New Laos National Stadium

The ground sits some 17 km out from the centre of Vientiane, in Xaythany District. It went up because Laos had agreed to host the 25th Southeast Asian Games, and it opened on 9 December 2009 with that tournament's opening ceremony. The Shanghai Construction Group built it, paid for through a resource-backed loan of just under $80 million from the China Development Bank.

What it replaced did not disappear. Chao Anouvong Stadium, dating from the 1950s, was refurbished instead of pulled down and served the same 2009 Games as a second venue holding 8,000. It closed again for renovation work in 2025.

The Laos national side plays World Cup qualifiers and AFF Championship matches here, and four Vientiane clubs of Lao League 1 — BIS Master, Lao Army, Chanthabouly and Young Elephants — share it. For their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign, North Korea used KM16 as a neutral home, unable to play at home because of travel restrictions.

The biggest crowd came on 14 October 2025, when 18,901 watched Laos face Vietnam in 2027 AFC Asian Cup qualifying. The same fixture had drawn 15,000 in November 2018; before that, the high mark was 13,000 for Laos against China in July 2011.