How Vietnam’s Driving Licence Points System Works: 12 Points, Deductions and Recovery for Motorbike Riders

Since 1 January 2025 every Vietnamese driving licence has carried a balance of 12 points. Break a traffic rule that the fines decree marks as a points offence and, besides the fine, a set number of points is deducted from your licence record. Keep a clean record for 12 months after your last deduction and the balance resets to 12 on its own. Lose all 12 and you may not ride on that licence until, at least six months later, you pass a road-law knowledge test run by the traffic police. For motorbike riders the deductions that matter most are 4 points for running a red light, riding on the pavement, riding the wrong way, handling a phone or riding with a low level of alcohol, and 10 points for the middle alcohol band. This guide walks through the official rules, the point values, and what they mean for someone riding in Hanoi.

Where the 12-point system comes from

The points system is written into Article 58 of the 2024 Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety, which the Ministry of Public Security summarises as one of the law’s headline changes. The Binh Phuoc provincial portal’s explainer on licence points sets out the core of that article: the points exist to track how well a driver complies with road-traffic law in the national traffic database, and each licence holds 12 of them. How many points a single offence costs depends on the nature and seriousness of the violation. The deduction is recorded in the database as soon as the penalty decision takes effect, and the holder is notified.

The same page notes two details that are easy to miss. First, if you exchange, reissue or upgrade a licence, the new licence keeps whatever balance the old one had. Second, a licence that has lost all its points cannot be used to drive at all until the points are restored.

The point values for each offence, and the procedure for deducting and restoring points, live in a separate document: Decree 168/2024/ND-CP of 26 December 2024, which took effect on the same day as the law. The Nghe An provincial page on the new traffic rules for 2025 summarises the decree’s deduction principles, and the Ministry of Public Security’s pages set out the fines and points for individual offences.

How a deduction is applied

Article 50 of Decree 168 lays down the mechanics, and the Nghe An page lists them in plain terms. The points come off the licence immediately once the administrative penalty decision takes effect. If one stop produces several offences and more than one of them carries a points deduction, only the single largest deduction is applied, not the sum. If your remaining balance is smaller than the deduction, the balance simply goes to zero. And no points are deducted while the licence is already under a suspension order (the older sanction of having your licence taken away for a period), because the two measures are not stacked.

There is also a rule for combined licences. Where a single card integrates a motorbike licence, which has no expiry, with a car licence, which does, the deduction is applied to the motorbike part when you were riding a motorbike and to the car part when you were driving a car.

Notification can be on paper, handed over or posted, or electronic through the public-service portal or the traffic app once the infrastructure supports it, and the deduction is also recorded on the Traffic Police Department’s website. For licences held in digital form, the deducted status is updated inside the holder’s electronic identity on the national identification app.

Which motorbike offences cost points

Decree 168 uses four deduction sizes: 2, 4, 6 and 10 points. The Nghe An provincial police portal’s July 2026 list of points offences groups the behaviours by size. It is written for all vehicle types, so some entries only concern cars, but the entries below are the ones a scooter rider in Hanoi is most likely to meet.

Four-point offences

• Not obeying a traffic light.
• Riding on the pavement, except to cross it into a house or office.
• Riding against the flow on a one-way street, or on a road signed “no entry against traffic”.
• Holding and using a phone or other electronic device while the bike is moving.
• Exceeding the speed limit by more than 20 km/h and up to 35 km/h.
• Not giving way to, or obstructing, an emergency vehicle on a call.
• Not obeying a traffic officer’s signals or instructions.
• Riding with alcohol in the blood or breath up to 50 mg per 100 ml of blood or 0.25 mg per litre of breath.

Ten-point offences

• Riding with alcohol above 50 mg and up to 80 mg per 100 ml of blood, or above 0.25 mg and up to 0.4 mg per litre of breath.
• Breaking a road-safety rule and causing an accident.
• Riding the wrong way, reversing or making a U-turn on an expressway.

Two-point offences

The smaller deductions cover a long list of lesser faults such as entering a restricted area or a road signed as closed to your vehicle type, stopping or parking in a way that blocks traffic, failing to slow down and give way when joining a main road from a side road, or exceeding the limit by 10 to 20 km/h. Six-point deductions are mostly reserved for car and lorry situations, with one exception that applies to everyone: leaving the scene of an accident you caused without stopping, preserving the scene, helping the injured or reporting to the nearest police station.

The alcohol bands for motorbikes in detail

Alcohol is the one area where the Ministry of Public Security has published a motorbike-specific breakdown. The Ministry’s page on alcohol penalties under Decree 168 gives three bands for riders of motorbikes and mopeds under Article 7 of the decree:

• Up to 50 mg/100 ml of blood or 0.25 mg/l of breath: a fine of 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 VND and 4 points deducted.
• Above 50 mg up to 80 mg/100 ml, or above 0.25 mg up to 0.4 mg/l: a fine of 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 VND and 10 points deducted.
• Above 80 mg/100 ml or 0.4 mg/l: a fine of 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 VND and the licence suspended for 22 to 24 months, rather than a points deduction.

Note the shape of that scale. The top band does not take points; it takes the licence away for roughly two years, and, as the deduction principles above explain, no further points are deducted while a licence is suspended. Vietnam has a zero-tolerance rule for alcohol, so even the lowest band starts at any detectable level.

