The fines changed in December 2025. Here is the current schedule, the 16-day line, and the one-day fix that keeps you off it.
An overstay is simple to define and easy to slip into: your visa or entry stamp says you must leave by a certain date, and you leave after it. The date on the stamp is the last legal day, not the day after. Leave on the 16th when the stamp says the 15th and you have a one-day overstay, recorded in the system like any other.
The fines come from Decree 282/2025/ND-CP, which replaced the older Decree 144/2021 on December 15 2025. It doubled the previous maximum and added new brackets for very long overstays. Old articles quoting the old numbers are why travelers keep being surprised at the counter, so treat anything written before late 2025 with suspicion.
The lightest case costs 500,000 to 2,000,000 VND, roughly 20 to 80 USD. The heaviest, for people who overstay a year or more, runs 30 to 40 million VND, more than 1,500 USD, and that is before deportation and a long entry ban are factored in. The same schedule applies to every nationality and every visa type.
Fines escalate in seven brackets under Article 21 of Decree 282/2025. Where you land inside a bracket depends on how long you overstayed, why it happened, and how cooperative you are when you come forward. Someone who walks in voluntarily with a clear reason lands at the low end. Someone caught after a long silence lands at the high end.
| Days overstayed | Fine (VND) | Approx USD | Deportation risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 16 days | 500,000 to 2,000,000 | 20 to 80 | No |
| 16 to under 30 days | 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 | 190 to 380 | Possible |
| 30 to under 60 days | 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 | 380 to 570 | Possible |
| 60 to under 90 days | 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 | 570 to 760 | Possible |
| 90 to under 180 days | 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 | 760 to 950 | High |
| 180 days to under 1 year | 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 | 950 to 1,140 | Very high |
| 1 year or more | 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 | 1,140 to 1,520 | Near certain |
If an employer or sponsoring company let you overstay without reporting it, they face double the individual fine plus a separate penalty for failing their sponsorship duties. That is why a decent workplace chases you about your visa expiry before you chase yourself.
Type in how many days past your expiry date you are, and see which bracket you sit in. The range shows the fine you can expect before any discretion is applied.
Below 16 days, the violation is minor in the eyes of the law. The fine stays between 500,000 and 2,000,000 VND, deportation is not on the table, and you can usually walk up to the immigration counter at the airport on the day you leave, pay, get your passport marked, and fly home.
At 16 days everything shifts. The minimum fine jumps to 5,000,000 VND, more than double the maximum for a 15-day overstay. Deportation becomes a possible additional sanction, and the immigration department can open blacklisting proceedings. You can no longer settle the case at the airport; the immigration office gets involved first.
That jump is deliberate. The government designed day 16 as the dividing line between a minor infraction and a serious immigration violation. The practical takeaway: if your visa has expired and you are inside the first two weeks, sort it out today. Every day you wait moves you toward the line, and the fine schedule makes the difference impossible to miss.
Some people overstay on purpose, but most do it by accident. The e-visa is the classic trap: it cannot be extended in-country, it is valid for 90 days from the intended entry date, and the entry stamp you receive can differ from what you planned. If you count 90 days from the wrong date, you are already off.
The other traps are quieter. A weekend counts. A holiday counts. The date on the stamp is the last legal day, and nobody at the border cares that the immigration office was closed on the 14th. Flights cancelled, a sick relative, a money transfer that did not arrive, all of these are reasons, but they do not cancel the fine. They just move you toward the lower end of your bracket.
Then there is the person who decides to ignore it, figuring the fine is cheaper than a flight. Under the old decree that math sometimes worked. Under Decree 282/2025 it rarely does, because the bracket system punishes length: two weeks over costs at most 2 million VND, but three weeks over starts at 5 million and opens the deportation door.
Short overstays usually surface at the airport, when the exit officer checks your stamp against your visa and finds the gap. You pay on the spot, get a receipt and a passport notation, and board your flight. It is not pleasant, but it is straightforward, and thousands of travelers do it every year.
