1. Why the port field decides your run
Most people planning a Hoi An visa run get this backwards. They book the van, pick a departure time, then think about the visa. The visa is the part that decides whether the trip works at all, and inside the visa application there is one field that matters more than the rest: the port of entry.
Get that field wrong and you will spend four hours each way on National Road 1A and QL9, stand at the Lao Bao window with a printed e-visa in your hand, and watch the officer shake his head. The visa is real. It just is not valid at the place you are standing.
This page covers what a Hoi An runner actually needs from the Vietnam e-visa in 2026: which port to select, what the government charges, how many working days the approval takes, the mistakes that get applications refused, and how the timing lines up with a fixed departure from Hoi An.
If you only read one paragraph, read this. The port is Lao Bao, it is named Lao Bao on the form, and it sits in Quang Tri province on the official list. File at least a week before you want to cross, and check your passport number twice before you pay, because the fee does not come back.
2. Lao Bao is on the official e-visa list
For a long time this was the weak spot in the whole plan. Vietnam e-visas only worked at a fixed set of checkpoints, and anyone running to a border that was not on the list had to sort out a different visa type or cross somewhere else. That changed on December 2, 2025.
Resolution 389/NQ-CP added 41 checkpoints to the list, taking the national total from 42 to 83. The breakdown now reads 17 international airports, 27 land border gates, and 39 seaports. Lao Bao international border gate in Quang Tri province is on it, which is the crossing every Hoi An run uses. La Lay in Quang Tri is on the list too, and so is Nam Giang in Da Nang, if you ever need a fallback.
The practical result is simple. When you open the e-visa form and it asks for your intended port of entry, Lao Bao is a selectable option. You are not filing paperwork that this border will not honour.
Two details worth knowing. The port you select has to match the border you actually cross. An e-visa issued for Lao Bao does not quietly work at Moc Bai or Huu Nghi; the officer at the wrong window sees a visa for somewhere else. And if your plan changes after approval, the fix is a new application, not a phone call.
The expansion did not change who can apply, either. The e-visa has been open to all nationalities since 2023, valid for up to 90 days, in single or multiple entry versions. What the December resolution changed was where those visas can be used.
3. What it costs and how long it takes
The government fee for a Vietnam e-visa is 25 USD for single entry and 50 USD for multiple entry, both valid for up to 90 days. Those numbers were confirmed again in Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC, the Ministry of Finance fee schedule that took effect on April 1, 2026. A single-entry visa at 25 USD is also what under-14s pay, whatever the validity printed on the card.
You pay by card during the online application on evisa.gov.vn. The fee is not refundable. Not if you change your mind, not if your photo gets rejected, not if you spot a typo in your passport number five minutes after submitting. When people ask why we push accuracy so hard, that is the reason: a refused application costs you the fee and the waiting time, and you start again from zero.
Processing is 3 to 5 working days as standard. Weekends and Vietnamese public holidays do not count toward that, so a Friday submission usually starts moving on Monday. In peak periods, Tet and the summer months especially, it stretches to 7 to 10 days. Those are the numbers to plan around, not the "24-hour guaranteed" banner on a reseller site. No agency can push your file ahead of the immigration queue, including us.
Multiple entry is the one to think about, not the one to default to. It costs twice as much. If you are running to Lao Bao once and staying put after, single entry is enough. If you have a side trip to Laos, Thailand, or Cambodia in your plans, and you want to come back through Lao Bao without starting the whole process again, the 50 USD version earns its keep on the first re-entry.
The one thing single entry does not survive is an exit. Leave Vietnam on a single-entry e-visa and the remaining days are gone, even if 80 of your 90 days were unused.
4. The mistakes that get applications refused
After years of filing these, the refusal patterns are boringly predictable. Almost none of them involve someone being ineligible. They involve a field filled in wrong.
The passport number. One wrong digit, a letter read as a number, or a space where there should not be one. The system does not check this against a database; it prints what you typed. The officer at Lao Bao compares it to the passport in your hand, and a mismatch is a refusal. Read it off the bio page, character by character, out loud if you have to.
The name. Vietnamese forms want surname, then given names, in the fields provided. If your passport says NGUYEN and you type it in lowercase, or you put your middle name in the surname box because that is how your bank does it, expect trouble. Copy the order from the machine-readable strip at the bottom of the bio page. That strip is what the officer scans.
The date of birth. Day and month swapped is the classic. 03/08/1985 and 08/03/1985 are different people as far as the border system is concerned.
The port. Lao Bao, Quang Tri. Not "Lao Bao, Da Nang", not "Dansavan". Dansavan is the Lao side of the same crossing, which is a different country's checkpoint and not a valid entry port for a Vietnam e-visa.
