Motorbike rental in Ho Chi Minh City: prices, deposit, where to rent and how to get out of town

The short answer

Motorbike rental in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) works differently from the beach towns. Nine million people live here and the traffic is the densest in the country: a scooter is not a tourist toy but the only sane way to move around, and an hour out of town the Mekong delta begins. So people rent here for two reasons: to live in the city for a month without taxis, or to leave it on a bigger bike. The rentals in our catalogue split the same way.

How to rent: pick a model and dates on the city page, send a request without signing up, the rental confirms by message, and you pay them directly at pick-up. What it costs, in general terms: a plain Honda Wave or Vision is the cheapest, a fresh 155-160cc scooter is roughly twice that, and a real touring motorcycle costs several times more per day. Today’s numbers are in the table below, because they change and we would rather not print stale ones.

One thing to know before anything else: legally you need a category A licence plus a 1968 International Driving Permit, your travel insurance almost certainly will not pay if you ride without them, and the fines under decree 168/2024 depend on engine size. Every bike card states which licence it needs, so this decision happens before the request, not at a roadside.

Prices for a day, a week and a month

The table below is not written by hand. It is built from the live catalogue when you open the page: how many rentals offer motorbike rental in Ho Chi Minh City, which classes of bike they have, the cheapest and the most expensive daily rate in each class, and the monthly prices where a shop publishes one. When a rental adds or removes a bike, this section changes with it.

Two rules for reading the numbers. First: a price without a stated duration is the price for one day. The usual trick in listings is to quote the weekly rate divided by seven and call it the daily price; we do not, and the bike page shows the full total for your exact dates before you send anything. Second: a month is a separate price, not thirty days multiplied. Saigon rentals live off monthly hire, so a month usually costs far less than a daily rate times thirty; where a shop publishes no monthly figure, we show the weekly tier rather than dividing.

Why the range inside one class is so wide: the same Air Blade or Lead is listed as a current model and as an older version, and the older one costs less. Year and mileage are fair questions before you agree to anything. One rental in Thu Duc also caps city hire at 50 km a day and sells a separate unlimited-mileage rate for trips, which is a different product at a different price.

Deposit and documents: how Saigon rentals actually do it

There is no single rule in Ho Chi Minh City, and we do not pretend there is. Among the rentals we collected, one in Thao Dien takes a cash or card deposit, smaller for city scooters and larger for touring motorcycles, returned when you bring the bike back. One in District 1 accepts either a passport with a Vietnam visa or money, amount not published. One in Thu Duc refuses passports on principle and takes money only. A budget shop in District 3 asks tourists for no money but keeps a document instead, plus onward tickets. And a chain branch in Tan Binh does not publish its deposit terms at all, so its card says exactly that.

Our position is the same as in the deposits guide: do not leave the original passport. You need it for the hospital, the police, the domestic flight and the border, and a passport in someone else’s drawer turns a dispute about a scratch into one you cannot walk away from. Offer a cash deposit plus a photocopy of the passport and a photo of your licence, calmly and before you commit to the bike: it is accepted more often than people expect. When a card here says a document is held, that is a fact about the rental, not our recommendation. We ourselves ask for a name and one contact, nothing more.

Licence. For anything over 50cc, which is nearly every rental bike in the city, Vietnam requires a category A motorcycle licence, and a foreign licence counts only together with an International Driving Permit under the 1968 Vienna Convention; the 1949 Geneva permit issued in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan is not recognised. Riding without a valid licence is fined under decree 168/2024, article 18: up to 125cc two to four million dong, above 125cc six to eight million, and the police can impound the bike, which you still owe the rental for. Worse than the fine: travel insurance almost always excludes an unlicensed rider, so a serious crash is yours to pay with no ceiling.

Where the rentals are, pick-up and delivery

The city page lists District 1, Pham Ngu Lao, Binh Thanh, Thao Dien in District 2 and Tan Son Nhat airport as the areas people look in. The rentals we have actually collected sit in places like these: on Vo Van Kiet in District 1, on Le Van Sy in District 3, in Thao Dien with a second shop in District 7, in Binh Trung Tay in Thu Duc, and in Tan Binh near the airport. Each card carries the exact address.

Pick-up is agreed by message after the rental confirms: you settle the time, bring your licence and whatever the deposit terms require, sign the contract and ride off. Coming in person has one practical advantage over delivery: you choose a helmet that fits your own head, and the one that arrives with a delivered bike often does not.

Delivery exists, but not everywhere and not on one rule. The Thu Duc rental brings the bike free within Thu Duc, Binh Thanh, Districts 1, 3, 4 and 7, Phu Nhuan and Tan Binh, and charges beyond. The District 3 shop delivers around town for a fee. Some rentals do not deliver at all. Whether an offer includes delivery is marked on the card, and the price is always quoted by the rental in the chat, not by us.

Minimum term and what comes with the bike vary too. The Thu Duc rental will not rent for less than two days. The District 1 chain includes a helmet, a phone holder, a USB charger, a rack, a lock and a copy of the registration card, and fixes road breakdowns at its own cost; the Tan Binh branch lists only a helmet and roadside assistance. On the card, green is included and orange is paid extra; fuel is almost never included.

Which bike to rent in Ho Chi Minh City

For the city itself: an automatic scooter, the lighter the better. In traffic this dense you filter between cars, stop every hundred metres and park on pavements, and a Vision, Lead, Air Blade or Vario does that with less effort than anything with a clutch. For a month in town the difference between a basic 110 and a fresh 125-160cc scooter is mostly comfort and looks, not what it can do.