Once you pass 16 days, the airport counter is no longer an option. The immigration office handles the case: you go in, explain the overstay, pay the fine, and receive an exit permit that lets you leave. The process takes time, sometimes a full day, and the outcome depends heavily on how you present yourself. Someone who shows up voluntarily with a clear story lands at the low end of the bracket. Someone found during an inspection, or who tried to hide, lands at the high end.
There is a new wrinkle under the current rules: if you cannot pay the fine, authorities can move to deport you immediately, and the fine is suspended, not cancelled. It follows you. So can the notation in your passport, which some immigration officers read carefully on your next application.
Deportation and blacklisting are the scary words, and they are real. From 16 days of overstay, deportation becomes a possible sanction on top of the fine. Blacklisting, which blocks re-entry for 1 to 3 years, can be opened at the same point. Longer overstays and repeated violations push both outcomes closer to certain.
A short overstay usually does not get you banned, but it is recorded, and it can slow down future visa applications or raise questions at the border. That record is the hidden cost. The fine is the price of the mistake; the record is the price of repeating it.
For anyone living in Vietnam, the stakes are higher than a fine. A blacklist ends a job, a lease, a plan. That is why the standard advice, from every expat forum and every visa desk in the country, is the same: never let the stamp lapse in the first place.
A visa run is the same-day land trip that resets your stamp before it expires. You leave Vietnam by land, step into Cambodia or Laos, and cross straight back with a fresh entry stamp. Done before expiry, it is fully legal and it means no fine is ever triggered, because there is no overstay to fine.
Compare the numbers. A run from Ho Chi Minh City to Moc Bai costs about 1.5 to 2.5 million VND all in, transport plus the border visa. The fine for a single week over, which is the lightest possible outcome, starts at 500,000 VND and only goes up. And the run buys you 30 or 90 fresh days, while the fine buys you nothing but a receipt and a passport notation.
The cost comparison gets lopsided fast. A two-week overstay can cost up to 2 million VND, roughly the same as a run, except the run gives you three more months of legal stay. A three-week overstay starts at 5 million and can bring deportation into the conversation, which no amount of money makes worth it. The run is the cheap option, and it is the safe option.
Two border hubs cover the network: the Cambodia route via Moc Bai or Xa Mat, and the Laos route via Lao Bao, Na Meo, or Huu Nghi. The Moc Bai crossing guide walks through the border step by step. For the full context of what a run involves, start with the complete visa run guide.
If you are already past your stamp date, the move is to act today, not to hope it resolves itself. Inside 16 days, the airport counter handles it on departure. Past 16 days, book a slot at the immigration office and bring your passport, your visa, and the cash or card for the fine.
One warning about running while over: exiting on an expired stamp is exactly the situation where immigration is least forgiving, because it is an attempt to reset a violation instead of clearing it. If your stamp is already dead, sort out the fine first, then run on the new stamp. Once you pass the 16-day line the airport counter closes and you need an exit permit from the immigration office, which takes 3 to 7 working days to process. The visa desks across the network deal with this situation weekly and can tell you the realistic fine for your exact dates before you commit.
Find your local desk:
Under Decree 282/2025, in force since December 15 2025, an overstay of under 16 days costs 500,000 to 2,000,000 VND. Fines climb through seven brackets up to 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 VND for overstays of a year or more.
The minimum fine jumps to 5,000,000 VND, deportation becomes a possible additional sanction, and immigration can open blacklisting proceedings. The case can no longer be settled at the airport counter; the immigration office handles it first.
Yes. Overstays of 16 days or more can bring a blacklist of 1 to 3 years, and longer or repeated violations can bring longer bans. Even a short overstay is recorded and can slow down future visa applications.
Yes. A visa run done before your stamp expires exits and re-enters Vietnam legally, so no fine is ever triggered. It is a day trip to a land border and back, and costs far less than the 16-day bracket fine.
Decree 282/2025/ND-CP, effective December 15 2025, replaced the older Decree 144/2021. It doubled the maximum fine from 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 VND and added new brackets for very long overstays.