Why do Vietnamese bank cards get blocked, and is it related to visa status?
Based on 1 discussion with 2 participants · Last activity: 8 days ago
TL;DR
Your bank card isn't directly tied to your visa — the bank can block it by its own decision regardless of whether you're in the country or abroad. The account itself gets blocked for inactivity, and some banks (like BIDV) charge around 50,000 VND to verify visa status via the public immigration database.
What the community said
Vietnamese bank cards are typically issued only with an e-visa. Formally, the card should be blocked once the visa expires, but in practice this doesn't always happen — top-ups can still be done via international transfer or crypto.
12 days ago e-visa required for card
According to community experience, most Vietnamese bank cards do end up getting blocked once the visa expires, even though banks aren't formally required to do this. Some branches, however, issue cards that don't get blocked — likely due to staff inconsistency.
9 days ago
Vietcombank (a Russian-Vietnamese joint banking project) reportedly does not block cards after the visa expires, unlike other banks.
9 days ago Vietcombank
Banks don't have access to closed immigration databases — only a public one where visa validity can be checked by visa and passport number. Because of this, many BIDV cards get restricted (e.g. cash withdrawals blocked), and the bank charges around 50,000 VND for each such check.
16 days ago BIDV, ~50,000 VND per check
The bank card itself has no direct link to your visa status — the bank blocks it based on its own decision, regardless of whether you're in Vietnam or abroad.
16 days ago
The confusion comes from misunderstanding how it works: the card isn't tied to the visa. Card blocking is the bank's own decision regardless of your location, while the account gets frozen specifically due to prolonged inactivity.
16 days ago account frozen for inactivity