The short version: you leave Vietnam by land and come straight back with a fresh visa stamp.
You are in Vietnam on a tourist visa. It is about to run out. Instead of flying home, you take a van or car to a land border crossing, walk into Laos or Cambodia, and then walk back into Vietnam with a new entry stamp. That stamp gives you another 30 or 90 days, depending on the visa you arrange.
The whole trip takes one day. You leave early in the morning and you are back in your city by evening.
Mostly people living in Vietnam on tourist visas. Expats between jobs, English teachers on short contracts, digital nomads who do not qualify for a work permit, retirees spending the winter. Their visa is good for 30 or 90 days and they do not want to fly home just to renew it.
Tourists do them too, but less often. A traveler who wants to stay three months instead of one can spend a day at the border and get another 90 days, which beats booking a new flight out of the country. For anyone whose plans are genuinely open-ended, the visa run is the cheapest way to keep the stay legal without leaving Southeast Asia.
There is nothing unusual about it. Border staff see dozens of runners a day, and the whole thing works the same way it has for years: out, stamp, back, stamp.
There are two main land crossings for visa runs:
See our visa run to Cambodia guide and visa run to Laos guide for hours, fees, and what changes at each gate.
The mechanics are simpler than the name sounds. You arrive at the gate in a van or car, walk to the Vietnamese exit window, and get stamped out. Then you cross the short bridge or walkway into Laos or Cambodia, pay for a visa on arrival at their counter, and get their entry stamp. That stamp is the proof you left the country.
Then you turn around. Back at the Vietnamese side, immigration stamps you in again with a fresh entry date. The whole out-and-back takes about an hour at Moc Bai on a quiet morning, a bit longer at Lao Bao.
One detail matters: the new Vietnam visa. A border run only resets your stay if you already have a new e-visa approved, or if your nationality gets visa-free entry. Most runners file the 90 day e-visa application online the moment their exit stamp is photographed, while the van waits at the border. Approval takes a few working days, so the run buys time rather than a same-day stamp for everyone.
Moc Bai and Lao Bao handle the bulk of runs, but they are not the only gates. Xa Mat in Tay Ninh province is the quieter Cambodia crossing used by some HCMC drivers, and Ha Tien further southwest opens a route toward Kampot. In the north, Hanoi runners have Lao Bao, Na Meo in Thanh Hoa, and Huu Nghi (Friendship Pass) on the China border.
Which gate you should use depends on your city, not preference. A van from HCMC to Lao Bao would add hours to the trip for no benefit. Pick the crossing your city's services actually run, and let them handle the paperwork on the far side.
You pay for transport and the new visa. Transport runs between 1.5 and 7 million VND depending on shared van vs private car and your city. The Cambodia visa fee is around 1.1 million VND at the border. A 90 day Vietnam e-visa is roughly 2.4 million VND if you want to apply for one during the run.
City by city numbers are in our visa run costs page, and the full day plan is in the complete visa run guide 2026.
This is why most people do a visa run. While you are at the border, your driver or fixer can file a 90 day Vietnam e-visa application online. It gets submitted the moment your passport is stamped out of Vietnam. The e-visa comes back by email a few days later, giving you 90 days instead of the standard 30.
Yes. Leaving Vietnam by land and re-entering is a normal border crossing, not a loophole or a grey area. Vietnamese immigration stamps you out and in according to the same rules that apply to anyone entering the country. There is no law against doing it.
What draws attention is doing it carelessly. Immigration officers can see your entry and exit history, and a passport full of same-day border stamps looks unusual even if nothing about it is illegal. A traveler who crosses once or twice a year is unremarkable. Someone who runs weekly for months starts to look like they are living in Vietnam without the right visa, and officers may ask questions or shorten the next grant.
The other real risk is overstaying, which is where the run earns its keep. Under Decree 282/2025, an overstay of under 16 days costs 500,000 to 2,000,000 VND, and longer overstays climb toward 40,000,000 VND with possible deportation or an entry ban. A visa run done before expiry keeps you on the right side of both. See the full overstay fines guide.
There is no published limit on land border crossings. In practice, the pace that works is the pace your visa demands. On a 90 day e-visa, that is roughly four runs a year. Some people run every month on a 30 day visa and get away with it for years; others find that immigration starts asking questions after a few quick back-to-back crossings.
If you know you will stay in Vietnam long term, a visa run stops being the smart option somewhere around the second or third one. A temporary residence card costs more up front but removes the border trip entirely, and the math usually favors it after about a year of runs. Our visa run vs e-visa vs TRC comparison lays out the numbers.
There is also a rhythm to the timing. Runs fill up the week before Vietnamese public holidays, and border gates close for Tet like everything else. Plan around the calendar and book a few days early if your visa expires near a holiday.
One day. Vans leave between 4am and 6am, you cross the border mid-morning, and you are usually back in your city by early evening. From HCMC, Moc Bai is about two hours each way. From Da Nang or Hue, Lao Bao is three to four hours each way, which is why those runs start earlier.
You pay for one at the border. Cambodia charges USD 30 for a visa on arrival, valid 30 days, cash in US dollars. Laos charges about 30 to 40 USD. You only hold it for the few minutes you are on the other side, but you do need it to get the entry stamp that proves you left.
An extension is filed with Vietnamese immigration while you stay in the country. It is not always available for tourist visas, and it does not reset your entry date the way a border crossing does. A visa run gives you a completely new entry stamp, which is why people on 90 day e-visas use runs instead of extensions.
Yes, the gates are open to everyone. You need your own transport to the border, USD or VND for the far-side visa, and a new Vietnam e-visa approved before you re-enter. The timing is the hard part: the exit stamp photo has to reach the application, and the approval has to land before your new entry. A service handles that coordination for you.
Same thing. "Border run" is the older term and is common in Cambodia and Thailand. In Vietnam most people say visa run, but they mean the identical trip: out by land, fresh stamp, straight back.