The Vietnam Digital Arrival Card: Every Airport Now Expects It Before You Land

Last updated: August 2026 · Written by the GoVietVisa processing team

If you've flown into Saigon in the last couple of years, you know the evening immigration hall at Tan Son Nhat can be brutal — peak-hour queues running several hundred people deep, an hour or more on your feet after a long flight. The digital arrival card is Vietnam's attempt to thin those lines by getting your details into the system before you land. It worked well enough at Saigon that the Immigration Department pushed it out nationwide within two months. For you, it means one more box to tick before you fly. Miss it, and you don't get fined, but you do get sent to the slow lane while everyone with a QR code moves ahead.

What the Digital Arrival Card Actually Is

It's the online replacement for that little paper form crew used to hand out on the plane. You declare your passport, visa, flight, and hotel details on the official portal before arrival, and the system spits out a QR code. At the counter, the officer scans the code and pulls your information up instantly instead of typing it in by hand. That's the whole point — fewer keystrokes per passenger, shorter lines.

Who Needs It — and Who Doesn't

If you are walking through Vietnamese immigration on anything other than a Vietnamese passport, you need it. Full stop. That includes:

• Every nationality, on any airline.
• Children and infants — each person needs their own declaration, completed by a parent or guardian.
• Visa-free travelers. No eVisa required doesn't mean no arrival card.
• Overseas Vietnamese traveling on a foreign passport.

The only people who skip it are Vietnamese citizens traveling on a Vietnamese passport, and passengers transiting without clearing immigration. If you land in Saigon and connect onward to Hanoi or Da Nang on a domestic leg, you still file only once — for the airport where you actually clear immigration. But if a "transit" involves collecting your bags and passing through passport control to re-check them, that counts as entering, and you need the declaration.

Is the Arrival Card the Same as My eVisa? No.

This is the question we field most, so let's be clear: they are two different documents doing two different jobs. Your eVisa is the government's permission to enter the country. The arrival card is a declaration of who you are and where you're going on this trip. One does not replace the other. You can have a perfectly valid 90-day eVisa and still get held up at the counter because you skipped the arrival card.

How to Fill the Vietnam Digital Arrival Card (Step by Step)

The official form lives at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn. It's free, and it takes about five minutes if you have your documents in front of you. Don't use a lookalike site — there are plenty that charge you for a free government form.

1. Open the portal and pick your language.
2. Choose "Create & Submit Pre-arrival Information" and clear the CAPTCHA.
3. Enter your personal details exactly as printed in your passport — full name, date of birth, gender, nationality, passport number. (You can upload a photo of your passport to auto-fill some of these, which is faster and cuts typos.)
4. Add your visa or visa-exemption details.
5. Enter your flight number, arrival date, and the address where you're staying in Vietnam.
6. Review everything against your passport, submit, and save the QR code.

The one field people fudge is the accommodation address. Don't leave it blank and don't invent something — put the real name and address of your first hotel or stay. It needs to match what you'd tell an officer if asked.

The Three-Day Window: When to Submit

You can't file weeks ahead. The declaration is accepted no more than three days before you arrive, so people who try to tick it off a week out simply can't. File it once your flight is locked, ideally the day before you travel. If your flight gets moved and the arrival date no longer matches your QR code, resubmit once the new date falls inside the window. A QR code tied to the wrong date is no better than not having one.

You are also allowed to complete it on arrival — there are QR posters and paper forms at the airport. Treat that as the emergency option, not the plan. Doing it at the airport means standing in the hall filling out a form on congested Wi-Fi while everyone who filed at home walks past you.

What to Show at the Counter

Save your QR code offline — a screenshot and a PDF, plus a printed copy if you can. There's often no usable mobile signal inside the arrivals hall, and you do not want to be digging through email on airport Wi-Fi with a queue building behind you. At the counter, have ready:

• The arrival-card QR code.
• Your passport (matching the details you entered).
• Your eVisa printout or visa-exemption document.
• Your return or onward ticket, if the officer asks.

Which Airports Require It

All of them. This is the part travelers get wrong most often, because the rule changed twice in three months:

• 15 April 2026 — Tan Son Nhat (SGN) only.
• June 2026 — extended to Noi Bai (HAN), Da Nang (DAD), Cam Ranh (CXR) and Phu Quoc (PQC), then to every international airport in the country.

This is why you will still find advice online saying it is a Saigon-only rule, and why you will hear it from other passengers. That advice was correct in May and is wrong now. Coverage of land border gates and seaports is also being rolled out, so if you are crossing from Cambodia or Laos by road, or arriving by cruise ship, check the portal a few days before rather than assuming you are exempt.

When the Form Won't Cooperate

The portal is new, and it shows. The complaints we hear most are QR codes that won't generate, the accommodation field refusing valid entries, and the occasional "passport blacklist" error that's usually a data-mismatch glitch rather than an actual flag on your record. Outright "refused to connect" outages happen too, normally when the whole system is overloaded — it is not something wrong at your end. If it stalls, the fixes are the same ones that work on the eVisa site: switch to Chrome, turn off your VPN, and try again on a stable connection, ideally not at 9pm Vietnam time when the evening arrival wave is filing at once.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Vietnam digital arrival card the same as the eVisa?

No. They are two separate things. The eVisa is your permission to enter Vietnam; the digital arrival card is a pre-arrival declaration of your trip details that immigration scans at the counter. You need both, and visa-free travelers must complete the arrival card too.

Who has to fill out the Vietnam digital arrival card?

Every international passenger who does not hold a Vietnamese passport, regardless of nationality or age. Each traveler needs their own declaration, and parents complete it for children. Vietnamese citizens on a Vietnamese passport and passengers transiting without clearing immigration are exempt.

Which airports require the digital arrival card?

All of them. The rule began at Tan Son Nhat (SGN) in April 2026 and was extended to every international airport in Vietnam in June 2026, including Noi Bai (HAN), Da Nang (DAD), Cam Ranh (CXR) and Phu Quoc (PQC). Coverage of land and sea border gates is expanding, so check the official portal before you travel by road or ferry.

When should I submit the Vietnam arrival card?

No more than three days before you arrive. Submit it once your flight is locked in. If your flight changes and the date no longer matches, resubmit once the new date falls inside the window. You can also complete it on arrival at the airport, but that means doing it in the queue you were trying to avoid.

This guide is for general information and reflects the rules as of mid-2026. Entry requirements change — confirm current rules at the official portals (evisa.gov.vn and prearrival.immigration.gov.vn) before you travel. GoVietVisa is a private visa assistance service, not the official government portal.