Job Discussion Forums

[vietexpat2008]

The visa and work permit situation in Vietnam are getting worse. I've lived here about 9 years, and they've never done anything like this since I've been here.

If you are considering looking for work in southeast Asia and one country is as good as another to you, don't pick Vietnam until this visa storm blows over, if it ever does. If you are already here and you can easily leave, you should seriously consider it.

If you are already here and plan to stick it out, read on.

The visa troubles started up around August 2009 with denials of visa extensions, visa price increases, and shortened visa grants. Bit by bit, visa availability has become more difficult and random. Information is scarce and unreliable, and policy seems to change every week. The only thing that is certain is the fact of the crackdown.

About 2 months ago, Thanh Nien news reported the government would not renew any visas in-country after July, and would actually DEPORT foreigners working without a work visa by December. Just how serious they are is hard to say, but they've stuck to their guns on visa renewals up to now. According to visa brokers I've spoken with, the immigration staff are refusing all bribes.

Nobody knows exactly why the government has cracked down on visas, but most people I've spoken with think it wants to get unskilled foreign labor out of the country. There may be other reasons, but this is the favored explanation. I've also heard upcoming elections and celebrations have something to do with it, and there is a law and order or anti-foreign sentiment they are playing to.

I've heard that entire nationalities are simply being denied ALL visas to the country, but the rich countries are not included in the global ban. I don't have much evidence of this, other than knowing some Philippinos and Mexicans getting flatly denied visas, and told not to bother asking again.

For everyone else, the government is casting a wide net and appears intent on denying visas in country, at the airport, and in Cambodia. Visa availability has varied wildly from day to day, so your mileage may vary. Sometimes they will give out 3 month visas, other times they reject all visas brought to them, or give out one month visas, or reject visas at the Cambodian border.

Getting a work permit is a lengthy and sometimes expensive process. Your school may be able to help you out, or guide you through the process, but in the end, you're going to have to get some documents notarized nine ways to Sunday back home. That takes time, and if something is done wrong, you'll have to start all over again. There are multiple government departments involved in scrutinizing the documents, and they are VERY picky.

This isn't to say it is impossible to get the work permit, just slow and exasperating, and success is not at all guaranteed. People who have all the right stuff--a genuine degree, teaching certificate, and criminal record check notarized locally, then by their state, then by the federal government, then translated and stamped by your embassy still get rejected by things like "another agency stamped across the riffled documents in your case, but the ink didn't get on one of the documents", or "your name in your passport is John Smith Doe, but this document here says, "John S. Doe"...you get the picture.

I think these barriers are just a natural part of the bureaucracy here, and the normal safety valve is bribery, but bribes are out of the question at the moment so papers get rejected a lot.

Vietnam is hurting itself kicking out the foreigners, especially experts and English teachers, most of whom are not going to return. Regardless of their reasons or intentions, this policy is targeting YOU, and if you want to stay you're going to have to act fast or risk getting kicked out. I don't have any solutions for you, other than to advise you to try very hard to get that work permit, or make plans to leave the country. So good luck.

Here's some horror story rumours and news to help motivate your work permit quest:

Some teachers were only given one month tourist visas instead of business or work visa renewals. They were visited by their local police who told them they could not stay in their aparments with just a toursit visa, and they had 48 hours to vacate the premises.

Some people who moved to Vietnam while securing their work permits sent all their worldly possessions to vietnam in shipping containers. When they went to pick up their stuff, they were told they would need their work permits to get the shipping container delivery.

People have got visas at the Cambodian border, but then were told later on their visas were invalid because they didn't actually go into Cambodia. They were fined.

Local scam artist attorneys have been cheating teachers. Everyone at my friend's school fell for one attorney's claim he could get work permits for a few hundred dollars and some basic papwerwork. All were denied.

[isabel]

I've a simple question- is it possible to get US documents and get them properly notarized, etc. from abroad, or do you have to return to the States?

[londo]

Oh the end is nigh...lets all jump off a cliff.
So you need a work permit to import containers nowadays do you? - get real. police chuck you out of apartments for which you have your blue book and contract?, you can get visas at the land-border?, not that I know of. You can't get visa on arrival? so what are you going to tell the thousands of tourists who do just that - no fillipinos - oh yeh - my neighbours are going to be abandoning their nice new car soon, are they?
when will people understand the foreigner in Vietnam is not always a teacher or chinese miner. So they want some immigration and WP rules - good for them and get over it, Scary stories and fantasies help nobody - facts, facts, facts.

