Germany resumes issuing multi-year visa for Vietnam passport holders

“Vietnamese passports issued from Jan. 1, 2023 and containing the place of birth on the personal information page are accepted,” the embassy’s official website stated.

This means that Germany will continue to issue C multi-year visas to Vietnamese passport holders, which were temporarily suspended from August 2022, it said.

Vietnamese passports issued from July 1 to Dec. 31 last year, with no birthplace information, will be acknowledged by Germany until the expiry date, provided that the birthplace information is added to the note section the passports, it said.

The new blue Vietnamese passport was issued from July 1, 2022, without the birthplace information. The old version, the green one with the birthplace information, can still be used until expiry date.

In late July, Germany was the first country to announce to reject the new Vietnamese passport due to the lack of birthplace information. It was followed by several countries including Spain and Finland, while the U.S. demanded visa appliants to bring certificates proving their birthplace for interviews.

The Vietnamese government then asked the Ministry of Public Security and Vietnamese representative offices overseas to manually add places of birth to the new passports’ note section, upon request.

The National Assembly passed a resolution last November to add places of birth to the passports’ information page.

Germany’s category C visa allows one to enter any of the 26 Schengen countries, and to be able to freely move between these countries without any other immigration procedures.

A category D visa, issued by either the German embassy or the German consulate general in Vietnam, allows one to freely travel between Schengen countries with a maximum duration of stay of 90 days.