Getting your Driving and Motorbike License in Vietnam

If you thought that episode was fun Colin then blame me not the forum founder because it was me who asked him to look into the thread and decide if the comments were appropriate for this forum. If you feel they're were then I guess I miss judged you.

Actually I said it with sarcasim, I thought that was obvious

Sorry mate but i am a little down at the moment as my business partner of 35 yrs passed away to cancer 2 weeks ago and I had to return to OZ to close up my affairs. My career as a comedian and charity fundraiser in OZ is now over and I am about to apply for the old age pension and Tony Abbott is not keen on pensioners living outside OZ so I may have to give up my charity work here too.

Sorry to hear of the loss of a long time mate.

skyscraper903 wrote:

Hi everybody,

I finally got everything translated.

As dathancna told us, the adress of the translation office is
47 Le Duan Street, District 1.

I took a picture of the opening hours, but as I can't upload anything, I'll write them down. This information is from November 5th, 2013.

1) Working Time: 5 times a week, Monday - Friday
   - Morning:    7:30 - 11:30
   - Afternoon: 13:00 - 17:00
   Saturday (receipt and result-giving section)
   - Morning:    7:30 - 11:30
2) Show civilized lifestyle in the office
   - polite Clothes, no shorts, no sleeveless dress
3) Keep public order and hygiene
4) All ideas for contribution and suggestions should be [...] suggestion box at the office.

Sorry, last sentence is not complete on the picture.

My next step is to go to the transportation office. Will check the opening hours too.

Did you manage to check out the hours for the office at 252 Ly Chinh Thang? Planning on going on a Saturday morning but would be nice to know in advance if it is open and if so what time.

I have bad news for anyone getting their VN Drivers License for a motorbike. They have just changed the rules again. Your license will only be as long as your visa. ie 3mths. Previously it was matched to your home country expiry date.

Thats actually been in for nearly a year now. The way around it is to go and do the written and driving tests.

the guy from the photo copy place next door to the licensing office offered to get me a 10 year creditcard style license for a fee of 3.3million dong. I have asked around and that appears to be the going rate.

Thats about right, make sure he gets you the license before parting with your cash,lol.

I was warned about that too. lol

Good info..thanks

colinoscapee wrote:

Thats actually been in for nearly a year now. The way around it is to go and do the written and driving tests.

Big problem there, the written test is in Viet, and you are not allowed a translator. I was lucky, I changed my Aus car licence over in 2012, so still have the Aus Expiry on it , ( unfortunately Sept 2015, but have no great desire to own or drive a car up here ),  You may be able to get around the written test m/b test, don't say anything about actually having a Foreign M/b licence , as long as you have a car licence, you might be able to get away with just doing the practical test, but you still will have to know a little Viet, i.e, what is your name, address, etc.it might help if you could get a copy of the application form you have to fill in, ( in the office/classroom, just before you do the practical  test ). This licence has no expiry date, ( well , it didn't on Jan/2013 ).

DirtyPierre wrote:

the guy from the photo copy place next door to the licensing office offered to get me a 10 year creditcard style license for a fee of 3.3million dong. I have asked around and that appears to be the going rate.

I think I saw you there..You were cheated by him too?

No I am flying back to Melbourne on Tuesday so I used that as an excuse not to do it then. It also gave me time to ring around some expats to see what the going rate is. It appears that price is the going rate for a 10 yr license. It is expensive but renewing every 3 mths is not an option in my book.

DirtyPierre wrote:

No I am flying back to Melbourne on Tuesday so I used that as an excuse not to do it then. It also gave me time to ring around some expats to see what the going rate is. It appears that price is the going rate for a 10 yr license. It is expensive but renewing every 3 mths is not an option in my book.

May I know what licence is that?

Which one are you refering to?

DirtyPierre wrote:

Which one are you refering to?

Cos it is strange to hear that the licence will be expired in 10 years.

Dejavu.dot wrote:

DirtyPierre wrote:

Which one are you refering to?

Cos it is strange to hear that the licence will be expired in 10 years.

You only get 5yrs in Aus, (  NT Heavy Traffic )

10 years in Mongolia.  Oz 5 years.

Off topic but I see NZ passports now 5 yrs only.

bluenz wrote:

Dejavu.dot wrote:

DirtyPierre wrote:

Which one are you refering to?

Cos it is strange to hear that the licence will be expired in 10 years.

You only get 5yrs in Aus, (  NT Heavy Traffic )

I see. Thanks for the information.

stumpy wrote:

10 years in Mongolia.  Oz 5 years.

Off topic but I see NZ passports now 5 yrs only.

Yes, but for the same price of the old 10 yr one, , and when you apply for a VEC, they only give you 4 1/2 yrs instead of 5.
  But I think there is a big petition going on about it at the moment.I hope it reverts back to 10 yrs, bloody hassle trying to renew your passport from here, one of the requirements is a referee with a CURRENT NZ passport. Nearly all my family and friends had let theirs lap.

