Most Australian patients planning dental implants in Vietnam assume they need one long block of annual leave to cover the whole process. In reality, a two-stage implant case usually needs two short, separate leave requests months apart, since the implant spends the healing period doing its work inside the jawbone back home in Australia, not sitting in a Vietnamese clinic waiting room.
That distinction changes how the whole trip should be planned around a standard four-week annual leave entitlement. Instead of blocking out several weeks in one go, the more workable approach is a shorter surgical trip, a gap of several months back at work, and a brief second trip for the final restoration. This guide covers how many working days each trip typically needs, how that maps onto Australian annual leave rules, and how to time both trips so they do not collide with school holidays, Christmas shutdowns, or a colleague’s leave request.
Quick Answer
A two-stage implant trip to Vietnam from Australia typically needs two separate leave requests rather than one long block: roughly 3 to 7 working days for the surgical trip, depending on whether it is a single implant or a full-arch case, and around 2 days for the final restoration trip 3 to 6 months later. Most full-time Australian employees accrue enough annual leave under the National Employment Standards to cover both trips within a year if they are planned early and spaced away from peak leave periods like Christmas or school holidays.
Why the Trips Are Split, Not One Long Stay
An implant needs a healing period called osseointegration, where the implant post fuses with the jawbone before it can safely support a permanent crown or full-arch restoration. This process commonly takes around 3 to 6 months, and it happens wherever the patient is living day to day, not in Vietnam. Staying in Vietnam for that entire window would be an enormous and unnecessary use of leave, since there is nothing for the patient to do during healing except wait and follow basic aftercare instructions that work just as well from home in Sydney, Melbourne, or Perth.
The practical result is that the treatment splits into a first trip covering the surgical placement, and a second trip several months later once the implant has integrated, to fit the final crown or prosthetic teeth. Each trip has its own, much shorter, leave requirement, and treating them as one combined leave block usually means overestimating what is actually needed.
How Many Days to Request for Each Trip
The exact number of working days depends on whether the case involves a single implant or a full-arch treatment such as All-on-4 or All-on-6, since these follow different timelines even though both are staged across two visits.
| Case type | First trip length | Second trip length | Gap between trips |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single implant | 2 to 3 days | 2 days | Commonly 3 to 6 months |
| Full-arch (All-on-4 / All-on-6) | 5 to 7 days | 2 days | Commonly 3 to 6 months |
The first trip
For a single implant, the first trip generally covers consultation, imaging, and the surgical placement itself, and this can often be managed within 2 to 3 working days if the case does not involve additional steps like bone grafting. For a full-arch case, the first trip is longer, typically 5 to 7 days, since it usually includes preparatory work, the surgery itself, and fitting a temporary set of teeth before the patient flies home.
Booking a Friday flight out and building in a weekend either side of the working days reduces how many actual annual leave days are consumed, since weekends do not draw on leave entitlement at all.
The second trip
The second trip, once healing is complete, is generally shorter for both single implant and full-arch cases, typically around 2 days to confirm the implant has integrated properly and fit the final crown or prosthetic teeth. This is the trip most patients underestimate the timing of, since it depends on a healing window that is a range rather than a fixed date, which matters for how early leave should be requested.
Timing Both Trips Around Annual Leave Rules
Full-time employees in Australia accrue 4 weeks, or 152 hours, of paid annual leave per year under the National Employment Standards in the Fair Work Act, building up at roughly 2.9 hours per week. Two trips totalling anywhere from 7 to 9 working days for a single implant case, or 7 to 9 working days for a full-arch case once both trips are added together, generally fit within that entitlement for an employee who has been accruing leave for at least six months to a year before the first trip, though this depends on how much leave has already been used elsewhere during the year.
Employers can refuse a leave request if it is not reasonable given business needs, so requesting both trip windows as early as possible, ideally as soon as a likely surgery date is confirmed, gives more room for approval than asking a few weeks out. This matters more for the second trip than the first, since the healing window means the exact dates are not locked in until closer to the time, and flagging the likely quarter to an employer early avoids a late request landing in a period that is already booked out by colleagues.
Four periods are worth avoiding where possible: the Christmas and New Year school holiday stretch from mid-December to late January, when many workplaces run reduced staffing or a formal shutdown and annual leave requests cluster heavily; the Easter school holiday period in April; the winter school holidays in late June to mid-July; and the spring school holidays in late September to early October. Outside these windows, particularly in February to March, May, or August, leave requests tend to face less competition from colleagues with school-aged children, and flights are often less heavily booked as well.
