Vietnam is on more bucket lists than ever — Ha Long Bay, Hoi An, Hanoi’s street food, the rice terraces near Sapa. Getting there requires a visa for most foreign travelers, including Americans, and the process takes about fifteen minutes on the official government portal. The Vietnam eVisa at evisa.gov.vn costs $25 for single entry and $50 for multiple entry. That’s the full cost, paid directly to Vietnam’s Department of Immigration.

Scam sites charge $79. Some charge more. A January 2026 Air Traveler Club analysis of 47 third-party visa sites found an average fee of $79 for an authorization that costs $25 at the official source — a $54 markup, per person, for a form that requires no intermediary. The scam sites buy paid search placement above the official portal for terms like “Vietnam eVisa” and “Vietnam visa Americans.” They look like government websites. They’re not.

The government domain is .gov.vn — the Vietnamese equivalent of .gov in the US. Any eVisa site that doesn’t end in .gov.vn is not Vietnam’s Department of Immigration.

Quick Facts — Vietnam eVisa 2026

Detail	Info
Official cost	$25 USD single entry / $50 USD multiple entry
Official portal	evisa.gov.vn
Who needs it	Most foreign nationals, including US citizens
Stay allowed	Up to 90 days
Processing time	Up to 3 business days (often faster)
Application window	Up to 30 days before arrival
What scam sites charge	Average $79; some higher
Scam markup per person	$54+ above the $25 official fee
Official government domain	evisa.gov.vn — ends in .gov.vn
Payment tell	Official portal uses Vietnam’s government payment gateway — sites using PayPal or standard Visa/Mastercard checkout are third-party operators

In one sentence: Vietnam’s eVisa is $25 (single entry) or $50 (multiple entry) at evisa.gov.vn — the only legitimate portal ends in .gov.vn, and a January 2026 analysis found 47 third-party sites averaging $79 for the same authorization.

What Is the Vietnam eVisa?

Vietnam’s eVisa is an electronic authorization required for most foreign visitors before travel, issued through Vietnam’s Department of Immigration at evisa.gov.vn. The system launched in 2017 and expanded significantly in 2023 when Vietnam extended stays from 30 days to 90 days and added multiple-entry options — which made it considerably more useful for longer trips and travelers routing through neighboring countries.

Single entry covers up to 90 days in Vietnam. Cost: $25. You enter once and stay.

Multiple entry also allows up to 90 days of total stay but lets you cross into Cambodia, Laos, or Thailand and re-enter Vietnam without applying again. Cost: $50.

The eVisa is valid for a specific window — apply within 30 days of your intended entry date. Processing runs up to 3 business days, sometimes faster. The authorization arrives as a PDF to your email; airlines verify it at check-in and Vietnamese immigration checks it on arrival.

The application itself is minimal: name, passport details, intended arrival and exit dates, port of entry, purpose of visit, and a passport-quality photo. No hotel booking required. No itinerary. No supporting documents. Fifteen minutes, $25, done.

Why Vietnam Gets Hit Particularly Hard

Volume is the mechanism. Vietnam drew over 17 million international visitors in 2024, and millions of “Vietnam visa” searches happen monthly. Scam operators buy Google ad placement for those exact terms — “Vietnam eVisa 2026,” “Vietnam visa for Americans,” “Vietnam visa cost” — and appear at or near the top of results, often above evisa.gov.vn. Travelers who don’t check the address bar before entering their details see what looks like an official government portal and proceed through the application.

There’s also a specific confusion window in 2026. Vietnam launched a mandatory digital pre-arrival card on April 15, 2026 — a separate, free form at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn that all foreign visitors must submit within 72 hours before landing. Travelers searching for information about either requirement encounter scam sites that bundle the arrival card with the eVisa, charge a combined fee, and present a total that doesn’t match any government pricing. Two legitimate requirements plus one confusing rollout creates exactly the kind of uncertainty these operations count on.

For Americans building serious Vietnam trips — Ha Long Bay cruises booked months ahead, Hoi An tailors measured for clothes, Sapa treks timed for harvest season — the eVisa is the gating document. The airline checks it before issuing a boarding pass. Get it wrong, and the trip doesn’t happen.

How the Scam Sites Operate

The mechanics match what’s documented across Turkey’s evisa scam ecosystem, Cambodia’s evisa pattern, and Egypt’s portal fakes — because these operations share infrastructure, not just tactics.

A scam operator registers a domain like evisa-vietnam.com, vietnam-evisa.net, or vietnam-visa-online.org — names chosen to appear adjacent to the official portal in search. They buy Google ad placement. Their site loads with Vietnamese government imagery, official-looking seals, and a form that mirrors the real application exactly. The form fields are the same: passport number, date of birth, travel dates, email. You complete it. Then the payment screen shows $79, or $89, or $65 — the price varies by site, because nobody coordinated a fake government fee.

