VIETNAM – New 90-Day Visa Waiver for Chilean Nationals Introduced
Effective 11 August 2017, Chilean ordinary passports holders are exempt from requiring a visa to visit Vietnam for a period of up to 90 days and for any purpose, provided that the activity doesn’t involve any remuneration.
The Vietnamese government has also again extended the 15-day visa waiver for nationals of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom for another year. The terms of this extension remain unchanged from when the visa waiver was initially introduced in 2015:
Unlike the exemption agreement for the five European countries, the new exemption agreement for Chilean nationals has no specific agreement duration, and is valid until further notice.
Action Items
- Qualifying nationals should check with an immigration specialist and the Vietnamese consulate in their home country to determine whether the visa waiver is appropriate for their intended business activities;
- Qualifying nationals intending to secure a work permit will still need to enter the country on a business visa sponsored by the Vietnam entity and obtained at an overseas Vietnamese consulate. This will allow them to convert later to long-term temporary residence cards. Visa waivers cannot be converted.
=====This alert was prepared using information provided by Resident Vietnam.
