What Documents are Required for TEFL in Vietnam?

*Disclaimer: this post details and discusses the TEFL documents and processes we had to coordinate in order to become EFL teachers in Vietnam thus the following information, directly applies to UK Citizens.

**Oh and second disclaimer, the lovely Josh wrote this post.

I thought a little more detail regarding the TEFl documents required for Vietnam (from the UK) might be handy as it can be quite a headache. Let’s do things properly and start at the start, as you know starting in the middle probably wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense… This process can be a little confusing and at times, irritating but to try and make it a bit more digestible (I’ll try my best), I will split it into the following sections:

Documents you need in order to TEFL Vietnam
Entering (and possibly re-entering Vietnam)
Post-arrival paperwork
Costs

Without further ado, let’s begin.

1) Documents for TEFL in Vietnam

It’s a given, but your Passport. We found it useful to bring additional photocopies and always have a scanned copy stored as it is heaps easier to email or provide copies later on down the line, there are always print shops available who will scan or photocopy for you once you arrive.

Although not strictly a document, bring a couple of passport photos with you, if you bring some yourself you won’t have to pay extra $$$ when you get there – you know it makes sense, save the cash for the bia hoi don’t waste it on photos of your face.

A Visa. It is stated that if a UK citizen wants to stay for LESS THAN 15 days, they do not need a visa, but if you’re looking to teach then I am sure you aiming to stay longer, thus, a Visa is required. The two main ways people tend to go about this are a) securing a job and arriving with an invitation to work letter (we were able to process our letters on arrival which gave us a three month multiple entry visa) or b) enter on a tourist visa and then set about finding work.

Your notarised Tefl Certificate

Notarised degree certificate (only an undergraduate certificate is necessary for most jobs) however if you intend on applying at international schools and universities or if you have a postgraduate qualification related to teaching or English language/literature then bring it along (more $$$$ for you).

What is notarisation?

Notarisation?! Why do you need it for TEFL in Vietnam? I’m glad you asked, let me try and explain… Until mid 2019 this process was somewhat simpler as the British embassy in Vietnam could organise your paperwork and liaise with the relevant officials back home. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible.

Notarisation is required for teaching English jobs in Vietnam. This is a requirement by law and is unfortunately non negotiable. We spent hours reading blog posts about TEFL documents for Vietnam and unhelpful government websites that sent us round and round in circles. Basically, it requires a ‘public notary’ to sign to say that the certificates are yours and are legitimate. NB our hard copies of our certificates were at home in the UK and we were in Hanoi, luckily, Josh’s parents (THANK YOU) helped us out and transported our certificates to and from.

You will need a public notary to see the original copies of the documents. This website was extremely helpful when locating a local public notary back home in the UK. Anyway, we found a public notary who made copies after viewing our original documents and cross referencing them with our passport details. IMPORTANT if your name differs on your university or TEFL certificate to the name in your passport, (e.g. JOSH instead of JOSHUA) the notary will need to provide an affidavit to confirm the documents all belong to the same person.

These copies were then signed and stamped by the notary and forwarded on to the Vietnamese embassy in London. The embassy stamped the document as approved, then sent them back to our home address where Josh’s mum kindly arranged for them to be couriered to Vietnam. An easier option is to pay an agent to organise this whole process for you. Word of warning – we were quoted nearly £700 for the notarisation of our four certificates with all courier fees included.

Although it seemed daunting, it all worked out absolutely fine and the documents arrived safely in Vietnam within around 10 days from when they first got to the notary office. This worked out at nearly half the price of the agency quoted price, it really depends what kind of budget you’re on and if it would give you better peace of mind to have someone handle the whole process for you. But bear in mind that this is just one of a few costs you may incur when arriving to teach a TEFL job in Vietnam.

2. Arriving in Vietnam

As mentioned above in section 1, there are two simple ways to enter Vietnam to start your TEFL adventure.

A) Work secured prior to arrival.

If you have work arranged prior to your arrival, your employer should help you with an invitation to work letter which will allow you to apply for a business visa on arrival at your point of entry. Like with most visas on entry, you need to pay a fee in VND or USD as well as submit two passport photos, your printed letter of invitation and a form which you can complete at the counter. Then you have the joy of waiting until they brandish your passport out the window or until your beautiful passport photo pops up on the big screen for everyone to see. Note: When this happens, you’ve completed stage 1 and can continue through immigration and jump on the airport bus (at a bargain price of 35,000 VND) and find yourself a bia hoi stool with your name on it.

B) You don’t have work secured on arrival.