For employees who have not yet accrued enough leave to cover both trips, particularly if the first trip falls within the first year of employment, taking annual leave in advance is sometimes an option where an employer agrees to it, though this is not a general right and depends entirely on the employer’s policy or the applicable award. Unpaid leave is another option some employers will approve for the gap, though this is a separate conversation from annual leave and worth raising directly rather than assuming it is available.
How Delia Dental Clinic Helps You Plan Trip Dates Around Leave
Delia Dental Clinic reviews X-rays, CBCT scans if available, and photos sent via WhatsApp or Messenger before a patient books either trip to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh city, and can indicate whether a case looks like a single implant or a full-arch treatment, which affects how many working days to request for the first trip. Once the case is reviewed and a likely surgery date is set, the clinical team can also give a general estimate of when the second trip is likely to fall, based on the expected healing timeframe, which gives patients a window to flag with their employer well before exact dates are confirmed.
Because the second trip date depends on healing progress rather than a fixed calendar date, Delia Dental Clinic confirms the actual booking window closer to the time, once healing can be properly assessed, rather than locking in an exact date from the outset. Patients planning around Australian annual leave should mention their preferred quarter or the periods they need to avoid when first sending their case, so the clinical team can factor that into the initial planning conversation.
Send a message to Delia Dental Clinic to plan your dental trip
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the two trips be combined into one longer visit instead?
Combining them is not possible for genuine implant cases, since the second trip depends on the implant having fused with the jawbone, a biological process that takes months regardless of how the travel is scheduled. Extending the first trip to wait out the healing period in Vietnam is technically possible but rarely makes sense financially or practically compared with flying home and returning later.
What if my employer will not approve two separate leave periods in the same year?
Raising both likely trips with an employer as early as possible, ideally months before the first one, gives the best chance of approval, since a written request with plenty of notice is harder to reasonably refuse than a late one. If an employer genuinely cannot accommodate two periods, discussing unpaid leave for one of the trips, or negotiating the exact timing of the second trip within the healing window, are the more realistic paths forward rather than assuming the plan cannot proceed at all.
Do I need extra recovery days beyond the clinic days themselves?
Most patients can travel and return to light work duties within a day or two of implant surgery, though this varies by case and by how physically demanding the return to work is. Patients with physically strenuous jobs, or those who had additional procedures such as bone grafting during the same visit, sometimes benefit from an extra buffer day before returning to work, which is worth discussing directly with the clinical team based on the specific treatment plan.
How far in advance will I know the exact dates for the second trip?
The second trip is generally confirmed once healing has progressed enough to assess readiness for the final restoration, which is usually communicated some weeks ahead once the healing window is closer to complete, rather than fixed rigidly from the day of surgery. Flagging a preferred quarter early still helps, since it lets the clinical team aim the assessment toward a window that works for the patient’s leave situation rather than defaulting to the earliest medically possible date.
What happens if my annual leave balance is not enough to cover both trips this year?
Options generally include using annual leave in advance if the employer agrees to it, taking part of the second trip as unpaid leave, or spacing the two trips across a calendar year boundary so each trip draws on a different year’s leave accrual. Which of these works depends entirely on the specific employer’s policy, so raising the leave balance question directly with the workplace before committing to travel dates avoids being caught short close to departure.
Getting the Rest of the Trip Right
Annual leave is only one piece of planning a two-stage case well. Here are a few more guides cover the parts that shape whether either trip goes smoothly once the dates are set.
- Dental Tourism in Vietnam: Travel, Treatment & Recovery
- How to Read a Dental Implant Itemised Quote Before You Deposit
- What Do You Need to Travel to Vietnam for Dental Treatment?
- How to Choose a Dental Implant Specialist in Vietnam
Final Thoughts
Two-stage implant treatment in Vietnam is a leave planning problem more than it is a travel logistics one, since the actual time in the country is short on both ends and the months in between are spent healing at home. Requesting leave early, in two separate short blocks rather than one long guess, and steering both trips away from school holiday periods gives the best chance of getting both requests approved without using up an entire year’s entitlement.
Send your X-rays, dental photos, or CBCT scans to Delia Dental Clinic via WhatsApp or Messenger to get an initial read on whether your case needs a single implant or full-arch timeline, so you can start the annual leave conversation with your employer with realistic dates in mind.
