Vietnam Visa Overstay 2026: Fines and What to Do

An overstay starts the day after the date printed on your entry stamp, not the day after you remember to look at it. Miss that date by a single day and you are over, with a fine and a record in the Immigration Department system.

The fines come from Decree 282/2025/ND-CP, which took effect on 15 December 2025 and replaced the old Decree 144/2021. There are seven brackets based on days overstayed, from 500,000 VND for a short slip to 40,000,000 VND for a year or more. The old ceiling was 20,000,000 VND. The new one is double that, and a lot of English language sites still quote the old number.

The number that matters is 16. Under 16 days, you pay the small fine, usually at the airport, and walk out. From day 16, the minimum fine jumps to 5,000,000 VND, deportation becomes a possible extra sanction, and the Immigration Department can start an entry ban that typically runs one to three years.

None of this is hard to avoid from Hanoi. A same-day visa run to Lao Bao puts an exit stamp in your passport before your visa expires, which is the entire legal point of the exercise. The rest of this page covers the fine table, what changed in the rules, what to do if you are already overstaying, and how the run keeps you out of it.

This is the table from Article 21 of Decree 282/2025/ND-CP, effective 15 December 2025. Fines are for individuals. The USD figures are approximate at the 2026 exchange rate.

Two things stand out when you read the table. First, a one day slip and a fourteen day slip land in the same bracket, so the small fine range is forgiving. Second, the jump at day 16 is brutal: the minimum goes from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 VND overnight, and deportation stops being theoretical.

A warning about sources: many visa agency sites still publish the old Decree 144/2021 table with a 20,000,000 VND ceiling and call it current. If a page you are reading tops out at 20 million, it is outdated. The 2026 ceiling is 40,000,000 VND and there are two new long stay brackets that did not exist before.

Decree 282/2025/ND-CP replaced Decree 144/2021 on 15 December 2025. It is the biggest tightening of overstay penalties in years, and it moved in four ways:

• The ceiling doubled. The top fine went from 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 VND for overstays of a year or more.
• Two new brackets appeared. The old schedule had five brackets and lumped everything over 90 days together. The new one splits 180 days to under a year and a year or more into their own, steeper tiers.
• Deportation review starts at 16 days. Officers can open a formal case from day 16, weighing the length of the overstay and how honestly you came forward.
• Sponsors pay double. An organization that sponsored you and let the overstay happen is fined twice the individual amount.

One more change landed in 2026. Decree 59/2026/ND-CP, effective 1 April 2026, digitalized the deportation process and added a sharp rule: if you cannot pay the fine, authorities can deport you immediately, and the fine is suspended rather than cancelled. The old policy of holding people until the fine was paid is gone.

The fix depends entirely on how many days you are over. The good news: for short overstays the process is routine and well worn. The bad news: the longer you wait, the narrower the options get, and every extra day moves you up the fine table.

One to two days over: settle at Noi Bai. Short overstays are routinely resolved at the airport on departure. Show up three to four hours early, go to the immigration counter before check-in, explain the overstay, and pay the fine on the spot. The practical rate for very short overstays works out to about 500,000 VND per day, inside the bottom bracket. Bring cash.

Three to fifteen days over: the office is safer. The airport can still process you in this range, but it is the wrong place to argue about a fine while a flight is boarding. Go to the Immigration Department instead: 44-46 Tran Phu Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, open 8:00 to 11:00 AM and 1:30 to 4:00 PM Monday to Friday plus Saturday morning, phone 024 3825-7941. Bring your passport, a written explanation of the overstay, and cash for the fine. Officers respond better to someone who walks in and owns it.

Everything about the 2026 rules is designed to make 16 days feel like a cliff, because it is. Before day 16 the system treats you as someone who made a mistake. From day 16 it treats you as someone who overstayed on purpose until caught.

Concretely, day 16 is where three things switch on at once. The minimum fine more than doubles, from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 VND. Deportation becomes a legal option alongside the fine. And the Immigration Department can open an entry ban, which in practice runs one to three years, or longer for serious cases.

The record matters even after you pay. Every overstay, even a two day one, is logged in the Immigration Department system. That record can resurface when you apply for the next visa, a work permit, or a residence card. International schools and employers that run background checks routinely catch overstay history. Paying the fine closes the case. It does not delete the entry.

Once you cross day 16 you are dealing with the Immigration Department, not an airport counter. They open a formal case, assess the fine from your bracket, and decide whether deportation applies. The process can end with an exit visa that takes five to seven working days to process, so do not book a flight for tomorrow and expect to be on it.

What to bring to 44-46 Tran Phu: your original passport, a detailed written explanation, and any supporting evidence you have, such as medical records or cancelled flight confirmations. Evidence of genuine reasons genuinely helps. What does not help is ignoring it, because the record only gets worse with time.

One honest note about embassies: the US Embassy in Hanoi states plainly that it cannot sponsor visa extensions or ask for special treatment on overstay cases. Your embassy can replace a lost passport and give you general guidance, but the fine, the case, and the exit decision are between you and Vietnamese immigration.

And do not try to slip out through a land gate like Lao Bao to dodge the system. The officer scans your passport and the overstay is on the screen before you say a word. The same fine applies at the border, you lose the structured airport process, and a failed attempt makes the case worse, not better.

A visa run exists for exactly this reason. The exit stamp is proof you left before your visa expired, and that stamp, dated and in your passport, is the whole legal defense against an overstay. Get stamped out of Vietnam at Lao Bao before the deadline and the clock never has a chance to run past zero.

The shared van from Hanoi runs Tuesday and Saturday, pickup from 4:00 AM. Fares are 1,500,000 VND from Tay Ho and 1,650,000 VND from Long Bien or Gia Lam. A private car runs any day from 4,800,000 VND for up to four people, which is the option to book when your visa is genuinely tight and you cannot wait for the next van day. You are home the same evening with a fresh stamp good for another 30 or 90 days depending on your passport and visa type.

Two habits keep runners out of trouble. First, run with margin. The expiry date is the hard deadline, but fog, rain, and traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Highway stretch drive times, and a flat tire has ended more than one carefully planned day. Book a few days early, not the morning of. Second, check the entry stamp date before you leave the border counter. A misread or a rare wrong date is fixable on the spot and a nightmare later.

If you are on an e-visa, there is an even simpler lever: apply for more days than you think you need. The e-visa fee does not scale sharply with duration, so the buffer costs little, and it covers the weeks where the calendar sneaks up on you.

The full picture is on the step by step run guide and the Lao Bao route page. If you are already over, the section above is the one that applies to you.