I have to renew my NZ passport Feb next yr. Have Oz one as well. I heard that people are not happy with the 5 yr idea. Hope it does revert back.

stumpy wrote:

I have to renew my NZ passport Feb next yr. Have Oz one as well. I heard that people are not happy with the 5 yr idea. Hope it does revert back.

I did mine last year, didn't give myself enough time, so had to pay even more, ( didn't trust the VN post much ). it was mainly because of this Bio security crap, but if it was also a money making scheme, I think then it's backfired on them, many people are not worrying about renewing them now, only doing it when they decide to go somewhere later.
PS if you get stuck for current NZ Passport holder as a referee, give me a yell.
Back on Topic, my Aus Car/Semi licence expires next year, I wonder if I'll have the same problems, they didn't give me a semi licence with my Car licence in VN, but after seeing my Surname was missing  on the licence card, , I gave up and walked away.

@bluenz.

You should be able to renew your Oz licence online. I did mine when I was in South Sudan. In Laos I only got car and motorbike, not HR. Had my road train licence taken off me in Oz as I could not produce log books to say I was still driving hence HR only not HC or semi.

I think you will find you cant do it online due to identity theft. For Qld I had to have my passport,current drivers license,pictures and another form of identify witnessed here in Vietnam and sent with forms back to Australia.

its all changed because of identity theft. My NZ license expires in Nov this year but it was easier to go home in Feb when the weather was nicer and renew it then. They gave me one right up to my 75th birthday. I thought it would be like last time and my VN would parallel my NZ. But no such luck.

colinoscapee wrote:

I think you will find you cant do it online due to identity theft. For Qld I had to have my passport,current drivers license,pictures and another form of identify witnessed here in Vietnam and sent with forms back to Australia.

Yes you are right, the Embassy/Consulate used to do it as well, but not anymore. You have to do an eye test every time you renew it as well these days.    I went into the Rego Office in SA,  once many years  ago, to apply to add another licence class, the bullshit they wanted, it was almost as bad as applying for a Bank account in Aus,  I'm still trying to imagine someone going in there with someone else's licence and trying to add anther class to it, ( even better if they did the practical for you as well ).
DP, I thought about going back to NZ and renewing it to get 10 yrs, but I'd like to keep my Semi licence, so that involves a Theory test, have you seen the amount of questions for a NZ licence, nearly as bad as VN, here they have questions randomly chosen from now , I think it is about 450 ??? hard to believe when you see the quality , ( I use the term very loosely ), of the driving on VN roads.  But it must be like most of VN education , most things are remembered, not actually learnt.

Yeah I had to do the eye test and failed. I sh*t myself then was told I could resit the eye test at an opticians. Did it and passed no worries.  She told me the RTA test are designed to fail you. So it cost me an extra $30 to prove I could see ok.

DirtyPierre wrote:

the guy from the photo copy place next door to the licensing office offered to get me a 10 year creditcard style license for a fee of 3.3million dong. I have asked around and that appears to be the going rate.

Is this for the A1 or A2 license? Next question anyone know of place in Da Nang? Address of place in HCMC?

It was for the A1 license.
Years ago when I had my heart set on owning a big bike a Police friend of mine was helping me get a A2 license but before completing the process I went to Phuket for a week and hired a Honda PCX and was totally sold on it being the bike for HCMC traffic. So never bothered to get the A2

ancientpathos wrote:

DirtyPierre wrote:

the guy from the photo copy place next door to the licensing office offered to get me a 10 year creditcard style license for a fee of 3.3million dong. I have asked around and that appears to be the going rate.

Is this for the A1 or A2 license? Next question anyone know of place in Da Nang? Address of place in HCMC?

He is not stable. He has relationship with a guy in the testing school. This guy looks like a motorbike repairing man who is small in that school. I asked him to help A2 theory but at that time there is a strict supervisor and that guy refused! Luckily I found another guy to do that.. Actually every employees do this job there. It is better for you to ask someone to help from the beginning so you will not pay much for the licence and not be headache to run around like I did.

If you 'buy' a drivers licence, you have to make sure it is REGISTERED ON THE POLICE COMPUTER.

Several of these scam artists get you the licence, but if CGST stops you, they will find out it is fake when they check with their office.

How many times do they actually check, its not like they a have a computer with them. Most of the time they just want money before they give back the license.

There are some cases that policemen will not received money. Ex: They will do everything as the law when they have supervisors around( blue shirt policemen).
When they capture your bike, they will check everything.

Yes and thats not very often.

Normally they should collect some money and remit it into government treasury to get their salary 
You can see them vigilant near salary date!
When they stop you, surely they will try many ways to find some fault with you or your vehicle. If you don't want to waste your time then pay the fine and get receipt ( normally below 100.000). Otherwise stay and show all papers, allow them to check everything with the vehicle okay.

Is this for an "A2" motorcycle license?
Do we need doctor's check up?
I have an "A1" license already. on a 5 year married visa

Not its just a normal bike license up to 170cc.

Just to add to the topic of license....

I applied Friday for my B2 and A2 license and won....

Pick it up in a week.