[londo]

Isabel, I have no personal experience of work-permits, never had one as I am a company owner, but we do get them for some of our people. The official line is Degrees and/or transcripts or any original documents should be 'notarized' at home, but as with so many things here it depends who your 'consultant' in the ministry is and how well he/she knows your lawyer. To suggest there is no longer any 'oiling' of the wheels is plainly MOD EDIT, if anything it's getting worse with less low level but more high level and therefore more expensive 'oiling' going on. Any decent employer should be able to help with this.

[vietexpat2008]

I love you, too Londo. The end is not nigh, but if you decide to jump off a cliff, I won't stop you. The Saigon bridge looks high enough, I think.

What I'm reporting here has happened to people I know. You can take them as fact or rumor as you please.

Here are my answers to the things of which you are skeptical.

Importing containers--A friend of mine is a principle at a high end school for rich kids and expat kids. Everything they do is above board. A few incoming new teachers this year sent their belongings via container to Vietnam when they knew they had the job, but before they had their work permits. They have been unable to claim their container until they have their permits. I don't know anything more, but my friend has no reason to lie about this.

Kicked out of apartments--I personally know a few teachers who were visited by police at their apartments because they had tourist visas. They had the tourist visas because their regular visas had expired, and immigration refused to renew. The police told them to get out of their apartments. They were all totally outraged--some of them had been here for years--and one of them just went home for good because of this.

Visas at the land border and on arrival--Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Tourist visas at the airport are still available, but you can't rent apartments on a tourist visa, and the government will not renew tourist visas for long.

No Philippinos--A Philippino friend of mine, and another Mexican friend were both denied visas, and were told it was because of their nationality. Maybe some are given visas anyway, I wouldn't know. But I know their story personally.

Your neighbor's car--If they are kicked out of the country, I would be happy to buy their car for a cheap price.

Vietnam wants immigration and work permit rules--yes, they very much do, and they are enforcing them now. I can see you couldn't possibly care less who's discourteously shoved out the door--mostly just teachers, Chinese miners and other riff-raff, I know. My post was not for well connected people who own their own companies and bribe officials every day before breakfast, but for unconnected or new people who are going to be on the business end of this policy shortly.

I will agree with your second post in which you point out that bribery is still available, and the bribery has moved up to a higher level--it is and it has. But this kind of bribery is not available to most of the people reading this board. Truly upstanding employers will NOT bribe, but they will pay to help you through the process. Others will bribe, but whether or not they are successful depends on their skill and connections, and they may only be able to do it for a small number of people for fear of being caught.

Still others won't help you at all, and some even promise to pass any immigration fines they receive directly to the teachers who didn't have work permits. The worst will directly help con artist lawyers fleece their own employees.

The thing I'm trying to get across here is that the visa crackdown is real and it is messing with people's lives right now. The rich and the well-connected will find a way, but everyone else needs to get their permit somehow and soon, or risk being kicked out of the country in the next few months.

[londo]

Of course I was not questioning the veracity of your points - you, yourself, noted they were rumours (now it seems they happened to friends). As for containers I can assure you there are shipping forwarders who do this for you - you don't have to go the port with a bloody truck you know. Never, never heard of Visa being available at the land border but heh this is Vietnam. I can assure you 3 month business visas are and WILL CONTINUE [/b]to be available at the airport on arrival....it would prevent business people doing business here if that were true..I repeat not everyone is a $15 buck an hour TEFLer. As for the apartment story is concerned I can assure you the police do NOT throw anyone out of their apartment IF they have POLICE REGISTRATION in their blue books - they were the ones who registered the thing in the first place - so it seems your friends were living there illegally. Not everyone who lives and works here legally is rich or connected, we just get on with it, invest our time and limited resources in making a future for ourselves and our families and don't tell everyone that in a few months we're going to see foreigners abandoning homes and their bikes and cars at the airport as we are chucked out of Vietnam at gunpoint � la Idi Amin circa 73 or heaven forbid Saigon 75.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

This is an interesting and informative thread and all members are encouraged to join in the discussion.

At the same time, addressing the messenger rather than the message, has just ended with the above posting.

Future postings that address the messenger will be deleted and sanctions applied, as appropriate.

