Under the Government’s Resolution No. 44/NQ-CP dated March 7, 2025, citizens from 12 countries including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland will be waived from a visa requirement from March 15, 2025 to March 14, 2028.

The resolution stated that citizens of these countries will be exempted from visas for a temporary stay period of 45 days from the date of entry, regardless of passport type and purpose of entry, on the basis of fully meeting the entry conditions as prescribed by Vietnam's laws.

According to the newly-released resolution, the visa exemption policy will be considered for extension under the provisions of Vietnam's laws.

This decision has been made on a unilateral basis.

Earlier, under the Government’s Resolutions No. 32/NQ-CP and 128/NQ-CP, dated March 15, 2022 and August 14, 2023, respectively, citizens from 13 countries, including the 12 above-mentioned countries, could travel to Vietnam without a visa.

Under its resolution No. 11/NQ-CP, dated January 15, 2025, the Vietnamese Government also decided to apply a visa waiver policy to tourists from Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland from March 1-December 31, 2025.

Vietnam’s facilitating visa policies and stronger tourism promotion programs along with increasingly high prestige have all contributed to drawing more foreign visitors to the country. Around 17.5 million foreign tourists visited Vietnam in 2024.

In the first two months of 2025, nearly 4 million international tourists traveled to Vietnam, a year-on-year increase of 30.2 per cent. China was Vietnam's largest source of tourists, with 956,00 visitors, making up 27.7 per cent. South Korea came second with 885,000, followed by Taiwan, the U.S., Japan, Cambodia, Malaysia, India, and Russia.

Vietnam targets to attract 22-23 million international tourists this year, surpassing the pre-pandemic levels.