To get a Vietnam tourist visa, Indians need exactly four things for the application: a passport valid for at least 6 months beyond arrival, a clear image of the passport’s bio page, a compliant 4x6 cm photo, and an international debit or credit card to pay the fee (Vietnam Immigration Department, accessed 2026-07-09; US State Department, accessed 2026-07-09). No bank statement, hotel booking or flight ticket is uploaded anywhere in the official application. A second, shorter list matters at the airport: the documents Vietnamese immigration and your airline expect on arrival. This page gives you both checklists for the Vietnam tourist visa for Indians, and labels each item honestly: required by rule, or commonly asked in practice.
This guide is maintained by Zurich Kotak General Insurance, an IRDAI-registered general insurer in India and part of the Zurich Insurance Group. It covers documents and requirements only; for routes, fees and timelines, start with our guide to Vietnam visa for Indians .
Travelling to Vietnam? Get covered before you fly. Your visa paperwork protects your entry; travel insurance for Vietnam protects everything after it.
Vietnam tourist visa for Indians: the document checklist at a glance
Four documents get your e-visa issued; four more are worth carrying for the airport. Here is the complete set of documents required for a Vietnam visa from India, split the way agents never split it. The Vietnam tourist visa documents and the wider Vietnam visa requirements for Indian citizens fit in one table (all rules verified 2026-07-09):
Document | Needed for | Key rule |
Passport | Application (required) | Valid at least 6 months beyond your arrival date, with a blank page for stamps (US State Dept) |
Passport bio-page image | Application (required) | Must show your photo, personal details and the two machine-readable lines; keep the file compressed small (official pages disagree on the exact cap) (Vietnam Immigration Dept) |
Portrait photo | Application (required) | 4x6 cm, white background, facing straight, no glasses; JPG/JPEG, kept small (official pages disagree on the exact cap) (Vietnam Immigration Dept) |
International debit/credit card | Application (required) | Pays the USD-denominated government fee online |
Printed e-visa | Entry (required in practice) | “You must print your E-visa and bring it with your valid passport” (US State Dept) |
Pre-arrival declaration QR | Entry (required for air arrivals) | Free online form, submitted no earlier than 3 days before arrival (prearrival.immigration.gov.vn) |
Return or onward ticket | Entry (commonly asked) | Not part of the application; officers and airlines may ask (Vietnam-Visa India guide) |
Hotel booking + funds proof | Entry (commonly asked) | Not codified for tourist e-visas; carry printouts to be safe |
Notice what is absent: no bank statement, no covering letter, no itinerary, no invitation. Those belong to older sticker-visa document sets and to agent upsells, not to the e-visa an Indian tourist actually applies for.
Passport requirements for a Vietnam tourist visa
Your passport must be valid for at least 6 months beyond the date you land in Vietnam and have at least one blank page for the entry stamp (US State Department, accessed 2026-07-09; the Vietnam Embassy in India gives the same 6-month guidance, vietnamembassydelhi.in, accessed 2026-07-09). This is the requirement that quietly disqualifies more applicants than any other, because people check the expiry date against today instead of against their arrival date.
There is a second, less-known rule on the official portal: the e-visa’s validity must be at least 30 days shorter than your passport’s remaining validity (evisa.gov.vn FAQ, accessed 2026-07-09). In practice, if you want the full 90-day e-visa, your passport needs roughly four months of life left at grant, and the 6-month arrival rule remains the binding constraint for most travellers. If your passport is anywhere near that window, renew it before applying, not after.
Documents you upload with the e-visa application
The application has exactly two uploads: your passport bio-page image and a portrait photo, and the portal rejects applications where either is unclear or inconsistent with the form (Vietnam Immigration Department, accessed 2026-07-09).
· Passport bio page: a straight, glare-free image showing your photo, personal details and both machine-readable lines at the bottom. The Department’s older guidance caps this file at 200KB while the current portal publishes no figure, so compress the file and follow the on-form error messages. Enter your name exactly as those machine-readable lines print it, in capitals; misplaced middle names are the classic Indian-passport mistake (evisa.gov.vn, accessed 2026-07-09).
· Portrait photo: 4x6 cm, white background, facing the camera, no glasses, as a JPG or JPEG kept small. Official pages disagree on the exact cap (the current portal’s instruction page says under 2MB; the Department’s older guidance shows 50KB), so compress the file and follow the on-form error messages. Indian studios default to 3.5x4.5 cm, so ask specifically. Full specs, including the rejection traps, are in our guide to the photo size and specifications .
That is the whole upload set. For the screen-by-screen walkthrough of the form itself, follow our Vietnam e-visa application steps .
Documents to carry for immigration at arrival
Carry a printed copy of your granted e-visa, your passport, and the pre-arrival declaration QR code; keep your return ticket and hotel confirmation accessible in case an officer asks. The first two are stated requirements: “You must print your E-visa and bring it with your valid passport when you enter Vietnam” (US State Department, accessed 2026-07-09).