Some operations forward your data to evisa.gov.vn after collecting your $79, paying the $25 themselves and pocketing the $54 difference. You receive a technically valid eVisa — but your passport details, date of birth, and photo went through a private server with no security obligations to you. Other operations issue a confirmation document that fails the airline’s documentation check. The Vietnam visa forum on Tripadvisor has documented both outcomes across years of complaints.

One practical tell: the Air Traveler Club analysis noted that the official evisa.gov.vn processes payment through Vietnam’s government payment gateway, not through familiar Western processors. Sites offering PayPal checkout or standard international credit card flows that look like any other e-commerce site are operating outside the government portal — no matter how official the surrounding design looks.

How Do I Apply for the Vietnam eVisa?

Go to evisa.gov.vn directly — type it into your browser, don’t follow a search result or click a sponsored link. Confirm the URL ends in .gov.vn before entering anything. The process:

1. Go to evisa.gov.vn. Check .gov.vn in your address bar. Close the tab if it says anything else.
2. Select your nationality. The portal confirms eligibility and the applicable fee.
3. Enter your passport details — full name exactly as printed in your passport, passport number, date of birth, expiry date. Name must match character for character. A discrepancy surfaces at the airline check-in counter, not at Vietnamese immigration.
4. Upload a passport photo — recent, white background, no glasses, clear face.
5. Enter your travel details — intended arrival and departure dates, entry port (which Vietnamese airport), purpose of visit.
6. Pay the fee. $25 for single entry, $50 for multiple. Use the government payment gateway — not a PayPal window, not a third-party processor.
7. Receive the eVisa PDF by email. Download it, save it to your phone’s camera roll, and print a copy. Airlines scan the authorization. Keep it accessible offline, not buried in email threads.

Processing: up to 3 business days. Apply with at least a week of buffer before departure — the “up to 3 days” window can extend during peak season, and a Friday application before a Monday flight is a bad position to be in.

The eVisa is valid for 30 days from issue, so apply within that window of your arrival date.

The Arrival Card Is Separate

If your trip is in 2026, you also need a free digital arrival card submitted within 72 hours before landing — this is at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn and is entirely separate from the eVisa. The eVisa is your permission to enter Vietnam. The arrival card is your pre-arrival registration. Both are required, two portals, two different timeframes. The arrival card is free — if any site charges you for it, it’s not the Vietnamese government.

What to Do If You Already Paid a Third-Party Site

Apply again at evisa.gov.vn before you travel. Your authorization needs to exist in Vietnam’s official system. A confirmation document from a fake portal won’t pass the airline’s check-in verification — it’s a document from a private company, not the Vietnamese government.

Verify your official eVisa:

• Shows Vietnam’s Department of Immigration (Cục Quản lý Xuất nhập cảnh) as the issuing authority
• Lists your name exactly as it appears on your passport
• Includes your eVisa number and valid QR code
• Arrived from a @immigration.gov.vn or @xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn email address

Name doesn’t match your passport? Contact the portal before travel. That problem doesn’t fix itself at the airport.

Paid and received nothing? Dispute with your card issuer. These operations don’t have a real customer service channel. Your credit card’s dispute process is the practical recovery route.

On the data side: the Vietnam eVisa form captures your full name, passport number, date of birth, travel dates, and a photo. If that data went through a non-.gov.vn server — which it did, on any scam site — take appropriate steps with your identity documentation.

What Does the Vietnam eVisa Cost?

Vietnam’s eVisa costs $25 USD for single entry and $50 USD for multiple entry, applied directly through evisa.gov.vn. Both authorize stays of up to 90 days. No service fees, no processing tier, no expedite options — what the official portal charges is the total cost.

The January 2026 Air Traveler Club analysis of 47 third-party visa sites found an average charge of $79 for a single-entry authorization. For a family of four, that’s $216 in unnecessary fees — real money that goes entirely to a middleman with no special access to Vietnam’s immigration system. Private agencies promising faster processing don’t have faster processing. Standard processing is 3 business days for all applicants, regardless of who submits the form.

Any site charging more than $25 for a Vietnam single-entry eVisa is not the Vietnamese government.

The Bottom Line

Vietnam’s eVisa is $25 (single entry) or $50 (multiple entry). The official portal is evisa.gov.vn. Vietnam’s government domain ends in .gov.vn — any site on a .com, .org, or .net domain is not Vietnam’s Department of Immigration.

Third-party sites average $79 for the identical authorization. The markup exists because travelers click a sponsored search result without checking what’s in the address bar.

The defense is one habit: type evisa.gov.vn directly. Don’t follow a sponsored link to apply for a visa. Confirm .gov.vn before entering your passport number. That’s it.

Vietnam is genuinely worth the prep. Ha Long Bay, Hoi An’s old town at night, the best bowl of pho you’ve had in your life — the food culture alone makes the country a destination worth sorting the paperwork for. Don’t pay three times the actual price to get through the door.

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Vietnam eVisa: evisa.gov.vn. Digital arrival card: prearrival.immigration.gov.vn. US State Department Vietnam entry guidance: travel.state.gov. Air Traveler Club January 2026 analysis: airtraveler.club. Information current as of June 2026 — verify current entry requirements before travel.