[londo]

I know many people are worried and I appreciate that, but, and it's a big but, if anyone has been here for years, spending money on homes, bikes, land (all in their girlfriend's name) with just a 6 month visa, no guarantees, in a developing nation then, well, I have to say tough luck, did people expect to go on forever? And if people were canny enough to not invest capital without guarantees and bought some gold and dollars, well pack the old rucksack and move on. If you want to stay - get married, if you want to stay and work, start a business or get a work permit, but frankly without a business or marriage even a work permit doesn't give you the kind of security needed to spend big bucks here. I agree, many employers live in a cloud-cuckoo land imagining there will always be a steady supply of cheap TEFLers, so why spend the money on a Tay who's going to disappear tomorrow. This, however, will change and as for 'upstanding' employers never paying 'fees', I can assure you this is BS, it's endemic here and I can guarantee they have at least once - to start their businesses.

[clayrview]

It's easy to say get married to a local or start a business, but some of us don't have those options.

I have a two year contract in Vietnam, and while I'm not worried about my work permit, I am worried about that for my boyfriend.

How likely is it for him to get a work permit (with his Celta/BA +3 years experience)?

As I've mentioned before his CELTA was lost in the mail and now they will only issue him a 'certifying statement' along with his copy of it. Some say this will matter, others say not.

anyone have any suggestions for what we can do if he doesn't get a work permit, to keep him in the country?

[londo]

But marriage, business, ethnicity or WP ARE the options, the same options to be found in any country, including our own. If you can't comply with one of the four then you can't stay. You can't expect Vietnam to bend the rules as we wouldn't in our own countries. As for the lost diploma is concerned; a CELTA is not a legal requirement but desired by the better schools. If the provider will not supply a replacement (strange) then your boyfriend should try schools which don't require a certificate, a school which will accept the 'statement' or as a last resort doing a DELTA?
What about marrying your boyfriend, as a dependent he can receive a visa and once you have your temp residence permit he would be able to receive one as well.

[half moon]

[Prof.Gringo]

Vietnam sounds like the place not to be nowadays.

But it seems to be getting tougher and tougher to go and teach overseas.

I've been 5 years in Mexico. Things have changed, but not to the extent they have in Nam.

I have a friend over there in HCMC and he was begging me to go. But now he says he's not sure if he will even have a visa or a job from one moment to another.

Bueno suerte a todos!

[Ajarn Miguk]

Reading this thread reminded me of something I posted here on the Vietnam forum in 2005 regarding this ongoing situation:

Ajarn Miguk

PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 10:49 pm Post subject: PERHAPS

Blade wrote:

"I haven't heard of this above, but to get a work permit you Directors are being told to have degree "notarized," and this will have to be done by getting your degree and transcripts mailed or by having your university send transcripts perhaps."

My impression is that no one has a clue as to what is really needed or not needed or even what is meant when requiring what is supposedly being required. Once the perhaps in the above comment becomes more than just perhaps, then people will be in a better position to seriously address the question of employment as an ESL teacher in Vietnam.

In the interim, it's mass confusion and energy and money expended only to have to repeat something again and again.

Seems to me that some people need to get their act together.

Until they do, there are other places where one can teach that present far fewer hassles.

I left Vietnam about that time. I have never regretted it and view it as one of the best and most sane decisions I have ever made.

"Far fewer hassles" can definitely make your world a much nicer place.

[londo]

'clayrview', MOD EDIT what do you want people to say?; you know what is needed for a WP, and you know that many schools are not professional or honest enough to help you even if you have everything in order. Your boyfriend has to get everything, EVERYTHING, before coming and I'm sure he will find a job - there ARE good employers. As for entry into Vietnam, at the moment you can easily, with a credit card, get a 3 month business visa on arrival. Just google 'vietnam visa' and you'll find tens of companies who can do this for you. Pay $40 and you'll get a visa acceptance form to take to the immigration dept at the airport - pay another $50 and you have your visa.
MOD EDIT
'clayrview' I guess you're very young; VN is not the place for timid newbies, it's a 'hard-land' and you need to go with the flow, rules change frequently, as in all developing nations, and we are not as welcome as in many countries. It's a place many people 'end up in', it's not easy if you expect European, American or Aussie 'clarity'. Where is your boyfriend? can't he write? If you feel strong enough and you have the qualifications - just come - work he will find.

MOD EDIT

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Future comments regarding the specific concerns and questions of "clayrview" should be posted only on the following thread:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=81665