Do Egyptian passport holders need a visa for Vietnam?

Yes, an e-visa, applied for online before you fly. Egypt has no visa exemption for ordinary passports, so the e-visa is the whole route rather than one option among several. The part worth getting right is not the form but the border: an e-visa is only valid at the crossings on Vietnam’s published list, and that list was expanded on 3 December 2025.

Visa required

Yes, an e-visa arranged before travel

Visa on arrival

Not a route for ordinary Egyptian passports

Maximum stay

Up to 90 days

Where it is valid

Listed crossings only: 17 air, 27 road, 27 sea

List last expanded

3 December 2025

Diplomatic and official passports

30 days without a visa

Airside transit

No visa under 24 hours, if you stay in the sterile area

Entry requirements

• An Egyptian passport and an approved e-visa obtained from the government portal before departure.
• Arrival at one of the border crossings on Vietnam’s published e-visa list.
• A scan of your passport data page and a passport-style photograph for the application.
• Your intended entry point and travel dates, which the application asks you to declare.
• Proof of onward travel and an address in Vietnam for the stay.

How the e-visa works for an Egyptian passport

Apply on the government portal before you fly. Vietnam has issued e-visas to citizens of every country and territory since 15 August 2023, so an Egyptian passport uses the ordinary online route with no sponsor and no intermediary.

Choose your entry point from the published list before you book, not after. The e-visa is honoured at the crossings Vietnam names, and a crossing that is not on it will not admit you on an e-visa however valid the visa is.

The current list runs to 17 international airports, 27 road border crossings and 27 seaports. It was expanded on 3 December 2025, so any list you find that is older than that is short rather than wrong.

If you are travelling on an Egyptian diplomatic, official or service passport, you do not need a visa at all for a stay of up to 30 days. That covers a good deal of the government and delegation travel on this route, and it is easy to apply for an e-visa you were never going to need.

Good to know

• An e-visa is a permission to enter at particular places, not everywhere. This is the failure that catches people on this route, and it has nothing to do with your nationality or your paperwork. Vietnam publishes the crossings at which an e-visa may be used, and a small land border with Cambodia or Laos that is open to local traffic is not automatically among them. The visa is not refused; it is simply not accepted there, and the answer is a long day getting to a crossing that is on the list.
• The list grew on 3 December 2025, which means old advice understates it rather than overstates it. Vietnam expanded the ports where an e-visa is honoured on that date, taking it to 17 international airports, 27 road crossings and 27 seaports. The practical consequence is the opposite of the usual stale-information problem: a guide from 2024 may tell you a crossing is unusable when it now works, so a route you ruled out on someone else’s list is worth checking again against the current one.
• Egyptian diplomatic, official and service passports are all exempt, which is broader than most of these arrangements. Vietnam distinguishes between countries whose diplomatic passports alone are exempt and countries whose official and service passports are exempt too. Egypt is in the second group, at 30 days. Anyone travelling on a service passport for a ministry or a state body is usually told to assume the exemption is for ambassadors, and here it is not.
• Nobody flies Cairo to Vietnam directly, so the connection is part of the visa question. Every routing goes through a Gulf hub, Istanbul or an Asian one, and the rules that bite are the transit country’s rather than Vietnam’s. Vietnam’s own transit rule is generous in the other direction: any nationality may transit by air without a visa for under 24 hours provided they stay in the sterile area, and staying overnight in the transit lounge is allowed. That is worth knowing if Vietnam is the connection rather than the destination, because it means a stopover needs nothing at all until you want to leave the airport.

Frequently asked questions

Related pages

• Do Gabonese citizens need a visa for Vietnam?
• Do Indonesian citizens need a visa for Vietnam?
• Do Egyptian citizens need a visa for the United States?
• Check visa requirements for any passport

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against the official sources below on 26 August 2026.

• Wikipedia, Visa policy of Vietnam (raw source checked 2026-08-26) — Egypt appears only under Non-ordinary passports, in the 30-day band and unmarked, which the section legend defines as covering diplomatic and official/service passports. Ordinary Egyptian passports hold no exemption (en.wikipedia.org)
• Wikipedia, Visa policy of Vietnam — since 15 August 2023 an e-visa is issued to citizens of all countries and territories, single or multiple entry, up to 90 days (en.wikipedia.org, citing the Vietnam Immigration Department portal)
• Bao Chinh Phu (Vietnam Government Portal), "More choices for foreigners with e-visa to enter and exit Viet Nam", 3 December 2025 — the border crossings usable on an e-visa were expanded; the crossing list as it stood on 2026-08-26, counted from the Wikipedia article that cites this piece, gives 17 international airports, 27 road border crossings and 27 sea border crossings (en.baochinhphu.vn)
• Wikipedia, Visa policy of Vietnam — passengers of any nationality may transit by air without a visa for under 24 hours provided they do not leave the sterile transit area; staying overnight in the transit lounge is permitted (en.wikipedia.org)
• Vietnam Immigration Department, official e-visa portal (evisa.gov.vn)

Entry rules change without notice and the official source is always the authority. Confirm with the embassy or immigration portal before you book.