For drones, the practical answer in Vietnam is no. Flying almost always requires a flight permit issued by the Ministry of National Defence, and as of mid-2026 that process is not built for visitors: the aircraft must be registered, a foreign operator needs a written guarantee from a Vietnamese agency, organisation or individual, and applications close at least seven days before the flight. For handheld cameras the answer is much friendlier. Photography is broadly unrestricted in Vietnam, and the hard exceptions are narrow and mostly predictable — military installations and equipment, airfields, some border communes, and anywhere signage or a guard says otherwise.
Those two answers pull in opposite directions, which is why travellers get caught out — and Vietnam rewrote its drone rules twice between 2025 and 2026.
Drones: the legal framework as of mid-2026
Vietnam moved unmanned aircraft out of pure civil-aviation territory and into a national-defence framework. The 2024 Law on People's Air Defence took effect in 2025, and the operative implementing rules now sit in Decree 288/2025/ND-CP, dated 5 November 2025. The provisions that matter to a visitor:
- The Ministry of National Defence grants flight permits for most unmanned aircraft. The Ministry of Public Security handles only its own aircraft, with notification to the military.
- Registration is mandatory and requires documents proving lawful ownership — an import licence, a customs declaration, an invoice from a qualified trader, or transfer paperwork.
- Foreign organisations and individuals need a Vietnamese guarantor. The decree requires a written guarantee from an agency, organisation or individual in Vietnam. You cannot apply as a lone foreign tourist.
- Lead time is at least seven days before the flight date, extending to roughly twelve where the operation needs a notice to airmen, with extra notification for border airspace.
- Permits are per-operation and time-boxed, reported at a maximum of thirty days for standard operations, with longer windows for official and agricultural work.
- Operators must be at least 18 and hold a flight-control licence matched to the aircraft's weight and the type of operation.
One caveat on that last point: reporting differs on when the pilot-licence duty actually bites. Some summaries date it to the decree's entry into force in November 2025, others say licensing was deferred to 1 July 2026 under a defence ministry circular. Registration and identification-marking rules were also being phased in through 2026, reportedly with a distinct code suffix for foreign-owned aircraft. Treat all of it as live and verify before you plan a shoot.
The commercial reality behind the legal text: fixers and production-service companies do obtain these permits, and they quote in the region of several hundred US dollars per flying day for the arrangement. That figure is a market rate for a service, not an official government fee, and it varies widely. For a two-week holiday, the arithmetic almost never works.
Where you cannot fly at all
Since 15 June 2025 the Ministry of National Defence has published Vietnam's prohibited and restricted airspace publicly, through its portal at cambay.mod.gov.vn — prohibited zones shown in red, restricted zones in yellow. State media reported at launch that coverage centres on airports, airfields, critical national defence and security areas, and other locations as required, and that the database is refreshed periodically or immediately when something changes. Permit applications run through the ministry's online public-service portal.
Site-level restrictions sit on top of the national map and are enforced by whoever manages the site. Drone flying is routinely refused at ticketed UNESCO areas including Trang An and Tam Coc, on Ha Long Bay cruise boats, and around Hue's walled Imperial City. Border provinces are the other cluster to avoid entirely — the northern frontier through Ha Giang and Lao Cai, and the Cambodian border in the southwest. Our off-the-beaten-path atlas flags which remote regions sit close to sensitive frontiers.
The sub-250-gram exemption, and why it is narrower than it sounds
Decree 288/2025 does carve out recreational unmanned aircraft with a maximum take-off weight below 0.25 kg, exempting them from the flight-permit requirement when they operate outside prohibited and restricted airspace. Operators still have to notify local military and public security where the flight could affect military or civil aviation.
Three things stop this being a green light. Registration is a separate duty and it survives the exemption. The foreign-operator conditions, including the guarantor requirement, sit in the operator provisions rather than the permit provisions. And the exemption depends on you knowing, on the day, that you are outside every prohibited and restricted zone. Practitioners in Vietnam genuinely disagree about how a short-stay visitor satisfies registration for a Mini-class machine — which is a reason to ask a Vietnamese fixer rather than to assume.
Customs, penalties and the risk you are actually taking
Arrival is where most drone trips end. Travellers consistently report inspections at Vietnamese airports, with officers asking to see the aircraft and batteries and to hear what it is for. At some airports the drone is held in storage and returned on departure; Da Nang appears repeatedly in pilot forums. This is variable local practice, not a single published rule, which is exactly what makes it hard to plan around.
Penalties for flying without authorisation are reported across a wide band: roughly one to two million VND for an unpermitted flight, twenty to thirty million for unauthorised operation near an airport, and thirty to forty million where an aircraft is endangered, with confiscation available in each case. Those figures come from Vietnamese-language administrative schedules via translations, so treat them as indicative rather than exact. The confiscation is usually the part that hurts, and a foreigner filmed flying over a defence site is not looking at a fine as the worst outcome.
