Email Us:
After 2 years of closure due to Covid-19, Vietnam opened visa to welcome back tourists. However, the visa extension is not available at the moment. The most popular visa type right now – Electronic visa – is only valid maximum 90 days per each entry. For those who want to stay more than 90 days in Vietnam, it’s very complicated to find solution. In this article, we will advise the best way to do Vietnam visa renewal in this period: visa run through Moc Bai border. It is considered as the cheapest visa run from Vietnam, especially for those from Ho Chi Minh City.
What documents do you need to prepare before doing the visa run? How to do the Moc Bai visa run? How long does it take? How much does it cost as well? This guide is for all those who want to do it, even by motorbike or shuttle bus.
Before heading to Cambodia, you must check to make sure all below documents are well prepared:
In order to get a new visa staying in Vietnam, the whole process of getting a visa run done at the moc bai border covers the following steps:
How to get to the Moc Bai border from Ho Chi Minh city?
There are various ways to reach the Moc Bai border from Saigon, including motorbike, city bus, private bus, taxi, and private car.
By motorbike/private car: For most people living in Ho Chi Minh city, the fastest way to reach the Moc Bai border gate by motorbike and private car is to go towards Cu Chi and pick up QL22, keep following the way until reaching the border. The distance is around 80km, depending on where you live in Ho Chi Minh city.
Tips: Many foreign visitors wouldn’t recommend the motorbike option, but private cars, as it would be a long, hot ride with the issue of having to park your bike somewhere whilst you enter Cambodia. But if you want to enjoy the landscape, a motorbike ride is not a bad option.
By city bus: This is perhaps the cheapest option to get to Moc Bai from Ho Chi Minh city.
Take a blue public bus No.703 at Bus station in Park 23/9 (at the corner of Pham Ngu Lao and Cong Quynh street, opposite to Thai Binh Market). If you want to depart and come back to Saigon on the same day, you should start your border-run early in the day, preferably before 9am, as the last bus leaves Moc Bai around 4 or 5pm. The journey takes about 3 hours.
Frequency: Departs every 30 minutes. And just go to Moc Bai Border
Price: 40.000 VND/person (around 2 USD/person/1 way).
Bus 703 from Ho Chi Minh city to Moc Bai border
By private bus: If you don’t want to take a city bus that stops at various spots, you can book a seat on a private bus in any office on Pham Ngu Lao Street. The price is around US $10 – 12.
First of all, you need to park your bike or get off the bus, and then walk for around 5-10 minutes to reach the border gate.
You’ll get to the big Vietnamese building. Walk all the way to the right and keep walking until you see a big wooden booth with a Vietnamese official sitting in it. You’ll see a bunch of people waiting in line. You can wait in that line, it will probably take like 30 minutes.
Then, Get the exit stamp onto your passport and then exit the border to Cambodia.
Moc Bai border gate
Once you get stamped out of Vietnam, you make your way to the Cambodian border checkpoint name “Bavet border”, around 200m walk. Once here, you go to a small booth where you will show your visa (if you obtained it at the Cambodian embassy/consulate in Vietnam) or pay US$30 for a Cambodian visa on arrival, and fill out the form. There you will find some locals who invite you to get help, of course, with the hope of some money. If you don’t want, decline politely. If you do need their help, prepare to pay a service fee.
After getting stamped, go into the adjacent building to “enter Cambodia”. When you enter the building, you will see, on your left, some tables and chairs. Stay there and fill out the arrival card before queuing up to officially enter Cambodia.
Then go across to the exit building, and get your stamp out of Cambodia.
Bavet border gate
Tips: We highly recommend you prepare USD for visa fees beforehand, as if you run on Vietnam Dong, you will find that every payment comes with an unreasonable exchange fee. To do so, just visit the gold shops around Ben Thanh Market first and get some USD in small, unmarked banknotes.
Here come the steps that you need to complete the visa border run at the Vietnam border:
You walk back and into the building again from the other side. At the Vietnam Immigration building, you then show your passport, Vietnam visa, ATK test certificate, and complete the Vietnam entry procedure.
Moc Bai visa run procedure
Tips: We strongly recommend you to apply e-visa at least 4 working days before the visa run day. It can be applied online through our website at this link https://www.vietnam-evisa.com/apply/
Congratulations. You are successfully back in Vietnam with a new stay duration. The whole process may take you around 3 – 5 hours. Now, get on your car, bike, or bus to go back to Ho Chi Minh city.
Top tips:
Above is guidance for getting Vietnam visa run through Moc Bai border checkpoint. If you have any questions, just feel free to contact us through email info@vietnam-evisa.com
