“Permitted to remain until” on your Vietnam entry stamp is the exact date you must leave the country, not a suggestion or a rough guideline. I’ve watched people miss this at the airport counter more than once, so here’s what every field on that stamp actually means, when your count of days starts, and what changes in 2026 if you get it wrong.
I live in Da Nang and run visa runs and e‑visa filings for a living, so I read this stamp for a living too - mine and other people’s.
What Does “Permitted to Remain Until” Mean on a Vietnam Entry Stamp?
The date next to “permitted to remain until” is a hard legal deadline: you must exit Vietnam on or before it, or get an approved extension before it passes. It isn’t the day border control expects you back at the airport for a flight - it’s the last calendar day you’re allowed to be inside the country at all.
The stamp itself carries several separate pieces of information, and it helps to know which is which before you’re standing at the counter trying to read your own passport upside down. The entry date and a small icon showing how you arrived - blue for air, red for a land border - sit next to the “permitted to remain until” stamp, which is a separate imprint, not part of the entry date block. Your actual departure date only gets written in by hand when you leave, so nothing on the stamp when you arrive tells you when you’re leaving - only when you have to.
Does the Day You Enter Vietnam Count as Day One?
Yes. The day you physically enter Vietnam counts as day one of your permitted stay, and Vietnam counts both the entry date and the exit date inclusively when it adds up your total days. There’s no “arrived after midnight, doesn’t count” exception - if your visa allows 45 days and you land at 11:50pm, that day is still day one.
This trips up people doing quick math on a 45-day or 90-day stay: count forward from your arrival date, include that date itself, and the last day you get is your actual deadline. A common mistake is counting only full days after arrival, which quietly shaves a day off your real budget and pushes people toward an overstay they didn’t plan for.
How Is an E‑Visa Stamp Different From a Visa-Free Stamp?
An e‑visa issued through evisa.gov.vn runs up to 90 days in 2026, sold as single-entry for $25 or multiple-entry for $50, and a single-entry e‑visa becomes void the instant you exit the country even if the printed date hasn’t run out yet. A visa-free stamp, by contrast, is based on nationality-based exemptions that currently range 14 to 45 days depending on your passport, with no separate government fee to pay.
The other detail that catches travelers out: your e‑visa’s allowed window is fixed to the entry and exit dates you typed into the application form, not to when you actually show up. Land later than the entry date you requested, and your usable stay shrinks - the “permitted to remain until” date on the stamp doesn’t move to compensate for a late arrival.
Russian passport holders currently fall into the 45-day visa-free group, alongside most EU nationalities, the UK, Japan, and South Korea - check this against the current exemption list before you fly, because unilateral exemptions can be adjusted with little notice. Whichever route you’re on, your passport needs at least six months of validity left beyond your entry date, and visa-free or e‑visa entry only works through the specific international checkpoints Vietnam has approved for that entry type.
Filling out that e‑visa form yourself is something plenty of travelers do with the government portal and a translator tab open - nothing about the form itself requires help. Where it actually goes wrong for a lot of people is the payment step: evisa.gov.vn rejects a large share of Russian and other foreign cards outright, and a rejected payment with no clear reason is how people end up re-submitting the whole application two days before a flight - I wrote up what to do when a submitted e‑visa has a data error, which is the same rebuild-from-scratch problem in a different shape. With BestBus Vietnam I take the passport photo and dates you send me, fill in the entry point and dates myself, and pay the government fee on a card the portal actually accepts.
What Is the New Digital Pre-Arrival Step in 2026?
Since 15 April 2026, anyone flying into Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City has had to submit a Digital Pre-Arrival Card through prearrival.immigration.gov.vn within 72 hours of arrival, free of charge. Approval generates a QR code, and the immigration officer scans it before stamping your passport - it’s one more screen between you and the stamp, not a replacement for it.
The rule started as a pilot at that one airport, with plans to roll it out more widely, so travelers using other airports or land crossings should confirm current requirements before departure rather than assume the same QR step applies everywhere yet. I put together a full immigration counter checklist covering the order officers actually check documents, if you want the wider picture beyond just this one step.
Step by Step: How to Read Your Stamp Before You Leave Immigration
Before you walk away from the counter, take thirty seconds to check your own passport. It’s the cheapest insurance against an overstay you’ll ever buy.
- Find the entry date stamp and confirm it matches the day you actually arrived.
- Check the entry-mode icon - blue for air, red for a land border - matches how you actually crossed.
- Locate the separate “permitted to remain until” stamp and read the full date, not just the month.
- Count forward from your entry date, including both the entry date and this deadline, and write the deadline somewhere you’ll actually see it - a phone reminder, not a mental note.
- If you’re on a single-entry e‑visa, remember the stamp goes void the moment you exit, even mid-trip.
What Happens If You Overstay in 2026?
Under Decree 282/2025/ND-CP, effective 15 December 2025, Vietnam raised the maximum administrative fine for overstaying a visa, TRC, or approved extension to VND 40,000,000 - roughly $1,520 - up from a VND 20,000,000 cap under the old 2021 decree, and immigration authorities can now move to deport a foreigner who overstays 16 days or more.
The fine scales with how long you’ve overstayed: 1 to 15 days runs VND 500,000 to 2,000,000 (about $19 to $76), 16 to 29 days runs VND 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 ($190 to $380), and it climbs in tiers up to that VND 40,000,000 ceiling for overstays past one year. Some travelers with a very short overstay, under three days, report settling the fine at the airport before their flight rather than visiting an immigration office first - that’s a field practice reported by travelers, not something written into the decree itself, so don’t count on it as a guarantee.
Missing your date isn’t usually a dramatic story - it’s a rebooked flight, a longer visa process than expected, or someone genuinely losing count of the days. If it’s refused, I refile the application for free and refund the fee, since the risk of a rejected e‑visa should sit with me, not with you.
You can extend a visa before “permitted to remain until” passes, and it’s worth doing the moment your plans change rather than waiting to see if you’ll make the deadline. If your dates have already shifted and you’d rather not track the extension paperwork yourself, message me on Telegram - I’ll tell you what’s realistic for your dates and handle the extension or the visa run from there.