Visa Exemption for Overseas Vietnamese Available on Sept 1st

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has signed Decision No 135/2007/QD-TTg to promulgate a new regulation that will grant visa exemptions to Overseas Vietnamese beginning September 1.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has signed Decision No 135/2007/QD-TTg to promulgate a new regulation that will grant visa exemptions to Overseas Vietnamese beginning September 1.

Visa Exemption for Overseas Vietnamese Available on Sept 1st ảnh 1

Ethnic Vietnamese who hold foreign passports and their wives, husbands and children will benefit from the new policy.

A certificate must be obtained by the passport holders for the exemption to be utilized. The certificate will be valid for five years. Overseas Vietnamese will be granted a 90-day maximum stay with extensions available inside the country.

In order to be granted a visa exemption certificate at Vietnamese representative offices abroad, overseas Vietnamese need to submit one of the following documents: a document that proves they are ethnically Vietnamese; a guarantee by overseas Vietnamese associations based in the country in which they are residents or by a Vietnamese citizen; or a document by authorized foreign agencies certifying that they are ethnically Vietnamese.

Husbands, wives and children of Vietnamese living abroad will also need to submit documents that prove their relationship to the Vietnamese member of their immediate family.

The new policy is one of the government’s attempts to encourage overseas Vietnamese to visit their homeland and to contribute to Viet Nam’s development.

At present, three million Vietnamese are living in foreign countries, mainly in the US, France, Australia and Canada, according to the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese. Nearly 500,000 overseas Vietnamese visit their homeland every year.

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