Most of the fines tourists pay in Vietnam are not for dramatic offences. They are for an open chin strap on the ride to dinner, a phone held up to check the map, a headlight left off after dark, or a scooter left on the pavement outside a café. Each one is small. Together they are what the traffic police in and around Hoi An write up most often, and since 2025 every one of them costs several times what it did before.

We rent bikes from a shop on Phan Chau Trinh street, so we hear the stories when riders bring the bikes back. This guide puts those stories next to the actual rules: the license you need, the habits that keep you out of trouble, the speed limits that apply on the roads you will actually ride, and the newer problem of camera fines that arrive after you have flown home. If you want only the fine amounts, our Vietnam motorbike license fines 2026 table has them all; this page is about not needing it.

Tips to avoid fines when riding in Vietnam: the 60-second check

Most tips to avoid fines when riding in Vietnam come down to things you can do before you leave the hotel. The table pairs each habit with what skipping it costs under Decree 168/2024/ND-CP, the penalty decree in force since 1 January 2025. Decree 238/2026, which took effect on 15 August 2026, amended parts of it but did not change any of these motorbike amounts.

The check itself takes about a minute, and it is the same one we run through when we hand a bike over:

1. Papers in your pocketHome license plus a 1968 International Driving Permit for anything above 50cc, or nothing at all for a genuine 50cc or low-power electric bike. A photo of your passport and visa page on your phone.
2. The bike’s papers on the bikeA rental bike should carry its registration card and the compulsory insurance certificate. Ask where they are before you ride off; the officer will ask for both.
3. Helmets that fitTwo helmets if you have a passenger. Close both straps and pull them snug before the engine starts.
4. Lights and indicatorsPress each one while the bike is parked. A dead indicator is your shop’s problem to fix, not yours to discover at a junction.
5. Phone in the mountSet the route before you set off. If you need to change it, stop at the side of the road first.

The right license for the right bike

The single most expensive mistake is riding a bike your license does not cover. Vietnam recognises foreign riders through the 1968 Vienna Convention International Driving Permit, carried together with your home license, and the permit must show the motorbike category (A for most countries; A1 covers up to 125cc). A 1949 Geneva permit is not accepted. That includes the AAA permit issued in the United States, because the US is not a party to the 1968 convention, so an American rider on a 125cc scooter is treated as unlicensed even with a valid home license.

The penalty for riding without a valid license is 2,000,000–4,000,000₫ for a bike up to 125cc (or an electric motorbike up to 11 kW) and 6,000,000–8,000,000₫ for anything bigger. The bike can be held for up to seven days, and you are still paying rent on it while it sits in a police compound. The owner who handed it over can be fined too: 8–10 million dong for an individual, 16–20 million for a business. That is why a careful shop asks to see your permit.

No license? Ride something that does not need one

Vietnam lets anyone aged 16 or over ride a moped of 50cc, or an electric bike of up to 4 kW with a top speed of 50 km/h, without a license. For most visitors to Hoi An that covers everything they actually want to do: the Old Town edge, the beaches at An Bang and Ha My, Tra Que vegetable village and the rice fields around Cam Thanh.

One warning: some shops elsewhere paint “50cc” on a 110cc scooter. If you ride one of those without a license, the 2–4 million dong fine applies. Our 50cc license guide shows how to check the engine in thirty seconds, do electric motorbikes need a license explains where electric bikes cross into A1, and IDP 1968 in Vietnam covers which permits are valid. You can also browse the no-license bikes directly.

Helmet, phone and passengers

These three are the fines we hear about most from customers, because they catch careful people on short trips. Nobody forgets a helmet on the ride to My Son. Plenty of people forget to close the strap on the four-minute ride to dinner.

Helmet: strap closed, every ride

Riding without a helmet, or with the chin strap open, costs 400,000–600,000₫. The rule covers your passenger as well, and the rider is the one fined if the passenger’s head is bare. A helmet hanging from the mirror counts as no helmet. Good shops include helmets with every bike; if yours slides around on your head, ask for a smaller one before you leave.

Phone: in a mount or in your pocket

Holding a phone while the bike is moving, to call, text or look at a map, costs 800,000–1,000,000₫. A phone fixed in a handlebar mount for navigation is fine. If you need to look something up, pull over, stop, and then pick up the phone. The same applies to holding an umbrella while riding, which Vietnamese law treats as the same kind of offence; wear a raincoat instead.

Passengers: one, with a few exceptions

A motorbike carries the rider and one passenger. A second passenger is allowed only in narrow cases, such as a child under 12. Two passengers outside those cases costs 400,000–600,000₫ and three or more costs 600,000–800,000₫. Families with young children should read can 3 people ride one motorbike in Vietnam before deciding between one bike and two.

The ride you are most likely to be fined on is the short one you did not think was worth closing the strap for.

Lights, signals, lanes and red lights

This group of rules is where the fines jump from hundreds of thousands to millions of dong, and where cameras now do a lot of the catching.

• Headlight on after dark. Riding without lights between 18:00 and 06:00, or in rain, fog or dust that cuts visibility, costs 200,000–400,000₫ under Article 7 of Decree 168. Many scooters have a switch that turns the headlight off; check it is on.
• Indicator before every turn. Turning or changing direction without signalling costs 600,000–800,000₫. Signal early: local riders read your indicator well before you reach the junction.
• Your lane. On wide roads such as the routes between Hoi An and Da Nang, painted symbols and blue signs show which lanes are for motorbikes. Riding in a car-only lane costs 600,000–800,000₫.
• Red means stop, including for right turns. Running a red light costs 4,000,000–6,000,000₫. A right turn on red is allowed only where a sign or a green arrow says so; without one, wait.
• One-way streets and pavements. Riding against the direction of a one-way street, or along the pavement to skip a queue, also costs 4,000,000–6,000,000₫. Several streets around the Old Town are one-way; look for the blue arrow before you turn in.
• Number plate visible. Since Decree 238/2026, obscuring or covering a plate carries a 4,000,000–6,000,000₫ fine. Do not hang a bag or raincoat over it.

