Ho Chi Minh City visa run bus schedules, pickup points and prices

The short answer

Two ways to bus to the border, one decision

If you are looking up the Ho Chi Minh City visa run bus, you have probably already decided you do not want to ride a motorbike to Moc Bai and back. Good call. The road is fine, the border is fine, but a 160 kilometer round trip on two wheels in February heat is not how most people want to spend their visa day.

So the question narrows to which bus. There are two real options from Saigon, and they are different animals. The first is the visa run shuttle, a door-to-door service that picks you up at your apartment in the pre-dawn hours and brings you back the same evening. It costs 2,000,000 VND per seat, about 79 USD, and it is the option most expats actually book, because the price includes the parts of the day that tend to go wrong.

The second is the public bus from Ben Xe Mien Dong, the eastern bus station in Binh Thanh district. It is the budget version. Fares sit well under the shuttle price, but you ride a regular coach toward Tay Ninh, get dropped near the border rather than at it, and you are on the bus company's timetable for the return, which is where the cheap option gets expensive.

Same border, same crossing, same Cambodia visa fee on the other side. The only real differences are how you get there, what time you leave, and who is responsible when something goes sideways. The rest of this page lays out the schedules and pickup points for both, what the tickets actually cost in 2026, and which one to pick based on how your morning usually goes.

The service option

The visa run shuttle: pickup points and departure times

The shuttle is the closest thing Saigon has to a scheduled visa run bus. One van, one route, one job: get you to Moc Bai, get you stamped out and back in, get you home.

Pickup points

The van collects from four areas: District 1, Thao Dien, Thu Duc, and Phu My Hung. If you live in one of those, the driver comes to your building or the nearest practical spot, which for most guests is the lobby or the gate. That is the whole appeal. You do not drag a passport and a day bag onto a city bus at 5 AM; the van comes to you.

Departure time

Pickups start before sunrise, which in Saigon means the windows run from roughly 4:30 to 5:30 in the morning depending on where your address falls in the route order. The exact slot gets confirmed when you book, and the driver messages the night before with the pickup window. Expect to be rolling out of the city by 6 AM, on the empty side of QL22 before the truck traffic builds.

Return and price

You are back in the city by early evening. The full day runs about 12 hours door to door: pre-dawn pickup, two hours out, the crossing, a stop on the Cambodia side, the crossing back, two hours home.

The seat is 2,000,000 VND per traveler, about 79 USD, paid on arrival. That covers the transport only. The 90-day e-visa add-on is 2,400,000 VND single entry or 3,100,000 VND multiple entry, the Cambodia visa arrangement is 1,100,000 VND extra, and guided assistance is 700,000 VND if you want someone walking you through both borders. Booked together, transport plus both visas is 5,300,000 VND, and the full bundle with assistance is 6,000,000 VND. Cancellations are free up to 24 hours ahead.

The budget option

The public bus from Ben Xe Mien Dong

The budget way to do the visa run bus from Ho Chi Minh City is the ordinary intercity coach. Buses toward Tay Ninh leave from Ben Xe Mien Dong, the eastern bus station in Binh Thanh district, and the ride to the Moc Bai area takes about two and a half to three hours depending on traffic.

Where to board

Ben Xe Mien Dong sits on Xo Viet Nghe Tinh street in Binh Thanh. You buy your ticket at the counter inside the station, not on the bus, and you want a coach going toward Tay Ninh city or the Moc Bai crossing specifically. Tell the counter clerk you are heading to the border and they will point you at the right bay. There is no dedicated visa run bus line; you are riding the same coaches local travelers use.

Departures and fares

Coaches leave through the morning in a rolling sequence rather than on one fixed timetable, so the honest answer on schedules is to check the board the day before and buy then. On fares, the policy here is the same: prices move, so budget a few hundred thousand VND round trip and confirm the current rate at the counter. It is comfortably cheaper than the shuttle, which is the entire point of this option.

Where it drops you

The bus stops near the border, not at the passenger checkpoint. Count on a short walk or a xe om ride from the drop-off to the terminal, with your bags and passport in hand. That is a five to ten minute maneuver, not a hike, but it matters when you are carrying two passports, a phone, and a bottle of water in 35 degree heat.

The return trip is the risk. The last coaches back toward the city leave the border area in the afternoon. If the queues eat your morning, or a border officer wants a photo you do not have, you can miss that window, and then the savings evaporate fast. A xe om from Moc Bai back to Saigon is a long, expensive ride, and it can approach the price of the shuttle seat you were trying to avoid.

Side by side

Shuttle vs public bus, side by side

The border fees row is the same on both sides, and that is the point. The bus decision is purely about transport: how much you want to pay, how early you want to leave, and how much of the day you want to own yourself. Everything past the checkpoint is identical. The full price breakdown lines up every item if you want the details.