Lao Digital Immigration Form (LDIF): The Online Card to Fill In Before Entering Laos
· Terra Lao Adventure
Since September 2025 every foreign traveller must submit the free Lao Digital Immigration Form online within 3 days of entering and leaving Laos.
Do you need to fill in anything online before entering Laos?
Yes. Since 1 September 2025 every foreign traveller and stateless person travelling on a passport has to submit the Lao Digital Immigration Form, usually shortened to LDIF, before crossing into Laos and again before leaving. It is free, it takes a few minutes on the official immigration portal, and you fill it in within the three days before you travel. It is not a visa and it does not replace one. It is a separate arrival and departure registration, and you now do it at home instead of on the plane.
That last detail is what catches people out. For years the routine was to take a paper arrival card from the cabin crew and scribble it in somewhere over the Mekong. That habit is out of date. If you land at Wattay without a submitted form, you are the passenger filling in a phone form in the immigration queue while everyone else walks through.
What exactly is the LDIF?
It is an online registration of who you are, where you are coming from, and where you are staying, submitted to the Lao Department of Immigration before you arrive. Once you submit it you receive a confirmation document carrying a QR code. Immigration scans that code at the counter instead of typing your details from a paper slip.
The point of the system is speed at the border. Everything that used to be handwritten and re-keyed by an officer is now already in their system before your plane lands.
Three things worth being precise about, because they are the ones travellers get wrong:
- It is free. There is no government fee for the form itself. If a website charges you for the LDIF alone, you are on the wrong website.
- It does not replace your visa. Your eVisa or your visa on arrival works exactly as before. The LDIF sits on top of it.
- You need it twice. Once before you enter, once before you leave. Filling it in on the way in does not cover your exit.
Who has to do it?
All foreign nationals and stateless persons using a passport, according to the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs announcement. That includes travellers from the countries that enter Laos visa free, because being visa exempt says nothing about the arrival registration. If you hold a foreign passport and you are crossing a Lao border, the form applies to you.
Which borders does it apply to?
The system started on 1 September 2025 at four checkpoints:
- Wattay International Airport in Vientiane
- Luang Prabang International Airport
- Pakse International Airport
- The first Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge, the Vientiane to Nong Khai crossing
From the beginning of 2026 the plan announced by the authorities is to extend it to all international checkpoints. In practice that means you should assume it applies wherever you cross, and check the official portal for your specific border shortly before you travel rather than trusting a blog post, including this one, about which counters have caught up.
For anyone heading to Vang Vieng this matters more than it looks, because almost every route in runs through one of those first four. You fly into Wattay and take the train or a minivan north, or you come overland from Nong Khai across the Friendship Bridge, or you fly into Luang Prabang and come down. If you are arriving by train from the north, our Vang Vieng by train guide covers that leg.
When do you submit it?
Within the three days before you travel. Not weeks ahead, and not at the airport counter.
Practically, that means adding two small tasks to your trip:
- Three days or fewer before your flight or bus into Laos, fill in the arrival form and save the QR code to your phone.
- Three days or fewer before you leave the country, do the same for the departure form.
Save the confirmation as a screenshot as well as a file. Border halls are exactly where mobile data goes missing, and a QR code you cannot open is the same as no QR code at all.
Where do you submit it?
On the Lao Department of Immigration portal at immigration.gov.la. That is the government site, and the submission is free there.
Search results for the form are crowded with commercial services that will complete it on your behalf for a fee. They are not the official channel. The same applies to your visa: the official eVisa is issued through the Lao government site, and everything else is a middleman. Our Laos visa guide walks through the eVisa and visa on arrival options and what each one costs.
What happens if you turn up without it?
You are not turned around. The realistic outcome is delay: you fill the form in on your phone at the border, in a queue, on airport wifi, while the passengers who did it at home clear immigration. On a busy evening at Wattay that is a long half hour you did not need to spend.
The traveller who suffers most is the one arriving late with a connection to make or a driver waiting. If someone is picking you up, that wait is on their clock too.
Does this change anything about your trip in Vang Vieng?
Nothing on the ground. Once you are through the border the LDIF is done with, and Vang Vieng runs as it always has. The only thing to remember is the exit form before you fly home, and the easiest way to not forget it is to fill it in the morning you leave Vang Vieng, while you are sitting still and on wifi, rather than at the airport.
We mention it to guests because we would rather you spend that half hour on a bike than in a queue. Our electric enduro tours start early, the Lost Valley treks start earlier, and rock climbing runs in the cool part of the day. None of them wait for a delayed arrival, and every one of them is more fun on a night of proper sleep than on a border-hall scramble.
The short version
- Since 1 September 2025, submit the free Lao Digital Immigration Form online before entering and before leaving Laos.
- Do it within the three days before each trip leg, on immigration.gov.la.
- Save the QR code offline.
- It is not a visa. You still need your eVisa or visa on arrival.
- It started at Wattay, Luang Prabang, Pakse and Friendship Bridge I, and is being extended to all international checkpoints during 2026.
Entry rules change. We checked these details on 20 August 2026 against the Lao Department of Immigration portal and the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs announcement circulated by embassies. Confirm on immigration.gov.la before you travel.