Current Visa Situation for the Schengen Visa and Vietnam visa

The visa situation for both the Schengen Visa as well as the Vietnam visa are momentarily more complicated and travelers face very long waiting times.

Visa for travelers to Vietnam 

For Vietnam, the current situation it is still not as easy to come to Vietnam as pre-Covid. As of now, travelers usually make use of the tourist e-visa facility that the Vietnam government offers. This e-visa is not a very flexible visa; it is only for 1 month, it is not extendable in Vietnam (you have to leave the country and get back in to renew it) and can formally not be used for business travels/purposes.  At the moment, it is not possible to go to the Vietnamese Embassy to get a visa. Now, you need to get a sponsorship from the company that you are planning to visit and obtain an approval letter from the Vietnamese immigration services, before the Embassy in The Hague can hand out a visa.

We are advocating with the Government of Vietnam to enable more visa categories (such as multi-entry visa’s) so that business travelers can visit Vietnam easier.

Schengen Visa for travelers to EU and The Netherlands 

For the Schengen Visa: wait times to obtain a visa to the Netherlands can be more than 3 months at the moment. Our advice is to book already an appointment on the website of the visa application center, or apply for your visa well in advance (3 months before your scheduled travel date). I

At the moment, the consular service office in The Hague is working to increase its capacity, and they expect to catch up in the foreseeable future.

Other EU Countries like Germany, France, Italy are facing the same capacity issue after scaling down their visa departments during Covid-19. 

Orange Carpet Facility 

If you are a business traveller who travels to the Netherlands frequently from Vietnam and you need a short-stay Schengen visa each time, find out if you or your employees are eligible for the Orange Carpet Visa Facility.

Find out more at this special Vietnam page. At the bottom of the page there is a simple document to fill out and send to the Embassy or CG of Vietnam, to take further steps.

For multiple years, the process of obtaining a Schengen Visa has been called “tedious and bureaucratic”. The lengthy Schengen visa process is set to go completely online in the next few years, hopefully creating a smoother process for millions of travellers. 

DBAV Advocacy Working Group

The Dutch Business Association Vietnam's Board of Director has formed a sub working group, where government relations are maintained and issues like the one above are brought to the attention of the Embassies involved. We use a spectrum of channels broader than DBAV to bring problems and issues of Dutch investors to to broader institutions such as VBF, VCCI, and the relevant Vietnamese ministries.

If you want to be in contact with the advocacy group, please don't hesitate to reach out to Ms. Uyen Le at service@dbav.org.vn