For a trip out of the city, Saigon is unusual: some of the collected rentals keep proper touring fleets, from the Honda XR150L and XR190L through the Versys-X 300 and CB500X up to the Transalp and Africa Twin at the Tan Binh branch. That class comes with a bigger deposit at the Thao Dien shop, a licence requirement that is not negotiable and a daily price several times that of a scooter, all on the card. Between the two sit the Winner X 150, Exciter 155 and NVX 155: enough for the highway to the delta, still narrow enough for the city.

If you have never ridden, be honest with yourself: Vietnamese traffic is a hard place to learn, and this city is the hardest version of it. Start on a light automatic scooter, ride first at dawn when the streets are empty, wear the helmet, skip the rain. Every bike shows a minimum experience level; it is our assessment, not marketing. Everything currently offered for scooter and motorbike rental in Ho Chi Minh City is in the city catalogue at /ru/hcmc.

Handover checklist and how to return the bike

Before money changes hands, photograph the bike from every side in daylight, including every existing scratch and the odometer. Send the photos to the rental and to yourself by message so they carry a timestamp neither side controls, and ask that the existing damage is written into the contract. Four minutes, and it settles almost every dispute that would otherwise be one word against another.

Then the machine: squeeze both brakes, switch on the headlight, brake light and both indicators, press the horn, look at the tyres for cracks and tread, and note the fuel level, because you return the bike with roughly the fuel you got it with. Try the helmet on and check the strap closes: an unfastened helmet is fined like no helmet under article 7 of the decree, and the rider pays for the passenger too.

Documents on the bike: the registration card, the blue card, normally stays with the rental and you get a copy; the District 1 chain includes one in every rental, ask the others for it. Take a phone number that actually answers and agree in writing what counts as normal wear. A flat tyre is traditionally on the rider; a dead battery, a worn clutch or an engine fault you did not cause is the rental’s problem, and damage from a fall is yours.

Returning: bring the bike back at the agreed time with roughly the same fuel, go through it together against the photos from pick-up, and get the cash deposit or the held document back on the spot. If the rental raises a damage claim, your timestamped photos are the answer; if the request went through us, message us too, because in a dispute we take the guest’s side.

Where to ride from Saigon, honestly

We have not measured any routes around Ho Chi Minh City yet. Da Nang, Da Lat, Nha Trang, Sapa and Ha Giang on this site have roads with length, climb and sharp turns counted from map data; Saigon does not, and we will not describe roads we have not measured. What the city data does say is simple: an hour out of town the Mekong delta begins, and that is where most day trips go.

The more useful fact is what the rentals themselves offer. The chain in District 1 also has shops in Hanoi, Ha Giang and Hoi An, and lets you pick a bike up in Ho Chi Minh City and drop it off in any of those cities. That is the practical way to ride the length of the country without riding it back: south to north, ending in Hanoi or straight in Ha Giang for the loop. The Thu Duc rental sells an unlimited-mileage road-trip rate for exactly this. Whether one-way is possible on a given bike and what it costs is a question for the rental in the chat: it is their condition, not a standard.

Questions people ask about motorbike rental in Ho Chi Minh City

Can I rent a scooter in Ho Chi Minh City without a licence? A rental may hand you one, and that does not make it legal: over 50cc you need a category A licence with a 1968 IDP, and without it you risk the fine, an impounded bike and an insurer that will not pay. The honest options are a sub-50cc scooter, which some of the collected rentals list, or not riding.

Is it cheaper by the month? Noticeably: the shops here are built around monthly hire, and a month is usually far less than thirty daily rates. If you are staying three weeks, ask for the monthly price before paying for 21 days. The live monthly range is in the table above.

Do I have to leave my passport? Not with every rental, and we advise against it with any of them: one collected shop refuses passports outright, one takes cash only, others accept a passport or a document. The deposit type is on every card, so you can choose a rental whose terms suit you before writing.

Will the bike be delivered to my hotel? Not all of them: some of the collected rentals deliver, the rest hand over at the shop. The card says whether delivery is offered; the rental names the price.

Why are some Saigon rentals missing from the site? Two reasons, both ours. We do not list a shop that publishes only a price bracket per class instead of a price per model, because a bracket is not a price you can hold anyone to. And we do not list a bike named without an index, a PCX or Vario with no engine size, because the wrong machine under a model name is the most expensive mistake we could make.

How it works through us

We are a platform, not a rental: we collect Ho Chi Minh City rentals whose prices are published per model, write down what each says about deposit, documents, delivery and what is included, and pass your request to them. There is no account to create and no prepayment. The rental confirms by message, you collect the bike and pay them directly, exactly what they quote. We take no commission from you and never hold your money.

What we do not do matters as much. We have not visited these shops and do not call any of them checked or approved; most cards are built from what the rental itself published, and the terms are whatever it sets. If a shop never replies, that is visible to us and to you. If something goes wrong during the hire, message us: in a dispute we take the guest’s side, and our one lever is the rental’s place on the platform, up to removing it.

Motorbike rental in Ho Chi Minh City starts from the city catalogue at /ru/hcmc: pick a bike, read the deposit and documents on its card, send a request. If anything above is out of date, tell us and we will fix the card rather than argue about it.

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