China Visa application Guide in Hanoi, Vietnam

China was not part of our original 8th month Southeast Asia itinerary. But after talking to a few travelers that had just returned, we started getting some serious fomo. We took a few odd days off Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam and ended up with 2 spare weeks to visit China before we head down to Thailand. 

Our only concerns were how to apply for a Chinese Visa in Hanoi and whether we could apply out of our home country. There is not a lot of information on the Internet and people kept telling us how hard it was to get accepted. Then we discovered a blog post by nomadasaurus.com that was very helpful. We still had a lot of questions and uncertainty regarding which documents we required to successfully apply for the Chinese Visa in Hanoi, Vietnam. 

We hope this post will help clear any uncertainty you may have if you are planning to do the same:

The required documents for your China Visa:

According to the information board outside of the embassy, you require the following documents:

• Passport.
• Copy of your Passport information sheet and Vietnam Visa.
• One standard Passport photo. 
• Flights entering and exiting China. 
• Proof of accommodation booked for your entire trip.
• Invitational letter from China.
• Copy of Travel Insurance.
• Complete application form.
• Bank statement. 

The Application Form we completed at the Embassy

We did not have a few of these requirements. However we did get ACCEPTED!! These are the documents we took, which resulted in our approved China visas:

The Documents we had which resulted in our accepted Visa:

• Passport.
• Copy of our Passport information sheet and Vietnam Visa.
• One standard Passport photo.
• Flights exiting China only. We did not have a flight entering China. We told the lady that we will be taking the bus from Hanoi to Nanning.
• Proof of accommodation of our first night only in Nanning. We booked through Agoda.com, which we had the choice of cancelling if we decided to change our plans. 
• Complete application form.
• Bank statement – make sure you have money in your account ;).
• Copy of our Travel Insurance, if you do not already have a travel insurance we strongly recommend purchasing one through World Nomads Travel Insurance.
• A Vietnamese mobile number. This can be your own number or the guesthouse/ hotel number. 

The Application Process

• The Embassy is located at 44-46 Hoàng Diệu, Hanoi. It is opposite Lenin’s Park. We used the app Maps.Me.com to get us to the Embassy.
• Embassy operating hours: Monday to Friday from 08:30 – 11:00am and 15:00 – 16:30 pm (Visa Collection only). The Embassy is closed on all China and Vietnam public holidays, therefore do some research on the internet to make sure you do not visit on a public holiday. We arrived at the Embassy at 08:15am and were second in line to enter the building.  The contact details of the embassy is on their website. 
• The security guard will hand you the application form to complete, once completed the security guard will check if the form is complete correctly and will send you to the application counter. 
• At the counter, the official will ask you for all the above documents. If all is correct, she will hand you a pink receipt with a date for collection and the Visa amount in USD. 
• The application fee for us (South African) was 30 USD per application. This must be paid at ICBC bank in Hanoi (360 Kim Ma Street,Ba Dinh District, Hanoi) before collection. Operating hours are 08:30 – 11:30am and 13:30 – 16:30pm.  They recommend you pay on the day of collection.  
• The application process will take 4 working days to complete. This does not include Saturday and Sunday. We applied on a Monday and then paid and collected our visa on the Thursday.
• If there is a problem with your application they will call you.

With our Visas in hand – we are off to CHINA!!! Yeah!!!

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