A related habit: keep the horn for warnings. Repeated honking late at night in residential streets is an offence in its own right, and in Hoi An’s quiet lanes after 22:00 it also annoys the people whose homes you are riding past.

The speed limits that actually apply

Most visitors guess the limit from the traffic around them, and the traffic around them is usually slower than the limit, which helps. The limits themselves were reset by Circular 38/2024 from 1 January 2025, as set out by Thu Vien Phap Luat. Where a sign shows a lower figure, the sign wins.

In practice almost all of Hoi An is a built-up area, so think 50 km/h on ordinary roads and 40 km/h on a 50cc. Speeding by 5–10 km/h costs 400,000–600,000₫; by 10–20 km/h, 800,000–1,000,000₫; by more than 20 km/h, 6,000,000–8,000,000₫. The coast road towards Da Nang and the long straight roads to the beaches are where speed checks happen, and where a rider on a powerful scooter finds 70 km/h without trying.

Alcohol: the limit is zero

Vietnam has no small allowance for a beer with dinner. Any alcohol in your breath or blood while riding is an offence, and checkpoints are most common in the evening on the roads from the beaches and bar streets back into town.

On a Vietnamese license, these also cost points or the license itself. A foreign permit has no points, but the officer can still hold the bike, and at the top level withdraw your right to use the permit in Vietnam. The rest of your trip is then on foot or in taxis anyway.

The easy alternative: if you plan to drink at An Bang or in town, leave the bike at the hotel or in an attended lot, take a Grab home, and collect the bike the next morning. A Grab from the beach to the Old Town costs a small fraction of the lowest alcohol fine.

Hoi An Old Town and parking

Hoi An adds a local rule to the national ones: the core of the Old Town is a walking street at set hours, and riding into it when the barriers are up is a separate fine, 2,000,000–3,000,000₫ under Decree 168 for riding past a sign that bans motor vehicles. In practice the guards at the barriers usually turn you back, but they do not have to.

Our shop is on Phan Chau Trinh, so we see that barrier go up every evening. A 15:00 start was announced for the street in 2024, but on the ground it still closes at 17:30. Pedal bicycles are allowed in the walking streets because they have no motor; electric bicycles and electric scooters are not. Full times, the streets involved and festival changes are in Hoi An Old Town vehicle restriction hours.

Where to park

Parking a motorbike on the pavement costs 400,000–600,000₫ unless the spot is marked for parking or approved by the city. Around the Old Town, use an attended lot at the edge of the zone: the night market lot on Nguyen Hoang, the Hoai River square near the Covered Bridge, or the lots on Tran Hung Dao and Hai Ba Trung. A motorbike usually costs 5,000–10,000₫, a little more on festival nights. Keep the paper ticket; it is how the attendant knows the bike is yours.

Camera fines: the ticket that arrives later

This is the part most older lists of tips to avoid fines when riding in Vietnam miss. A growing share of traffic offences in central Vietnam are no longer caught by an officer at the roadside but by cameras at junctions, and the fine (phạt nguội, literally a “cold fine”) is processed afterwards against the number plate.

Hoi An has been part of Da Nang city since the July 2025 merger, and Da Nang leans on cameras heavily. Thanh Nien reported in September 2026 that in the last two weeks of August alone, the city’s camera campaign picked up nearly 2,000 violations, almost half of them by motorbikes. The offences cameras catch best are exactly the ones in section 4: red lights, wrong lanes, ignoring signs, and improper parking.

Two things follow for a visitor on a rented bike:

• The notice goes to the registered owner. For a rental, that is the shop, and it can arrive days or weeks after you return the bike. Most rental agreements make the rider responsible for fines on the dates they had the bike, so read that line before you sign.
• “Nobody stopped me” proves nothing. Running a quiet red light at night with no police in sight is precisely the situation a camera is for.

A fair shop will show you the camera record, with the time and location, before asking you to settle anything. If a shop asks you to pay for a “camera fine” without showing the record, ask to see it.

If you are stopped anyway

Traffic police around Hoi An run checks on the main roads rather than inside the Old Town: the roads to An Bang and Cua Dai, the coast road towards Da Nang, and the approaches to the city. Foreign riders are fined exactly as Vietnamese ones are. A stop usually runs like this:

1. Pull over and switch offTake your helmet off so the officer can see your face. Stay polite and calm; it changes the tone of everything that follows.
2. Show your papersLicense and IDP, then the bike’s registration card and insurance certificate.
3. Small fines can be settled on the spotFor fines up to 250,000₫, the officer can decide the penalty without a written record.
4. Larger fines get a written recordThe officer writes a violation record (biên bản) and asks you to sign. You pay later at a bank, the State Treasury or online, not in cash at the roadside.
5. The bike may be heldFor offences such as riding without a valid license, the bike can be kept for up to seven days while the case is processed.

For a calmer walkthrough of the conversation itself, read what happens at a police stop in Hoi An. And because the biggest cost of riding unlicensed is often not the fine but an insurance claim that gets refused, see should tourists buy motorbike insurance in Vietnam before you choose a bike.

Tips to avoid fines when riding in Vietnam: FAQ

More on the rules: do you need an IDP to ride in Vietnam · renting a motorbike in Hoi An without a license · do you need a license to ride a motorbike in Hoi An.