If you do not have work organised prior to arrival (don’t panic, this is very common), you get option b) Enter on a tourist visa. Or, if you’re from the UK then you’re in luck, you can legally enter Vietnam without a visa for tourism or business purposes for 15 days, or alternatively an e-Visa which allows you to stay for 30 days. Note that if you arrive on a tourist visa you will be required to leave the country on a visa run to be able to come back on the required work visa.

3. Post-arrival paperwork

So you made it, you’re in Vietnam but there are still a few things left to do before you can truly relax into your new home.

A) Health Insurance

Insurance – one of those annoying things that seems so expensive and more than a few of you reading this will have definitely done the ‘oh, I’m sure we will be fine’ routine before a trip abroad. It may seem expensive but it’s really not worth the risk. Road accidents happen all the time in Vietnam and you don’t want that to happen to you, leaving you strapped for cash trying to find a hospital to agree to treatment. Many hospitals in Vietnam will want to see you have correct insurance before they treat you. Some companies provide this for you but it it likely to be a basic plan and you may want to investigate other options.

B) Police Check

I believe there are two options for this – you can opt to pay for a DBS (if you’re from the UK), this used to be called a CRB check but they changed it. Or you can pay for a police check with the authorities in Vietnam which was much quicker and easier than a DBS which can take weeks. The point of this is to make sure you don’t have any prior criminal convictions.

C) Work Permit/ Residency Card

This is the fun stuff. Okay, when you first secure work you will need to apply for a work permit – ours took a few weeks to be approved. Once you are granted your work permit, you are then required to either extend your business visa (3, 6 or 12 months) or apply for a residency card. Until you are granted the work permit, you pay about 20% tax on what you earn in Vietnam but after you receive it the rate of tax comes down to around 11-13% so it makes sense to get it sorted as soon as possible.

D) Bank Account

So one of the many reasons you’re here in Vietnam is to get paid right? Unless you’re taking money cash in hand (not recommended) you’ll need to sort out a bank account. Our employers sort out every employee with a BIDV account when you arrive and mostly, they were ok but others I have had recommended are HSBC, Vietcom and Techombank. This process is pretty simple, you just fill out a form and submit a passport photocopy.

E) Proof of Residence

When you find somewhere to live (much easier than we anticipated), you’ll need to ask your landlord to take a photocopy of your passport and visa stamp/work permit to the local authority. There they need to obtain a certificate that that shows you officially live at this address and who the landlord/lady is. I believe this is valid for 6 months before you have to complete the same process. Recently, they have started rolling out an online platform for this but I am unsure as to the smoothness of that operation – it’s SE Asia after all.

4) Costs

These are the costs that we had to pay to get a TEFL job in Vietnam (LEGALLY). There may be additional/ fewer costs for you but this is an estimate of some of the set up costs you will need prior to/soon after arriving here.

Flights – Obviously, this depends where you’re flying from. We flew from Singapore so it was reasonably cheap but check out Skyscanner.
Work Permit – Should be between £45-£75 depending on the duration you opt for. Be aware though, the cost may rise if you or your employers wish to go through an agency to organise the permit.
Certificate Notarisation – definitely worth asking for a few quotes and see what packages notaries offer, we were quoted £700 for 4 certificates! The cost ended up at £415. This ended up being our biggest expense to consider.
Police Check – Two options A) complete it at home (the UK call it a DBS check) and then pay for it to be notarised and translated into Vietnamese (expensive) or B) Complete one in Vietnam. Yes that seemed like a weird option to me too, considering I had never been to the country before but like most things in Vietnam it was considerably cheaper. We paid 200,000 VND/£6.60.
Health Check – Not sure how much as luckily, our employer paid it for us.
Accommodation – Varies dramatically, we spent 2 weeks in an AirBnB until we were settled in with work and then we found an amazing flat really easily.
Entry Visa- For UK passport holders, you can enter on a tourist visa for free for 15 days. Alternatively, enter with your invitation to work visa letter – ours cost 550,000VND/£18.
Health Insurance – lots of employers will include a basic health insurance in your package but you can always add to or replace it with your own. Our work insurance was good enough for us so we didn’t feel the need to purchase any further cover but a quick google will throw up hundreds of results.

So, I really hope that has helped if you too are considering teaching in Vietnam and worried about what documents you need for your TEFL adventure. We would both 1000% recommend it and truth be told if we could go back now we absolutely would not have left. Assuming if you have come to this post then you have read the other all about Teaching English in Vietnam.

Thank you for reading (and putting up with my waffling) Josh’s (1st and probably only guest post).