How to apply for a new Vietnam visa before your current one expires and avoid overstay during a border run?

New visa applications typically take about 4 working days to process on average.

When submitting several visas in advance (identical except for dates), one of them can be sent back for revision multiple times and ultimately never get approved — so the risk isn't just outright rejection, but the process dragging on until the current visa expires.

You can apply for your next visa without waiting for the first one to be approved. Set the new visa's start date to overlap the current one by a couple of days, in case your border run doesn't go exactly as planned.

This overlapping-dates approach isn't always approved — some applicants got approved, others got rejected, there's no guaranteed outcome.

If you fail to leave the country before your current visa expires (e.g. by the 5th), it counts as an overstay and comes with a fine.