Vietnam Overstay Fines 2026: The Rates, the 16-Day Line, and the Fix from Hue

What changed on 15 December 2025

Vietnam rewrote its immigration penalty rules at the end of last year. Decree 282/2025/ND-CP took effect on 15 December 2025, replacing the older Decree 144/2021, and it did not tinker around the edges. The maximum fine for overstaying jumped from 20,000,000 VND to 40,000,000 VND, and a new bracket appeared for anyone who has been in the country more than a year past their stamp.

The bottom bracket did not move. Stay under 16 days past your stamp date and the fine is still 500,000 to 2,000,000 VND, which is 20 to 80 USD at the current rate. What changed is everything above that line. The country now punishes long overstays hard, and it moved the point where deportation becomes a legal option down to 16 days.

If you are reading this from Hue with a stamp that has already expired, the number that matters is how many days you are over. Count to today. That figure decides which bracket you sit in, whether the airport counter can still handle you, and how much room you have to fix this quietly. The rest of this page is the 2026 numbers, where the case is actually handled in Hue, and the one situation where a Lao Bao run is not the answer.

The 2026 fine table

Article 21 of Decree 282/2025 sets seven brackets. Where you land inside a bracket depends on how the case comes to light and how you handle it. Someone who walks into the immigration office voluntarily with a straight explanation sits at the low end. Someone caught during a check, or who stayed quiet for months, sits at the high end.

Two things surprise people. First, one day over and two weeks over cost the same, both under the bottom bracket. Second, if a company or a landlord sponsored your stay and failed to report the problem, the organisation pays twice the individual fine plus a separate penalty for letting it happen.

The 16-day line

Day 16 is the cliff. Below it, the case is minor: the fine tops out at 2,000,000 VND, deportation is off the table, and the exit officer at Phu Bai can usually take payment at the counter when you fly out. You get a receipt and a notation in the passport, then you board.

On day 16 the minimum fine more than doubles, from a 2,000,000 VND ceiling to a 5,000,000 VND floor. Deportation becomes a possible additional sanction, and the immigration department can open blacklisting proceedings. The airport counter is no longer an option. The case goes to the immigration office instead, and you need an exit permit before anyone lets you leave the country.

That gap is deliberate. The government drew the line between a slip and a serious violation. So if you are inside the first two weeks, today is the day to sort it out, not next Monday. Every day of delay walks you toward a line that costs you three million dong and a lot of goodwill.

Where the case is handled in Hue

Under 16 days, on the way out. If you are flying from Phu Bai International Airport, the exit officer checks your stamp against your visa and finds the gap. You pay the fine at the counter, in dong, and the notation goes into your passport. It is a slow, awkward twenty minutes, but it is over before your flight boards. The same thing happens if you leave overland, at Lao Bao or any other gate.

16 days or more, at the immigration office. Cases past the line go through the Immigration Office of Hue City Police, at 50 Tran Cao Van, Phu Hoi ward, on the south bank of the Perfume River, a short ride from the walking street. The published number is 0234 3897 770. Call before you turn up, because the desk that handles foreigner overstays is not always the desk you walk into first.

Office hours are Monday to Friday, 07:30 to 11:30 and 13:30 to 17:00. Saturday afternoon, Sunday and public holidays are closed. That matters when your stamp died on a Friday and you are counting days over the weekend, because the clock does not stop just because the office is shut.

Take your passport with the expired visa or entry stamp, your temporary residence registration slip from the hotel or landlord, the departure date you are aiming for, and cash in dong. Payment can run into eight figures for long overstays, so check the daily limit on your card before you rely on it. Bring a photocopy of the passport page too. The copy shop on the corner will do it for a few thousand dong.

Blacklists and the record that follows you

Deportation and blacklisting are not scare words in the decree. They are listed sanctions. From 16 days of overstay, deportation can be ordered on top of the fine, and immigration can open blacklisting proceedings that block re-entry for one to three years. Longer stays, or a repeat offence, push both outcomes toward certain.

A short overstay rarely produces a ban, but it does produce a record. That record is the part nobody prices in. It sits in the immigration file, it comes up when you apply for the next e-visa or a work permit, and it gives the officer at the counter a reason to look at your paperwork twice. The fine is the cost of one mistake. The record is the cost of a pattern.

For anyone living in Hue rather than passing through, the stakes are higher than a receipt. A three-year ban ends a lease, a job, and a life that took years to build. Teachers, remote workers and retirees in the city all hear the same thing from the visa desks: never let the stamp lapse. It is cheaper to spend a day on the road than a year outside the country.

When a Lao Bao run is the fix, and when it is not

A visa run resets your stamp by leaving Vietnam legally and coming back in. Done before your stamp expires, there is no overstay, so no fine ever exists. The car from Hue to Lao Bao and back costs 2,800,000 VND for the whole car, up to four travelers, plus the Laos visa on arrival at Dansavanh if your passport needs one. Split between four people that is under 30 USD each for the transport.

Put that next to the fines. Two weeks over the line costs up to 2,000,000 VND and buys you nothing. Three weeks over starts at 5,000,000 VND, more than the car, and it also opens the deportation conversation. The run is the cheaper column every single time.

Where the run does not help: if your stamp has already expired, do not treat the border as a way to wipe the slate. Exiting on a dead stamp is exactly the situation officers look hardest at, because it reads as an attempt to reset a violation rather than clear it. Pay the fine first, get the exit permit if you are past 16 days, then run on the fresh stamp. The visa desks around the country handle this weekly and can tell you the realistic fine for your dates before you commit to anything.

The other honest caveat: if you are five days out and holding a valid 90-day e-visa, the run works on any day of the week. If you need a new e-visa from the desk, remember immigration processes applications Monday to Friday only. A Sunday expiry is survivable, but plan it on a weekday and give yourself room. Related reading: what a Hue run costs and the step-by-step day.

How people in Hue end up over

Almost nobody plans it. The e-visa is the classic trap. It is valid for 90 days from the date you said you would enter, but the entry stamp you actually receive can be dated later, and the stay you are granted is counted from the stamp, not from the approval email. Count from the wrong date and you are already wrong by a week.

The quieter traps: a weekend counts, a public holiday counts, and the date on the stamp is the last legal day. Nobody at the border cares that the immigration office was shut on the 14th. A cancelled flight, a hospital stay, a bank transfer that never landed, all of these are reasons, and reasons move you to the low end of your bracket. They do not cancel the fine.

Then there is the person who decides to ride it out, on the theory that a fine on departure is cheaper than a trip to the border. Under the old rules that maths sometimes worked. Under Decree 282/2025 it rarely does, because the schedule punishes length so sharply. Two weeks over costs at most what a shared run costs. Three weeks over costs more than the run and puts your right to come back on the table.

Overstay questions from Hue

More from this site: the complete Hue visa run guide, Lao Bao border hours, and the Laos side of the crossing. Overstaying a Laos entry instead? That is handled at Dansavanh, and the visa on arrival guide covers it.

Related guides

Still inside your stamp? The complete Hue visa run guide walks the day from pickup to re-entry, and the 2026 cost breakdown prices the car, the Laos visa and the e-visa tiers so you can compare them against any fine. If the problem is not Vietnam but Laos, the Dansavanh visa on arrival guide covers the other side of the window.