Last week I watched a fella get up off his stool at closing time, a little unsteady, jangling the keys to a rented Honda Wave in his hand. I stopped him before he made it to the door. Told him straight – don’t ride, I’ll have someone book you a Grab right now, it’ll take two minutes. He laughed, said he was grand, it’s only down the road, and walked out before I could get my phone open. He wasn’t being reckless on purpose. The beer had already made the decision for him. Four pints in, “I’m fine to ride” doesn’t feel like a risk. It feels like a fact.
That’s the reason this post exists. Not because I want to lecture anyone about the law – though I will explain it properly, because you need the numbers. It’s because I’ve watched this exact scene play out more times than I can count, and I’d rather you read this over a beer tonight, while you can still make the call yourself, than have me trying to make it for you at the door.
Quick – Who Am I?
I’m Dom – Dominic on the roster, Dom to the regulars – and I’ve been behind the bar at Kim’s Tavern Super Girl Bar on Huynh Thuc Khang Street for close to a year now. Most nights I’m pouring drinks for expats and tourists working their way through Saigon, which means I’m also usually the last friendly face they see before they head off into the night. The regulars have left me some kind words on Google over the months, and I’d rather you take this from the guy who’s actually watched people leave this bar than from a tourist blog that’s never set foot in District 1.
Right. Let’s talk about getting you home safe.
The Short Answer
Drink driving laws in Vietnam are about as strict as anywhere on earth. Zero tolerance means exactly that – any alcohol at all in your system while riding or driving is a finable offence. Not “under the limit.” Not “just the one.” Any.
I’m not telling you this to scold you. I’m telling you because the maths of getting home safe versus getting home broke is so lopsided it shouldn’t even be a decision, and I’d rather you knew that before you’re standing outside my bar working it out yourself at 1am.
What “Zero Tolerance” Actually Means
The law behind all this is Law No. 44/2019/QH14, in force since 1 January 2020, which bans driving with any detectable blood or breath alcohol whatsoever. The decree that sets today’s actual fine numbers is Decree 168/2024/ND-CP, effective 1 January 2025 – it replaced the older Decree 100, which officially expired on 15 May 2026. If you’ve read an older travel blog quoting smaller numbers, it’s out of date. The fines went up, not down.
I won’t bury you in decree numbers beyond that. Just know this is current, it’s real, and it isn’t going anywhere. And it isn’t just for locals – Vietnam’s own legal guidance on foreign drivers confirms foreigners face identical penalties to Vietnamese citizens under Decree 168. No tourist discount. No warning pass. Same fine whether you’ve lived here twenty years or landed twenty hours ago.
There’s a licence point system running alongside all this too – locals lose points off their annual allowance for serious offences, and lose the licence entirely if they run out. It’s built around Vietnamese licences, so how it applies to a foreign IDP is a bit less clear cut. What isn’t unclear is the fine and the impoundment. Those land on you regardless of which passport you’re carrying.
What It Actually Costs You
For most of my customers riding a rented scooter, here’s what you’re looking at:
- Any detectable alcohol at all: 2-3 million VND, plus your bike gets impounded for 7 days
- A moderate level: 6-8 million VND
- A high level: 8-10 million VND, plus your licence suspended for up to two years
If you’re behind the wheel of a car instead, roughly triple those numbers across the board. Even a pedal bike isn’t exempt – cycling home drunk can still land you a fine, smaller but still real.
Even the bottom tier – “only 2 million,” as I’ve heard guys say – is a decent chunk of most people’s entire Saigon holiday budget, gone in one stop. Plus a week without your bike, which for a lot of you means a week of Grab rides and a very annoyed rental shop, since that impoundment isn’t negotiable at any tier.
And here’s one that catches people out – if you hand your rented bike to a mate who’s had a few and something goes wrong, the fine can follow whoever’s name is on the rental, not just whoever was riding. Groups of lads sharing one bike between them for convenience is a habit worth breaking here.
The Bit That Actually Worries Me
Here’s what keeps me half an eye on the clock every night. It’s not the fine amount. It’s the timing.