For the fines that go with the other four-point offences, the Ministry’s summary of the decree is a useful cross-check: running a red light, riding on the pavement and riding against traffic each carry a motorbike fine of 4,000,000 to 6,000,000 VND, which is far above the pre-2025 level.

How points come back

There are two routes, and which one applies depends on whether you still have any points left. Both are set out in Article 58 as summarised on the Binh Phuoc portal.

Route one: wait 12 months

If the licence has not lost all its points, and no further deduction is recorded for 12 months counted from the most recent deduction, the balance is restored to the full 12 automatically. The clock is tied to the last deduction, not to the calendar year, so a second offence restarts it. The Nghe An summary of Decree 168 adds that this restoration is automatic in the database and the holder is notified once it happens.

Route two: pass the knowledge test

If the balance reaches zero, you are not allowed to ride on that licence. After at least six months from the date the last point was lost, you can sit a test on road-traffic law organised by the traffic police. Pass it and the licence returns to 12 points. The Nghe An page explains that the test format is set by Circular 65/2024/TT-BCA of 12 November 2024: car licence holders must pass both a theory test and a computer-simulation test, while motorbike licence holders only need to pass the theory test, which uses the same question bank as the theory exam for a new licence.

Checking your balance on VNeID

You do not have to wait for a letter to know where you stand. The Binh Phuoc explainer describes how a licence holder can view the balance in the VNeID national identification app. The account must be a level-2 electronic identity; anyone without one is directed to the nearest commune or ward police office to set it up. Inside the app, open the document wallet, choose the driving licence entry and confirm with your passcode or fingerprint. If no points have been deducted the screen shows 12. If some have, it shows how many were taken, which unit handled the offence, the date, and the penalty decision behind it.

What this means if you are renting a bike in Hanoi

The official pages captured for this guide describe the system as it applies to licences issued in Vietnam and recorded in the national database. They do not spell out how points are recorded against a foreign licence or an International Driving Permit, so a visitor should not assume either way. What is certain is that the fines and the long alcohol suspension apply to anyone stopped, and that the enforcement culture behind the points system is stricter than it was before 2025. If you are unsure whether your paperwork is valid at all, read our guide to whether you need a motorcycle licence to ride in Vietnam first, and the companion piece on using an International Driving Permit in Vietnam.

Long-stay residents who exchange their home licence for a Vietnamese one are the group most directly affected, because from that moment they hold a licence with a 12-point balance that is tracked in the database. Our checklist on preparing documents for a foreign licence exchange in Hanoi covers the paperwork side. Remember from Article 58 that the exchanged licence inherits the balance of the one it replaces, so an existing deduction does not disappear with a new card.

Practically, the points offences line up with the habits that get visitors into trouble in Hanoi traffic: nudging through a red light with the crowd, cutting across a pavement to beat a jam, going the short way down a one-way street, and checking a map on a handheld phone. Our safety tips for Hanoi traffic cover how to avoid each of those without losing your nerve. If you rent from Thuê xe máy Nguyễn Hà at Ngõ 5 Nguyễn Văn Cừ, Bồ Đề, Long Biên, Hà Nội, the shop is open 09:00 to 21:00 daily and can be reached on 0334 699 969 if you have a question about the bike’s papers before you set off.

One thing to check before relying on an exact figure

Decree 168 has already been amended once. The Government’s policy portal publishes Decree 238/2026/ND-CP of 26 June 2026, which amends and supplements a number of articles of Decree 168 and took effect on 15 August 2026. The portal’s text also confirms the transition rule: an offence committed and completed before the amendment took effect is handled under the version of the decree in force at the time. The point sizes and alcohol bands quoted in this guide come from the Ministry of Public Security’s explainers published under the original 2025 text and from a provincial police list published in July 2026; the 12-point structure, the 12-month reset and the six-month test are in the law itself. If a specific fine or deduction matters to you, check the current consolidated text or ask the traffic police rather than relying on a figure quoted here.

Frequently asked questions

Do points come off for not wearing a helmet?

The helmet offence carries a fine (the Ministry’s summary of Decree 168 lists 400,000 to 600,000 VND for riding without a motorbike helmet or with the strap unfastened), but it does not appear in the provincial police list of points offences. The offences that cost points are the ones listed above, such as red lights, pavement riding, wrong-way riding, phone use and alcohol.

If I commit two points offences in one stop, do the deductions add up?

No. Under the deduction principles in Decree 168, when several offences penalised at the same time each carry a deduction, only the offence with the largest deduction is applied.

When exactly does the 12-month reset start?

It runs from the date of the most recent deduction. Article 58 restores the full 12 points to a licence that has not been emptied and has had no deductions for 12 months from that date. A new deduction inside the window starts a fresh 12 months.

Can I keep riding after my licence hits zero?

No. A licence with no points left cannot be used to drive. Restoration requires waiting at least six months and then passing the traffic-police knowledge test; for a motorbike licence that is a theory test only.

Where can I see my current balance?

In the VNeID app, under the document wallet’s driving licence entry, provided your electronic identity account is level 2. The screen shows 12 if nothing has been deducted, or the deduction details if something has.