Who we are, and how we check the law
This site tells visitors what they may lawfully ride in Vietnam. That is worth nothing unless you can see where the answers come from and what happens when we get one wrong. Both are on this page.
How a legal claim gets onto this site
Primary sources, named in the text
A legal claim on this site is traced to the instrument it comes from — a decree, a circular, a law, a treaty — and the instrument is named where the claim is made. Decree 168/2024 for penalties, Decree 67/2023 for compulsory insurance, Circular 38/2024 for the speed cap on licence-free machines, Law 36/2024 and Decree 100/2019 for the licence-free electric class. If we cannot name the source, the sentence does not go on the page.
Treaty status read from the depositary, not from a summary
Which international driving permits Vietnam recognises is checked against the United Nations Treaty Collection itself, and against the treaty gazettes of the countries involved. Travel blogs and rental sites copy each other's mistakes for years; the depositary tables do not. This is how we found that the widely repeated claim about Korean permits stopped being true in July 2023.
Dated, and re-checked
Every guide carries the date it was last reviewed. Vietnamese road law changed substantially in 2024 and 2025 and is still moving, so a page without a date is a page you cannot trust. When a fact changes we change the page and add a line to the log below rather than quietly editing it.
What we are, plainly
We are a broker. We do not own the bikes; partner operators do, and the partner remains the lessor of record. Our Collision Damage Waiver is a contractual cap on what you would owe for damage to the bike, and it is not insurance — we will not call it insurance in any language. Nothing here is legal advice, and where a question needs a Vietnamese lawyer we say so instead of guessing.
Corrections
Where we published something wrong, it is listed here with the date and what changed. Newest first.
12 September 2026
Korean driving permits were listed as not recognised in Vietnam
Korea is not a party to the 1968 Vienna Convention, and we treated that as settling the question. It does not. The Vietnam–Korea Agreement on Mutual Recognition of International Driving Permits has been in force since 23 July 2023, and under it a Korean national whose permit carries the category A stamp may ride here. We had it wrong in 78 places and have corrected all of them.
Read the corrected guide →12 September 2026
Genki cover was described as conditional on riding legally
Genki waives the licence requirement for its light-motorcycle class, up to 125cc or 11 kW with a top speed of 110 km/h; the binding condition is a helmet. Our conclusion was usually right and our stated reason was wrong, which is worse, because a reader on a petrol 110cc would have concluded their cover was void when for Genki it is not. Vietnam's compulsory third-party cover and the mainstream travel insurers do require a licence, and that distinction is now kept separate everywhere.
Read the insurance guide →12 September 2026
A Yadea G5 was named as a licence-free scooter
The standard G5 has a design speed of 52 km/h, which puts it outside Vietnam's licence-free class. Only the G5 Lite, at 50 km/h, is inside it. The trim decides this, not the model name, and the same trap runs through the VinFast range. We now publish the manufacturers' own figures model by model.
See the model table →12 September 2026
The 40 km/h road cap on licence-free machines was missing
We told readers the licence-free class is built for 50 km/h or under and never told them what they may actually do with it. Circular 38/2024/TT-BGTVT caps that class at 40 km/h on ordinary roads, in force since 1 January 2025. It is now stated wherever the class is described.
Read the traffic rules →
Who operates this
Origin Layers Co., Ltd. — Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We run seven city sites on the .bike domains — Da Nang, Nha Trang, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Phu Quoc, Mui Ne and Ha Giang — from one team and one set of standards. The footer of every page links to the others, and this page is the same page for all of them.
Found something on this site that looks wrong? Tell us and we will check it against the source and publish the outcome here. Write to privacy@danang.bike or message our WhatsApp business line.
Everything on this site is general information about Vietnamese road and insurance rules, not legal advice, and it describes the position as at the review date shown on each page.