Entry rules for European passport holders have eased quickly over the past year. Three governments — South Africa, Vietnam and South Korea — have each widened visa-free or visa-waiver access for EU/EEA citizens, and the rules are no longer uniform across the bloc. We re-verified the per-country position for all 31 EU/EEA/Schengen nationalities across six high-demand destinations against official sources, and corrected the pages where European travellers were wrongly shown “visa required”.
South Africa: almost the whole EU bloc is now visa-free
In a major expansion, South Africa granted 90-day visa-free entry to Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Latvia, Estonia and Croatia on 27 August 2025, then added Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia later in 2025. Before this, citizens of those states needed a visa (and Hungary had only 30 days). The result: every EU/EEA/Schengen nationality can now visit South Africa visa-free for up to 90 days — with two exceptions, Cyprus and Poland, which remain at 30 days. See the full per-passport breakdown on the South Africa page.
Vietnam: the 45-day waiver doubled — but not for everyone
Vietnam’s unilateral visa exemption (now 45 days, under Resolution 44/NQ-CP) historically covered only a handful of European states — France, Germany, Italy, Spain, plus the Nordics. Resolution 229/NQ-CP, effective 15 August 2025 through 14 August 2028, added twelve more: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Twenty EU/EEA nationalities now get 45 days visa-free. The remaining eleven — Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta and Portugal — still need Vietnam’s e-Visa, which is issued to all nationalities for stays of up to 90 days.
South Korea: no K-ETA needed through end-2026
All EU/EEA/Schengen nationals can enter South Korea visa-free for 90 days. On top of that, Korea’s K-ETA electronic travel authorisation is temporarily waived for them: the exemption was extended and now runs to 31 December 2026, so right now there is no application and no fee at all. Travellers should note the waiver is scheduled to end — the K-ETA requirement is set to resume on 1 January 2027. Details on the South Korea page.
Qatar, the UAE and Indonesia: confirmed open
We also re-verified three perennially popular destinations. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates grant EU/EEA/Schengen citizens a free 90-day visa waiver on arrival (Ireland is the lone exception at 30 days in both). Indonesia — Bali included — offers every EU/EEA nationality an e-Visa on Arrival valid for 30 days, extendable once to 60.
Why we re-checked: the “visa required” default
On a visa database, the dangerous failure is showing “visa required” for a trip that is actually visa-free — it sends people to apply (and pay) for a visa they do not need, and undercuts trust in everything else on the page. For these six destinations only a few European nationalities had verified rules; the rest fell back to a generic “visa required”. We have now confirmed and dated the rule for all 31 EU/EEA/Schengen nationalities at each one. Browse the open routes in our e-Visa & ETA guide and longest visa-free stays, and read how we verify every figure in our Editorial & Data Standards.