Vietnam Ends Mandatory Health Declarations for Travelers

Vietnam's Ministry of Health has announced the lifting of mandatory health declarations for all travelers entering, exiting, or transiting through the country from July 1. This clarification comes amid reports and social media posts suggesting that all foreign visitors would be required to submit health declarations and complete forms via the website tokhaiyte.vn, which was previously used for COVID-19 epidemiological tracing. Vo Hai Son, Deputy Director of the ministry's Department of Disease Prevention, explained that Article 22 of Government Decree 165 stipulates that the health minister will determine which groups of travelers are required to submit health declarations and when such measures should be applied, depending on the global infectious disease situation and the risk of diseases entering Vietnam. "The regulation should not be understood as a mandatory and permanent requirement for all people entering, exiting or transiting through Vietnam from July 1," Son said. The ministry stressed that it is not currently using the website to process health declarations for travelers. Instead, authorities are developing a new health declaration system that will only be activated and announced to the public when the need arises. Under the new decree, health declarations may be submitted either electronically or in paper form, using bilingual Vietnamese-English forms issued by the Ministry of Health. Declarations, when required, must be completed within seven days before entering, exiting or transiting through a Vietnamese border gate. The ministry added that in the event of an outbreak of an infectious disease, it may issue additional guidance on health declarations and other health control measures at border checkpoints, depending on the evolving situation.