The pre-arrival declaration is new in 2026 and most Indian guides have not caught up. Vietnam now requires travellers on non-Vietnamese passports arriving by air to submit a free online declaration, no earlier than 3 days before arrival, at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn; it generates a QR code shown at immigration (US State Department, accessed 2026-07-09). It became mandatory at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport from 2026-04-15, and a US Embassy in Vietnam notice dated 2026-06-17 confirms Vietnam is extending the requirement to all airports in the country (US Embassy notice, Tan Son Nhat; US Embassy notice, all airports, both accessed 2026-07-09). The form can also be completed on arrival, via QR code or a paper form at the airport, but that queue is the slow lane; do it on your phone before you fly.
The remaining items are commonly reported rather than codified. No Vietnamese government rule requires tourist e-visa holders to show a return ticket, accommodation proof or a minimum bank balance, and none of these is part of the application. But immigration officers may ask for proof of onward travel and accommodation at the desk, and airline check-in staff in India often want to see a return ticket and the printed e-visa before issuing a boarding pass (Vietnam-Visa India guide, accessed 2026-07-09; recurring traveller reports on the Tripadvisor Vietnam forum, accessed 2026-07-09). Printouts cost nothing; arguments at a counter cost a holiday.
Eligibility and special cases
Any Indian passport holder who is outside Vietnam, holds a valid passport and is not barred from entry under Article 21 of Vietnam’s immigration law is eligible to apply for the tourist e-visa (Vietnam Immigration Department, accessed 2026-07-09). That covers the standard Vietnam tourist visa eligibility question; the cases below are where Indian applicants actually stumble.
· Children: every Indian traveller, including infants, holds an individual passport, so every child needs their own e-visa application. The portal’s clause for children under 14 on a parent’s passport does not apply to Indian families, because India issues separate passports to minors. The under-14 fee is USD 25 (about INR 2,390 at 1 USD = INR 95.6 on 2026-07-09) whatever the entry type (Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC, Ministry of Finance of Vietnam).
· Name mismatches: the form must mirror the passport’s machine-readable lines exactly. A submitted application cannot be edited; a mistake means contacting the Immigration Department or reapplying and paying again (evisa.gov.vn FAQ, accessed 2026-07-09).
· Previous overstays or refusals: applicants barred under Article 21 will be refused, and a past overstay in Vietnam can surface at exactly this check. There is no published appeal channel; if this applies to you, apply well before booking non-refundable travel.
Document mistakes that cause visa rejection
Most Vietnam e-visa rejections trace back to documents: blurred or cropped passport scans, photos that break the specification, and form details that do not match the passport. The portal is explicit that applications with missing or incorrect information “will not be accepted” (Vietnam Immigration Department, accessed 2026-07-09). The fixes are unglamorous: rescan the bio page flat under good light, get the photo shot to the exact spec, and copy the name from the machine-readable lines character by character.
The sting is financial as much as procedural. Vietnam’s fee rules state the charge is not refunded if the visa is refused (Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC, Article 6), so a rejected family application quietly burns thousands of rupees. Travel insurance with visa-fee reimbursement can return the visa fee if a properly filed application is rejected; Zurich Kotak’s Visa Cost Cover works on that principle, reimbursing the visa fee rather than the premium.
Documents ready? Apply and get covered
With the four application documents in hand, the visa itself is a 30-minute online task: apply directly on the official portal and pay the government fee, nothing more. Follow our step-by-step Vietnam e-visa application steps to file it on evisa.gov.vn without an agent.
Then close the one gap paperwork cannot cover. Vietnam does not make travel insurance an entry requirement, but a hospital bill in Hanoi or a missed connection in Ho Chi Minh City does not care what was stamped at the border. Travel insurance for Vietnam from Zurich Kotak covers emergency medical care, baggage and trip disruptions, with claims support backed by Zurich’s global network.
Travelling to Vietnam? Get covered before you fly. Get a quote for travel insurance for Vietnam in minutes.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-09. Entry rules change; confirm current requirements on evisa.gov.vn before you apply.
FAQ
Q: What documents are required for a Vietnam tourist visa for Indians?
A: Four things: a passport valid at least 6 months beyond arrival, a clear image of its bio page, a 4x6 cm white-background photo, and an international card to pay the fee (Vietnam Immigration Department, accessed 2026-07-09). No bank statement, ticket or hotel booking is part of the application.
Q: How much passport validity do I need for Vietnam?
A: At least 6 months beyond your arrival date, plus a blank page for the entry stamp (US State Department, accessed 2026-07-09). The portal also requires the e-visa’s validity to be at least 30 days shorter than the passport’s remaining validity.
Q: Do I need a return ticket for Vietnam?
A: Not for the e-visa application; no ticket is uploaded or asked for. At arrival, immigration officers may ask for proof of onward travel, and airlines in India often check a return ticket at check-in, so carry a printout (Vietnam-Visa India guide, accessed 2026-07-09).
Q: Do I need to show hotel bookings for the Vietnam e-visa?
A: No, the application asks for your intended address but no booking proof is uploaded. At the airport, accommodation proof is commonly requested rather than codified; keep your confirmation accessible on paper or phone.
Q: Can my visa be rejected because of documents?
A: Yes, document problems are the leading avoidable cause: blurred bio-page scans, non-compliant photos and names that do not match the passport’s machine-readable lines. The portal states incomplete or incorrect applications will not be accepted, and the fee is not refunded on refusal (Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC).
