Do you actually need a Vietnam visa agent?

In plain termsBefore comparing prices, settle a different question: who is legally allowed to file. For a residence card it is not you, and it is not the agent — it is your sponsor.

What the state charges, per document

These are statutory fees, published as a schedule. They are the floor of any quote you receive.

Take the quote you were given and subtract the line that matches your document. The remainder is the service fee, and that is the only number worth arguing about. The schedule itself carries no agency line (no — TT 28/2026/TT-BTC Biểu Mục II — per-document state fees only; the schedule contains no agent or service-fee line).

For a residence card, the filer is your sponsor

Sponsor must file: yes (Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 37 khoản 2 điểm b). The office is fixed by where the sponsor sits, not where you live (yes). The dossier has 4 components, and a financial-standing document is not one of them (no).

Two consequences follow, and neither is a price question. Without a sponsor there is no lawful residence-card filing, however the advertisement is worded. With a sponsor, what an agent sells is your sponsor’s clerical work — real labour, sometimes worth paying for, but not access to a different rule.

Extensions run through the same door

A stay extension must also be filed by the inviting or sponsoring party (yes — Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 35 khoản 1 — the foreigner must ask the inviting / sponsoring body to carry out the procedure), and the decision window is 5 working days.

What money cannot move

• The TRC-eligible symbol list is closed: LV1, LV2, LS, ĐT1, ĐT2, ĐT3, NN1, NN2, DH, PV1, LĐ1, LĐ2, TT, UĐ1, UĐ2. ĐT4 on it: no.
• A card or visa must stay inside your passport’s remaining life by 30 days (card) and 30 days (visa). A two-year card is not available on a passport that expires next year.
• Expiry means a new card on the full dossier, not a lighter renewal (yes).
• The decision window is 5 working days from a complete dossier (Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 37 khoản 2 điểm c).

When paying is genuinely rational

What you are buying is labour, translation, and presence — not a shortcut.

1. Your sponsor has never filed one

   A small company, a new representative office, or a Vietnamese spouse doing this once in a lifetime. The dossier is theirs to submit; someone who has assembled it before genuinely saves rounds of rejection.

2. The office is not where you are

   Jurisdiction follows the sponsor. If the sponsor is registered in another province, somebody has to be there in person.

3. The paperwork is not in your language

   Forms, notarisation, and legalised translations of foreign documents are ordinary billable work.

4. You are assembling a permanent residence dossier

   The slow part sits in your own country — a criminal-record certificate and a note verbale from your mission — against a decision window of up to 6 months.

Permanent residence is the exception

Here the foreigner files in person (yes — Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 41 khoản 1 — the foreigner applies at the immigration authority), so nobody needs standing on your behalf. The binding item is a note verbale from your own country’s mission (yes), which no Vietnamese service can issue. Detail: TRC and permanent residence.

Ask these five things before you pay

1. Who will be named as the inviting or sponsoring party on the Điều 37 khoản 1 điểm a letter?
2. Which immigration office — the one covering that sponsor?
3. Itemise the quote: which part is the state fee above, which part is your fee?
4. Which visa symbol are we filing, and is it on the Điều 36 khoản 1 điểm b list?
5. How long is my passport valid, and does it clear the 30-day buffer above the card term you are promising?

What this page does not do

• It publishes no agent prices. There is no verifiable primary source for them, and this site does not file numbers it cannot date.
• It ranks and recommends nobody. There is no sponsored link on this page, by design — some other pages on this site do carry one, always marked, and they are all listed on disclosure.
• It is not an e-visa how-to. The portal above is the place for that; the machine here is symbol, card, and work right.

Filed cells on this page

• Components in the statutory TRC dossier

  Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 37 khoản 1 (sponsor request letter · photo-affixed form · passport · eligibility proof)
  4checked Aug 2026
• Statutory TRC dossier requires proof of savings or income

  Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 37 khoản 1 — four listed components, none of them a financial-standing document
  nochecked Aug 2026
• TRC filing office is fixed by the sponsor's location, not the applicant's

  Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 37 khoản 2 điểm b — filed where the sponsoring body is headquartered or the sponsoring individual resides
  yeschecked Aug 2026
• Temporary-stay extension must be filed through the inviting or sponsoring party

  Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 35 khoản 1 — the foreigner must ask the inviting / sponsoring body to carry out the procedure
  yeschecked Aug 2026
• Statutory working days to decide a temporary-stay extension

  Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 35 khoản 3
  5 working dayschecked Aug 2026
• Permanent residence is filed by the foreigner, unlike a TRC

  Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 41 khoản 1 — the foreigner applies at the immigration authority
  yeschecked Aug 2026
• Maximum statutory months for a permanent residence decision

  Luật Nhập cảnh Điều 41 khoản 2 (4 months, extendable by no more than 2)
  6 monthschecked Aug 2026
• Fee schedule contains a service or agency fee line

  TT 28/2026/TT-BTC Biểu Mục II — per-document state fees only; the schedule contains no agent or service-fee line
  nochecked Aug 2026