A visa run from Saigon on a US, UK or Australian passport Same border. Different paperwork.

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The three passports side by side

There is no American version of a visa run, no British one and no Australian one. Everyone crossing at Moc Bai does the same thing: leave Vietnam before the permission runs out, then come back in on new permission. The passports differ in two places only, which visa you are entitled to hold and how long it lasts before you have to leave again.

United Kingdom

45 free days, and then the arithmetic gets awkward

A British passport is on Vietnam's unilateral exemption list. Under Resolution 44/NQ-CP, signed on 7 March 2025, citizens of the UK and 11 other countries get 45 days from the date of entry with no pre-approval, no fee and no stated limit on the purpose of the visit. The policy runs from 15 March 2025 to 14 March 2028.

Two details trip people up. First, British National (Overseas) passports are not covered; a BNO holder needs a visa like anyone else. Second, the 45 days cannot be extended inside Vietnam. When day 45 arrives you leave, and the run is the only way back.

Coming back on the exemption again is allowed. The old 30-day cooling-off rule belonged to the 15-day scheme and is gone, so there is nothing on paper stopping a second exemption entry. The risk is not legal, it is visual. Two exemption stamps and a couple of border stamps inside a year reads like living here, and that is the pattern officers ask about. Most long-stay Brits switch to the 90-day e-visa after the second free entry and stop thinking about it.

The e-visa is open to British passports too, at the same 25 USD for single entry and 50 USD for multiple that everyone else pays. Ninety days at a time means two runs a year instead of six, which is why the paid option usually wins for anyone staying a season. If you are a two-week tourist who fancies a weekend in Phnom Penh, take the free stamp and keep your 25 dollars.

United States

E-visa only, and file it early

The United States is not on Vietnam's exemption list, so an American passport crosses Moc Bai on an approved 90-day e-visa and nothing else. Ninety days is the longest tourist stay available without a sponsor, the fee is 25 USD for single entry and 50 USD for multiple, and the application is filed at evisa.gov.vn. Give it 3 to 5 working days, and remember weekends do not count.

Two older habits cause most of the trouble. The first is the visa on arrival letter. That channel still exists for air travellers with a pre-approval letter, and it has never worked at a land border. Booking one for a Moc Bai crossing means arriving with a document the counter cannot use. The second is the single-entry habit. A single-entry e-visa is spent the moment you exit Vietnam, so a one-day run to Cambodia needs a new approval before you come back, not the same one reused.

If you plan to hop to Thailand, Japan or Bali inside your 90 days, the 50 USD multiple-entry e-visa is the sensible buy. It costs 25 dollars more than the single and covers every re-entry until the visa expires.

On the passport itself, the rules are ordinary but enforced: six months of validity beyond your arrival date, and a blank page for each stamp. One American-specific warning is worth repeating. The State Department advisory issued on 24 June 2026 notes that the 12-page emergency passport issued at a US consulate overseas may not be accepted for a Vietnam e-visa, so a lost passport in Asia is not a same-week fix. Sort the new passport before you book the run.

Australia

Also e-visa, also 90 days, and a bike caution

Australian passports are not on the exemption list either, so the run works exactly the way it does for Americans: an approved 90-day e-visa, 25 USD single or 50 USD multiple, filed online three to five working days ahead. At mid-2026 exchange rates that is roughly 38 to 42 Australian dollars for the single-entry version, a little more than a night in a District 1 hotel.

An Australian passport opens a lot of doors around Southeast Asia. It opens none inside Vietnam beyond the standard e-visa, so the plan is the same every 90 days: pick a date a week before the visa expires, leave at Moc Bai, come back on the next approval. Keep a return or onward booking on your phone; Vietnamese entry conditions include being able to show you will leave, and it is the document most likely to be asked for somewhere in the chain.

One Australian-specific point if you were thinking of riding to the border instead of taking a car. Vietnam recognises the 1968 Vienna Convention international driving permit, and Australia is not a party to that convention, so an Australian IDP does not authorise you to ride here on its own. The motorbike visa run guide sets out what that means in practice. In a car, it does not matter at all.

The bill

What the day costs, whichever passport you hold

Transport and border fees are the same for all three nationalities. The only line that moves is the Vietnam visa, and only because British passports can skip it on a short stay.

A fully sorted day lands around 5,300,000 VND, or 6,000,000 VND with onsite guided assistance. The gap between the government's 25 USD and our desk price is the part people ask about most, and it is covered line by line on the 2026 cost page.