Vanuatu Entry Permits: Who Needs a Visa in Advance and Who Gets One on Arrival

Vanuatu’s immigration rules treat the tourist visa and the separate visitor visa as different instruments. The tourist visa is designed for tourism, leisure and social visits. If you are from an exempt country, you can obtain it on arrival, provided you meet the grant criteria. If you are from a non-exempt country, you must apply through the official eVisa portal and obtain approval before travelling. The grant criteria still apply when you arrive from an exempt country.

Advance approval or a visa on arrival

For a non-exempt applicant, advance approval is part of entry permission rather than an optional preliminary. You use the official eVisa portal, and you must obtain approval before travelling. For an exempt applicant, the published route is different: you can obtain the tourist visa on arrival, but the same eligibility conditions must be met.

• Not be a prohibited immigrant.
• Pass a character test.
• Have the financial means to support yourself and any dependents in Vanuatu.
• Have a genuine intention of visiting and departing Vanuatu within 120 days.
• Possess a return ticket or satisfactory means of travelling from Vanuatu to another destination.

These are the grant criteria for the tourist visa on both routes. You must meet the full set. A return ticket or other onward-travel evidence answers only the travel element; it does not replace the character or financial tests.

What the 120-day tourist visa allows

The maximum stay is 120 days, and you must exit before the visa’s 120-day validity expires. The visa cannot be extended, and its holder cannot change status. It does not authorise commercial, employment or business activity.

The length and the permitted purpose are separate limits. You can be granted a stay of up to 120 days, but that stay does not give you permission to take employment or carry on business. If you intend to do either, the published tourist visa does not supply that permission.

Published visa charges

The Immigration page and the eVisa portal publish three application charges. The tourist amount is tied to a non-exempt person. The portal also identifies the visitor amount as applying to a non-exempt person, while the transit charge is listed as a separate visa category.

• Tourist visa: 5,150 VUV for a non-exempt person.
• Visitor visa, up to 30 days: 7,420 VUV for a non-exempt person.
• Transit visa: 1,855 VUV.

These are published figures, not permanent constants. Both official pages state that visa fees and requirements may change over time. Recheck the official portal for the current amount and requirements tied to your named visa and application route.

The separate 30-day visitor visa

The visitor visa is not a shorter name for the tourist visa. It is a separate instrument with a maximum stay of 30 days, compared with 120 days for the tourist visa. Its name, fee and evidence requirements should remain attached to that particular application.

• Show funds or income of at least 40,000 vatu per month for the duration of your stay, or provide evidence of support from family or friends in Vanuatu.
• Show a return ticket or proof of other arranged transport from Vanuatu within 30 days of arrival.
• Provide a certified copy of the bio-data page of a valid passport and all used pages of that passport.

The 40,000-vatu monthly evidence rule and the requirement for evidence of departure within 30 days apply to this visitor-visa route. Do not apply the tourist visa’s exempt-country arrival statement to the separate visitor visa without a separate official basis. The tourist-visa criteria also require financial means and onward travel, but the published tourist criteria do not state that monthly 40,000-vatu figure.

After entry: conduct and benefit

The Department of Tourism says tourism in Vanuatu must remain in ni-Vanuatu hands and must return real benefit to communities, rural and outer-island provinces, women- and youth-led enterprises, and the custodians of kastom. This statement frames the public purpose of tourism; it is not another grant criterion in the Immigration list.

When you hold a 120-day tourist visa, you are inside that system for the period granted. The entry decision establishes whether and how long you may stay. It does not, by itself, show that your visit has returned benefit to the people and places named by the Department. This is why village-level conduct after arrival matters as much as the paperwork.

Use the Department’s stated destination as your practical standard after entry. Your presence is not a benefit in itself, and your conduct should be consistent with tourism returning real benefit to ni-Vanuatu communities and custodians of kastom. This framing adds no further immigration criterion; it keeps visitor conduct tied to the system described by the government.

Reference: Vanuatu Department of Immigration and Passport Services

Reference: Vanuatu eVisa portal

Reference: Vanuatu Department of Tourism