Checkpoints run heaviest between 6pm and 2am, weekends and holidays especially – which is exactly the window my customers are leaving Huynh Thuc Khang Street to head home. This isn’t some rare unlucky-catch situation either. In the first two weeks after Decree 168 came into force, traffic police handled over 174,000 violation cases and impounded nearly 50,000 motorbikes nationwide. During Tet 2025 alone, over 17,000 drink driving cases were recorded in nine days, according to the government’s own figures. This is routine, nightly, expected policing – not a needle-in-a-haystack risk.
I’m not trying to frighten you off having a good night. I just don’t want to be the last familiar face someone saw before a very expensive, very disorientating night at a police station in a country where they don’t speak the language and their phone’s about to die.
For what it’s worth, the crackdown does seem to be working – accident numbers dropped noticeably in the months after Decree 168 landed, and fatalities along with them. That’s genuinely good news for everyone riding these streets, tourists included. But it also means the checkpoints aren’t going anywhere, and they’re not going to get any gentler on the guy who’s had four beers and thinks he’s walking a straight line.
The Bit Nobody Warns You About
There’s a trap hiding underneath all this that most guys never hear about until it’s too late. A lot of rental shops around District 1 will hand you a scooter for nothing more than your passport – no licence check at all. The problem is Vietnam only legally recognises a proper home country licence paired with a 1968 Vienna Convention International Driving Permit. Without both, you’re already riding illegally before you’ve touched a drop.
Add alcohol on top of that and you’re not looking at one fine. You’re stacking them – no valid licence, no insurance, drink driving – all at once, all on the same stop. I’m not having a go at the rental shops here. Most of them are decent, and most of them will happily point you toward getting the right paperwork if you ask. I just want you to know the full picture before you’re standing at a checkpoint doing the maths for the first time, sober or otherwise.
If you flew in without sorting an IDP before you left home, it’s worth getting one now rather than gambling on never being stopped. It’s cheap, it’s straightforward, and it closes off one entire category of fine before you’ve even had your first beer of the night.
What To Do Instead
Genuinely, this is the easy part. Saigon makes the safe option the cheap option too.
- A short GrabBike home runs about 15,000-30,000 VND – less than the price of the beer you just finished.
- Be is usually a touch cheaper again, and Xanh SM is a solid quiet option with no surge pricing if you’d rather ride in an electric car.
- If you know it’s going to be a big one, sort your ride home before your first drink, not after your fourth. Save the app, screenshot your hotel address, done.
- If your phone dies or the app plays up, ask any of us behind the bar. We call Grabs for guys most nights and we’re happy to do it – it takes thirty seconds and it means one less person trying to remember their hotel’s name at 2am.
- Leave the bike parked overnight if you rode here. Nobody’s going to tow it from outside a bar on Huynh Thuc Khang, and picking it up tomorrow with a clear head costs you nothing but a short walk.
- If you’ve had a look at our How Much Does A Pint Cost In Ho Chi Minh City, you’ll already know a Grab home is worth less than half a beer most places on this street. There’s genuinely no financial argument for risking it.
I’d honestly rather see one of you climb into a Grab looking a bit sheepish about it than not see you walk back through our door next time you’re in town.
Come To Kim’s, Get Home Safe
Have your night here properly. Two floors, two full bars so you’re never waiting long, pool tables and a shuffleboard upstairs if you fancy a game, and staff who’ll make sure you’re having a good time from the first drink to the last. And when it’s time to head off, we’re a five-minute Grab from pretty much every hotel in the centre of District 1 – so the safe way home is also the easy way home. No decree numbers to remember, no checkpoint to worry about, just a proper night out and a proper way to end it.
I’ll say it plainly, because I mean it: I’d rather pour you one drink too few and see you again next year than pour you one too many and read about your night in the wrong kind of headline. Come have a proper time with us. Just let someone else drive you home.
We’re at 20 Huynh Thuc Khang, District 1. Come find us.
Lots of love from all the girls at Kim’s Tavern Super Girl Bar xoxo