If the footage genuinely matters, hire a licensed Vietnamese aerial operator who already holds permits, and budget for it the way you would budget for a private driver.
Cameras: where photography is fine, and where it is not
Ordinary photography in Vietnam is easy, and travellers who arrive expecting a restrictive environment are usually surprised. Markets, streets, beaches, transport, food, festivals — all fine. The exceptions are short and worth memorising.
Military installations, barracks, airfields, naval facilities and military equipment are off-limits, including from an adjacent public road. The UK Foreign Office's Vietnam travel advice puts it plainly: do not take photos near bases. Government offices, police stations and courts are a softer category — exteriors are usually tolerated, lingering with a long lens is not.
Border areas are the exception most people never see coming. The same FCDO advice notes that visiting a village, commune or ward close to the border may require permission from the provincial police department, and that these zones are not always marked. That applies to parts of the far north and the southwestern border, and it is a permit question about presence, not only about cameras.
Inside airport terminals, security screening and immigration halls are off-limits, and museums set their own room-by-room rules. Avoid photographing police operations, checkpoints or any gathering that looks political — Vietnam treats political activity by foreign nationals seriously, and a camera turns you into a participant.
Photographing people: consent, children and the pay-to-pose economy
Vietnam has a written rule here that most travel guides skip. Article 32 of the 2015 Civil Code gives each individual rights over their own image and states that using a person's image requires their consent, with an exception for public activities and events that do not harm the subject's honour, dignity or prestige. Commercial use can additionally entitle the subject to remuneration.
Translated into practice: a wide shot of a busy market is unremarkable; a posed portrait is a request, not a right; and anything you intend to publish, license or sell needs actual consent. For children, ask a parent or guardian, and accept a no gracefully.
The sharper version plays out in the northern highlands. In Sapa and around the market towns of Ha Giang, decades of tourism have built a transactional layer around photography — women in embroidered dress who will pose and expect payment, and children pushed forward by adults for the same reason. There is no clean answer. Paying sustains the dynamic; refusing after you have taken the shot is worse. Decide before you raise the camera: either buy something from the person, or do not photograph them. Two other things worth knowing — among Hmong and Dao communities, touching a child's head is a real taboo tied to beliefs about the soul, and a local guide will get you better access and fewer misunderstandings than a long lens will.
Temples, pagodas and ticketed heritage sites
Dress carries more weight than camera settings. Shoulders and knees covered is the working standard at pagodas, temples and communal houses, and the FCDO gives the same guidance for religious and cultural sites generally. Shoes come off where indicated, hats come off inside shrine halls, and you never frame a shot with your back to or your feet pointing at an altar.
Photography rules at religious sites are posted, not national. Many pagodas are relaxed in courtyards and restrictive inside the main hall; flash is the most commonly banned thing after tripods. Inside Hue's Imperial City, photography is broadly permitted across the complex, with the Nguyen ancestral temples reported as the exception. Monks and nuns get asked first, always.
Tripods and lighting are what convert a visitor into a production in the eyes of site staff. Ticketed heritage sites generally distinguish personal photography from commercial shoots, and pre-wedding and fashion shoots are commonly handled as a separate arrangement with its own charge. There is no single published national schedule for this, so ask at the ticket office when you buy entry rather than after you have set up. Our entrance fee index covers the admission side, and the best time to visit guide covers the light.
Limitations
Vietnamese drone regulation changed substantially in 2025 and continued phasing in through 2026, and aviation rules move faster than travel guides. We are a travel-content team, not lawyers, and nothing here is legal advice. The framework described above is drawn from the English translation of Decree 288/2025/ND-CP, from state-media reporting on the publication of no-fly and restricted zones, and from legal commentary on the personal image rights in the 2015 Civil Code. Primary schedules are published in Vietnamese and translations vary.
Specific uncertainties we have not resolved and have deliberately not smoothed over: the exact commencement date of the pilot-licence requirement, how the registration duty applies to a short-stay foreign visitor with a sub-250-gram aircraft, and the current administrative fine bands, which we have given as reported ranges rather than exact figures. Customs handling of drones at arrival is inconsistent between airports and is not a published policy. Site-level photography and tripod rules are set by individual site managers and change without notice.
Before travelling with a drone, check the Ministry of National Defence zone portal close to your dates, contact a licensed Vietnamese aerial operator or production fixer, and confirm with your embassy in Hanoi if anything about your plan touches border or defence areas. For the wider entry-and-paperwork picture, see our visa and immigration atlas.