The photo. 4x6 cm, white background, no glasses, face straight on, taken recently. A selfie against a hotel wall gets flagged, and a flagged photo means the file sits until someone looks at it.
Then there is the calendar mistake, which is not a typo but costs just as much. Applying while your current visa or e-visa is still active, with a start date that overlaps it, invites questions about what you are actually doing and why you need two valid permissions for the same stay. File for the new visa to start after your current one ends, or hand the timing to a desk that does this daily.
5. Timing it against a real departure
Here is the countdown we give people when they ask how early to start.
If your current visa expires on the 20th and you want to run on the 18th, your application needs to be in by the 10th at the latest, and that assumes no holiday in the middle of the week. Five working days is the government figure, not a promise, and a Friday submission burns two weekend days before anyone looks at it.
Work backwards from the departure slot instead of forwards from today. Buses leave Hoi An every two hours from 4am, which gives you flexibility on the day but no flexibility on the paperwork. The visa has to be approved before you cross, because there is no desk at Lao Bao that will file a Vietnam e-visa for you while you wait.
The other timing rule, and the one that trips up long-term stayers, is that repeated back-to-back applications start to look like what they are. Officers see the pattern, and after several consecutive runs the questions get longer. That is not a reason to avoid the run. It is a reason to keep your paperwork clean and your answers consistent, and to start thinking about a work permit or a temporary residence card if Hoi An has quietly become home.
If your visa already expired, stop and read the other guide before you book anything. Overstay fines under Decree 282/2025 start at 500,000 VND and climb fast, and a run does not erase an overstay record.
6. What the border actually asks for
At the Lao Bao window the officer wants three things: your passport, the printed e-visa, and a record of your entry. He scans the LDIF QR code on the Laos side entry and exit, checks that the port on your e-visa is the port you are standing at, and stamps you out of Vietnam. That is the whole procedure on the Vietnam side, and it takes minutes when the paperwork was done right.
The step people underestimate is what happens after the stamp. Your exit stamp is the document our visa desk needs to file the new e-visa, which is why the run and the application are one job, not two. Your driver waits at the crossing while you clear both sides. Send us a photo of the exit stamp from the border cafe and the file goes in the same day.
That is the difference between booking transport and booking a run. A shared van from Hoi An costs 45 USD and a private car is 140 USD for up to five people, and neither of them will tell you your port selection was wrong. Our e-visa processing sits at 95 USD single entry and 120 USD multiple, on top of the 25 or 50 USD government fee, and it covers the filing, the photo check, and the follow-up if immigration asks a question.
If you are the kind of traveller who enjoys doing this yourself, do it yourself. The portal is evisa.gov.vn and the process is genuinely straightforward. Just budget a week of slack and re-read every field before you pay, because we cannot unwind a refusal after the fact, only help you file the next one cleanly.
7. Questions we get at the desk
Is Lao Bao on the Vietnam e-visa port list?
Yes. Resolution 389/NQ-CP, issued December 2, 2025, added 41 checkpoints to the e-visa list. Lao Bao international border gate in Quang Tri province is one of them, alongside La Lay and Nam Giang in Da Nang.
How much is the e-visa in 2026?
25 USD for single entry and 50 USD for multiple entry, both valid up to 90 days. Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC confirmed those fees from April 1, 2026. Payment is by card during the application and the fee is not refundable.
How long does approval take?
3 to 5 working days as standard. Weekends and public holidays do not count. In peak season, expect 7 to 10 days. File at least a week before your intended crossing.
Can I file the e-visa at the border while I wait?
No. There is no Vietnam e-visa filing desk at Lao Bao. The approval has to exist before you present yourself at the window, which means the online part comes first and the run comes second.
Will a wrong port on my e-visa still work at Lao Bao?
No. An e-visa issued for a different entry port is not valid at Lao Bao. The fix is a fresh application with the correct port selected, and the fee for the first one is gone.
Do I need multiple entry?
Only if you plan to leave Vietnam and come back within your 90 days. For a single Lao Bao run followed by staying put, single entry at 25 USD is the right choice.
8. Where to go next
The e-visa is one piece of a run. These pages cover the rest, all written for the Lao Bao route rather than a generic one.
Start with the step-by-step Hoi An visa run guide if this is your first crossing, or the cost breakdown if you are comparing transport. The Laos visa page covers the other half of the border, which is the visa on arrival you pay for with clean US dollars. And if the timing gets tight, whether visa runs still work in 2026 covers the rules that changed.
Travelling from Da Nang instead of Hoi An? Da Nang visa runs use the same border with a shorter pickup and slightly lower prices. Coming down from Hue, the Hue visa run side is the closer match.