa was not obtained in time

That last line is the reason travel insurance is a condition of travelling with us, and the reason we ask you to start the visa process as soon as your flights are booked rather than in the final fortnight.

Plan My Trip

Booked with us and not sure where to start

Tell us your nationality and your route and we will send the official application route for each country on it.

Ask about your route

Things that go wrong, in order of frequency

Passport with under six months validity at the date of entry. Caught at check-in, in the home country, before the trip has begun.
A name on the visa application that does not match the passport exactly. Middle names, hyphens and accented characters cause most of these.
An approval document left on a phone with a flat battery. Print two copies, keep one in your main luggage.
A visa obtained for the wrong entry point, usually a land border when the visa covers airports.
Paying four times the official fee to a lookalike website, then finding the approval is genuine but the money is gone.
Assuming the rule that applied on a previous trip still applies. It frequently does not.

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Do you arrange visas for your guests?

No. We send you the official application route for each country on your itinerary, along with the hotel addresses, dates and confirmation letter that the forms ask for. We do not apply on your behalf, hold passports, or take a commission from any visa service. The application is yours to make and the rules should be confirmed with the relevant embassy or consulate before you fly.

Is one visa enough for all three countries?

No. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos each issue their own visa with its own fee, validity and application route. There is no combined Indochina visa, and a visa for one country gives you no rights in another.

How far ahead should I apply?

Start as soon as your international flights are ticketed, and aim to hold every approval at least three weeks before departure. Electronic approvals are often issued within days, but systems go offline, applications are returned for photograph problems, and a rejected application needs time to correct.

What if the rules change between booking and travelling?

We re-check the official sources in the month before departure and write to you if anything relevant has moved. That is a courtesy and not a guarantee, so please check again yourself in the same period. If a change makes a route impossible we will redraw the itinerary rather than let you travel into a problem.