Vietnamese First Time Passport

@peterpan75

If (and I'm not sure about this) acquiring a VN passport requires you to hold VN citizenship, please see this post, which includes a link to rules regarding application for citizenship, and some special cases here.

If this information has helped you, Peterpan75 (or others), please take the time to report back to the forum your experiences. Your feedback will surely help other expat.com members.

@Aidan in HCMC

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure if it that extensive, meaning having to be a citizen, to get a passport, possibly for buying land, etc. I just searched and looks like years ago, I made a similar post about getting a passport in Vietnam here, and someone told me, that there is a VN Immigration office who deals with overseas Vietnamese on getting as he called it "repatriation". I followed up on that thread but never got anymore details. This was years ago, when I was first inquiring, sort of fell back in the back-burner. Now, I am really trying to get it done.

Hopefully, "repatriation" does not include...

#6. Must renounce foreign nationality.

Anxious to hear back with the results of your investigation(s).

@Aidan in HCMC

Yeah, exactly. I've thought of that but from what I can tell, It shouldn't mean that much.

Yes, hopefully, someone here can give me some solid info on this. I mean, there are I'm sure millions of overseas VN back in VN so, hopefully someone here can let me know.

And as we know, there is a price for EVERYTHING there.

Application to confirm Vietnamese nationality is done abroad not in Vietnam. You should be able to submit an application to a Vietnam consulate near where you live.

This application should be free of charge. If you choose to get a Passport after having your citizenship confirmed, the fee for a passport book is  $70.

Here is the instruction from the Vietnam embassy in the US. There is an application pdf form. Fill it out and submit it with whatever evidence of Vietnamese documents that you have like birth certificate, passport, etc..

It should take about 60 days for them to confirm your citizenship. Once your citizenship is confirmed, they will record it into a nationality registry book, which you can get a copy of as proof of citizenship.\

good luck!

Shocking, can't believe there is no one on here that can help with this. Is there another Vietnam forum out there I am not aware of?? Guess, I will have to go to Vietnam and do some groundwork.

Shocking, can't believe there is no one on here that can help with this. Is there another Vietnam forum out there I am not aware of?? Guess, I will have to go to Vietnam and do some groundwork.
-@peterpan75

Oh, please!

You've already been informed by more than 1 person that only a Vietnamese citizen can get a passport (as is the case in virtually every country in the world).

Also, for some reason, in your special case of maybe needing it to purchase real estate (or some other unspoken purpose) you seem to feel that you are the exception to the rules about renouncing your USA citizenship and having to go through "repatriation".

Simply put, you aren't an exception.

The problem is that you are starting with the end result (prize?) of the very serious and complicated citizenship process (a Vietnamese passport) and saying essentially, "I deserve to have that, now somebody help me find proof that the rules don't apply to me".

You also made it clear that you think this is a process you should be able to buy into, and you might have a point there.

I'm sure if you had about a trillion or two Vietnam đồng to invest, some party official would be able to help you fast track this process (for a billion or two in coffee money).

Did it ever occur to you that the reason you weren't getting offers of help is that the people who have gone through this process were extremely serious about it, to the point of needing to renounce their citizenship and go through repatriation?

There's simply no reason to expect those people who are now citizens of Vietnam to be hanging around a forum about people who are almost entirely temporary expats.

Probably your best first step to confirm this information once you enter Vietnam is to ask your relatives in Ho Chi Minh City to accompany you to the local police department where they will direct you towards the proper place to start the process, and also answer your questions with authority.

Maybe this bit from the US Embassy website will help to clarify what's necessary in order to become Vietnamese citizen:

Citizenship

Renunciation of U.S. citizenship is a serious decision, and, if approved by the Department of State, is irrevocable. Potential renunciants are asked to carefully reflect on their decision. Renunciation applicants must have two interviews with a U.S. consular officer.  The first interview is to discuss the process with a consular officer. The second interview, which must be in-person, is to collect payment and complete the process. Renouncing U.S. citizenship does not relieve the renunciant of existing U.S. tax obligations, legal matters, or criminal charges.

After the second interview, the case will be forwarded to the Department of State for review and decision. Only when the Department of State approves the case is the renunciation considered complete. The length of time for Department of State approval may take several months. Our office will contact you when this process is complete.

The non-refundable fee for renunciation is $2,350, payable in USD or VND at the time of the second interview. Fees are payable in cash or with the following credit cards in U.S. dollars: Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. The Embassy and Consulate do not accept payment in the form of checks.

If applicants would like to schedule the initial interview, please submit an inquiry here.  Priority will be given to applicants who reside in Vietnam.

