There has been a lot of talk here in Vietnam lately about how the visa rules keep changing and people who live here on tourist visas seem to be getting rather arbitrarily denied a visa. Most of the time this decision on the part of the government changes after you have been outside of the country for a mere couple of days, but there are other instances where people had to stay away for a month or more and then the government is totally cool with them coming back.
I have been fortunate and I don't know why. I am on my 4th consecutive 3-month tourist visa and the most recent one that takes me through to mid May, was approved in December. On the other hand there are people that I have heard about that were denied even a 2nd visa and nobody really knows why that is. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with nationality and when your E-Visa is denied, they don't normally tell you the reason why. This is what can be so maddening about the visa process: People that did something wrong are not told what that wrong actually is.
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Unfortunately for the people out there that are looking for a concrete solution to this problem as far as tourist visas are concerned I don't believe there actually is one. Some people are just rejected and it seems to be completely arbitrary. Perhaps there is just some sort of protocol inside immigration here that if the workers want to appear as though they are doing their job they have to reject a certain percentage of applicants. Maybe you get lucky, maybe you don't.
Others have suggested that using an agent in the sure-fire way of getting approved but several of the people that I know that were rejected, were rejected even with the help of an agent.
The only definitive way that I am aware of to secure a long-term visa is to get an investment visa or be involved with a legitimate investment firm. What that firm actually does is irrelevant, it can be anything from real-estate to a bar, but it needs to be a legitimate company that is actually trading. In the past, people got involved in fake companies and the capitol they put in the fake company was substantially less than the government required minimum. It took years, but eventually the government caught up with these people and I know a few of them and they are properly blacklisted from the country and cannot get back in. Apparently the government doesn't take too kindly to people who circumvent their laws with deceit. They have less of a problem with people that egregiously overstayed their visas than they do with people who had a fake company floating around in the void.
let's stay on point. In order to invest in a company you need only find one that is willing to take on another member to their board of directors. This "board of directors" probably doesn't actually exist in the sense that you are probably imagining, it mostly is just a document that dictates the flow of command inside of any business. The idea that a bar would have a CEO is crazy talk, but the documentation declaring that needs to exist for legal purposes.
So, one you have found this company that is willing to take on a board member this is where things get expensive. Currently, the minimum amount of foreign investment required to buy into a company as a foreigner is 250 million VND or approximately $10,300 based on today's conversion rates.
This money can end up being "protected" in a way that means you are not just throwing this money into a vacuum for the company to spend all of your money and then go out of business. As an investor, you can protect your money using certain documents that dictate that the company, barring insolvency, owes you, the investor the 250 million at any time that you decide to part ways with the company. The company in question is legally obligated to provide you with this money but they have a certain amount of time, a sort of delay, in order to do so. This can be anywhere from 30 days to several years and it is determined entirely by the contract that you decide to draw up with the company.
This is where it is kind of important that you are investing either with a very solid company or with a friend of yours that you know isn't going to piss your money away.
once you have this investment the paperwork gets put into motion to get you a non-immigrant visa and a TRC (temporary resident certificate) and these are very valuable documents indeed. What this means is that you will NEVER have to go on a visa run again and you can come and go in and out of the country at your leisure. Recently, I was traveling to Thailand with someone that has TRC and they are allowed to go through the Vietnamese lines at Immigration and these are always faster and less hassle-filled.
For many people this can be unaffordable though: I realize this.
The costs don't end at the initial investment, as a registered board member you are also subjected to certain taxes that come along with the running of whatever company that you are involved in, and from the research I have done and the lawyer I have been speaking to this cost ends up being around $60 a month.
Therefore, utilizing this option is only slightly less expensive, per month, than simply doing border runs every 3 months. The huge advantage is that you no longer need to be worried about whether or not your E-visa is going to be approved, nor do you ever have to leave the country in order to acquire another visa. I guess it all depends on what you consider your time to be worth.
Personally, I know several digital nomads that do anything from programming to teaching to crypto investing and when they miss a day of work, which is something that will certainly happen if they are on a visa run in airports and on planes, they stand to lose significantly more money than the aforementioned $60. Even as an online teacher missing a day of work can easily lose me more than $60 bucks. So for me, if I can scare up the $10,000, it seems like a pretty great idea.
Obviously you do not want to file this paperwork, which is quite complicated, on your own, so secure the services of a lawyer or reputable agent to do it for you. The process isn't really that expensive, just a couple hundred dollars or so.
If and when my tourist visas start getting rejected, I will be investigating doing precisely this sort of visa and it will be a load off my mind when I do so. Others might be interested as well. Just make sure that the firm is legitimate because the government here has had its fill with people circumventing the law and they will eventually catch you if you try to skirt the system.
I would get it done as soon as possible and I know you mentioned the alternative options before and $10K is actually worth it to not have to do border runs every 3 months.
my only real concern is the claim that the 10k remains yours and you can have it back when you want in the future. This almost sounds too good to be true.
So sad to hear that you have experience strugle on your visas, I hope this problem of yours will be solve🤗😥 greetings
it would be a lot easier if they would stop changing the laws for really no reason at all. Thanks for commenting!
True🙂
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