Finding the Official Text of Vietnam’s Road Traffic Law: A Source Guide for Visitors

The official text of Vietnam’s road traffic law is published in Vietnamese on government portals, and the pages read for this guide show how to tell one copy from another by number, date and publisher. They show no English text on a government portal: the only English copy found sits on a commercial site. The law this guide follows is the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety (Luật Trật tự, an toàn giao thông đường bộ), No. 36/2024/QH15. This guide sets out where the Vietnamese text sits, which dates to compare, how to look for amendments and what the pages say about translations.

The two documents to search for

The Official Gazette (Công báo) record of Law 36/2024/QH15 names the National Assembly as issuing body, 27/06/2024 as the issue date and 01/01/2025 as the date it takes effect. The Nghe An provincial copy (listed in the table below) says the Assembly passed it on 27/6/2024. Article 88, as printed in the provincial copy, adds two details: Clause 3 of Article 10 takes effect later, on 01 January 2026, and the older Road Traffic Law, No. 23/2008/QH12 as amended in 2018 and 2019, ceases to apply except for the cases named in Clauses 1, 2, 5 and 6 of Article 89.

Administrative penalties have their own text. The Gazette record of Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP, issued by the Government on 26/12/2024 and in effect from 01/01/2025, has a title covering administrative penalties for road traffic violations and the deduction and restoration of driving licence points. The Gazette and vbpl.vn word the law’s title differently, yet both show the number 36/2024/QH15, so the number is the shared search key.

Vietnamese portals and what each page shows

In the copy of the vbpl.vn page read here, the law text did not load; only a loading message and interface labels came through. Its structured data labels the law InForce and dates it 2024-06-27, but the amendment relations and history were not visible. The Nghe An page is a provincial repost and says where it got the text.

Which date is which

Several dates can attach to one text: passage, effect, a later effect for a single clause, a Gazette issue and the posting date of a copy. The Nghe An page is dated 09/09/2024, before the 01/01/2025 effective date. Transitional rules sit in the law itself: in the Nghe An copy, Article 89, Clause 1 lets a licence issued before the law took effect continue for the term written on it.

Checking for amendments

The Ministry of Public Security’s e-portal, in an article dated 26/12/2025, says the National Assembly passed Law 118/2025/QH15 amending a number of articles of 10 laws related to security and order, in effect from 01/7/2026. The list includes the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety and the Road Law (Luật Đường bộ). For the traffic law the article names changes tied to the two-level local government arrangement and gives no article-by-article list; it adds that the ministry portal will publish more.

The Gazette also holds a record titled as a consolidated text (văn bản hợp nhất) of the law: No. 55/VBHN-VPQH, issued on 23/03/2026 by the Office of the National Assembly and signed by Lê Quang Mạnh, with PDF and DOCX files. The page read here does not show the consolidated text itself, so which amendments it folds in is not confirmed here. The relation boxes on the Gazette records, which would list amending or correcting texts, show [0] on every Gazette record read, including the amending law’s own, so they did not help trace changes. vbpl.vn lists a validity history and a consolidated-texts tab among its features, which is where a reader could look next.

Where English translations may exist

vbpl.vn lists viewing an English-language document among its features, but the page read here showed no English version of Law 36/2024. The English copy found is on LuatVietnam’s English site, a commercial database. It carries an English text of the law under the heading Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety and says LuatVietnam.vn is the sole distributor of English translations of the Official Gazette published by the Vietnam News Agency. It lists translation types (Official Gazette, LuatVietnam’s translation, Others), asks readers to log in to an Advanced Package for the full text and limits downloads to subscribers.

That page also shows why dates need checking. Its attribute line reads “dated August 24, 2024”, while its issuing-date field says 27/06/2024; a footnote cites Official Gazette Nos 977-978 (24/8/2024), which suggests the later date belongs to the Gazette citation, though the page does not say so. Its Article 88 says the law takes effect on January 1, 2025, matching the Vietnamese records.

A checking routine for any copy

No page lays out a routine, so the following order is this guide’s own, built from what the pages show:

1. Match the number and issuing body: 36/2024/QH15, National Assembly.
2. Find the same number on the Gazette or vbpl.vn and compare issue and effective dates.
3. Look for Law 118/2025/QH15 and consolidated text 55/VBHN-VPQH, and compare their dates with the copy’s own date.
4. Look separately for Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP when penalties or licence points matter.
5. Compare any English copy with the Vietnamese record before relying on it.

For what the licence rules mean for riders, see Do You Need a Motorcycle License in Vietnam? Current Rules and Vietnam Driving Licence Classes A1 and A Explained for Motorbike Renters Under the 2025 Rules. The points system named in the decree’s title is the subject of How Vietnam’s Driving Licence Points System Works: 12 Points, Deductions and Recovery for Motorbike Riders, and short rental questions are collected in the Hanoi Motorbike Rental FAQ.

What the pages leave out

• No page read gives the content of consolidated text 55/VBHN-VPQH, so the amendments it includes are not confirmed.
• The ministry article does not list every change Law 118/2025/QH15 made to the traffic law.
• The vbpl.vn page did not show the law text, its amendment relations, its history or an English version in the copy read.
• No page says whether the LuatVietnam English text is accepted for legal purposes, and its full text sits behind a subscription.
• No .gov.vn page with an English translation of Law 36/2024/QH15 turned up.
• No page explains why the Gazette relation boxes all show [0], or whether the Nghe An copy was updated after 09/09/2024.
• No page gives fine amounts, a list of implementing circulars, or says which version of a text applies at a roadside check.

Sources checked

• Official Gazette: Law 36/2024/QH15 record
• National legal database: Law 36/2024/QH15
• Official Gazette: consolidated text 55/VBHN-VPQH
• Ministry of Public Security: Law 118/2025/QH15 article
• Official Gazette: Law 118/2025/QH15 record
• Nghe An portal: Law 36/2024/QH15 full text
• LuatVietnam English: Law 36/2024/QH15
• Official Gazette: Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP record

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