An additional point:

Most of the Vietnamese people I know in California are not USA citizens.

They are often living in the USA on temporary or permanent resident status but they have not become naturalized as citizens.

For those people it's almost certainly much easier to get a Vietnamese passport,   

because they haven't complicated the matter by becoming a citizen of the United States.

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all your messages and details.

@peterpan75 I can understand the frustration but as you have seen our members who are present give the maximum information to help you in your request.

As you know, some of our members are advisors/experts who share both their experiences and their desire to help the expatriate community.

The message you left is quite hurtful for them, maybe I could advise you to review your message and discuss it privately with some of them. Of course, even if the help cannot be successful, you will have to ask the official institutions again.

If you need more, feel free to continue the discussion here.

Have a nice day,

Mickael

Expat.com

@peterpan75       Have you tried the Vietnamese Consulate in Bangkok on Wireless road..........I have found them to be very helpful, especially fior Viet Kieu wanting to 'reclaim Vietnamnese Citizenship'   as well as Foreigners marrying Vietnamese citizens in Thailand.     Give them a shot, what have you to lose 'cept an hour or two in the Consulate................Peace

Application to confirm Vietnamese nationality is done abroad not in Vietnam. You should be able to submit an application to a Vietnam consulate near where you live.
This application should be free of charge. If you choose to get a Passport after having your citizenship confirmed, the fee for a passport book is $70.
Here is the instruction from the Vietnam embassy in the US. There is an application pdf form. Fill it out and submit it with whatever evidence of Vietnamese documents that you have like birth certificate, passport, etc..
It should take about 60 days for them to confirm your citizenship. Once your citizenship is confirmed, they will record it into a nationality registry book, which you can get a copy of as proof of citizenship.\
good luck!
-@zkt101

The above says it all. Ignore all concerns about renunciation of US citizenship. In fact I have read that is rather difficult to do so and usually undertaken only by billionaires wishing to avoid US taxation.

Although you may be in Thailand now, you may find the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok to be uncooperative.  Are you a semi-permanent resident of Thailand or just visiting? If the latter, why not enter Vietnam this time using your VEC and deal with this when you return to the US?  If so, may I suggest that you deal with the Viet Consulate in San Francisco instead of the Embassy in DC.  In fact you may even be able to deal with them from Thailand, but it will involve sending your documentation by international mail, which could get dicey, or by FEDEX which could get costly. Also they don't say so online but they may be unwilling to mail the passport to non-US addresses. Here is their webpage (can't get the link icon to work any more):  https://vietnamconsulate-sf.org/en/home/.

Edit:  You do not need to confirm nationality separately, especially as you have indicated that you have your birth certificate.   Just go directly to the passport page.  Directions to confirm eligibility and to apply for the passport are together.  You may need to mail your original birth certificate which is another reason to do it within the US as you indicated that the original is at your US home.

Much of the advice in this thread about checking with a consulate or an embassy (inside or outside the USA) is pointless, since the OP clearly wrote (in this thread and at least three others):

I tried to apply in the US a couple times at a couple VN embassies with no luck, each time they couldn't give me a clear answer why they couldn't complete it, and kept a hundred dollars for their "services". @PeterPan75

In fact, this contradicts what he wrote over 4 years ago on 23 August 2018:

So, I spoke with someone at the SF consulate today. Pretty nice, actually answered the phone and all my questions.

She quoted me $300 for the passport process ( and extra $100) for expedited service. 1 year vs 3+ months.

My next question is, can this process be done in Vietnam?? Stupid as I was there for a few years and I think I inquired but was told it had to be done here in your home country(USA-edit) but never really pursued it fully. But as we know, anything is possible with the almighty dollar.

So if I'm wrong about his need to renounce his US citizenship, I'm happy to be corrected.

He's repeatedly fishing for some easier way than what he's been told by government officials, to the point of suggesting a payoff with "the almighty dollar".

However, based on what he writes in his posts, I'm wondering if he's a reliable historian.

We don't know what he told the SF consulate to get the reply he rejected.

Did he mention that he's a US citizen, or did he simply tell them that he has proof of Vietnamese nationality?

He has also said that he's had no problem getting a 5-Year Visa Exemption Certificate, so he's obviously capable of applying for and receiving that to which he is entitled.

I wouldn't want to be the one to tell him to  ignore any advice, except for telling him to do again what he's done before and expect different results.

I'd definitely recommend ignoring that.

Read section 3.iv.

https://www.blawyersvn.com/blog/conditi … n-vietnam/

@peterpan75