What motorbike rental costs in Vietnam: what sets the price and how not to overpay

The short answer

Motorbike rental in Vietnam has no single price, and any figure printed in an article goes stale faster than the article reaches search results. So this page gives you the order of magnitude in words, and the live numbers for each city sit further down in a table that is computed from the rentals’ own offers every time the page renders. The logic is simple: the type of bike, the length of the rental, the season and the age of the machine set the price, and everything else is detail.

The cheapest thing on any price list is a semi-automatic like the Honda Wave or Blade: a plain bike that rentals let go for noticeably less than any scooter. Next come automatic scooters, and here the spread is wide: an old Nouvo or Vision is clearly cheaper than a fresh Air Blade or NVX, even though a listing calls both “a scooter”. Maxi-scooters such as the PCX, ADV or XMAX already sit closer to motorcycles than to city scooters. A real motorcycle with a clutch, whether an XR150L, a Winner or a classic, usually costs several times what a basic scooter does, and big machines like the CB500X or the Versys go further still.

One more rule to understand before comparing anything: with us, a price with no stated duration always means the price for one day. A rental can quote a single number and mean a week, a month or “from three days”, and that is the whole trap we describe below. In the catalogue we read such a price as a daily rate, and we show the weekly and monthly rates separately, if the rental named them.

Prices by city

The table below is built from the live offers of rentals in each city: how many rentals and models are in the catalogue, the lowest price at which scooters, maxi-scooters, motorcycles and enduros start, and the month the data belongs to. It is not an average scraped from listings but the floor of what rentals themselves wrote in their price lists. When a rental changes its prices, the table changes with it, without anyone editing this page.

Cities differ in more than the numbers. In the coastal resort towns of Da Nang, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Phu Quoc and Mui Ne the fleets are built on scooters: an automatic is enough for most rides there, and there are fewer motorcycles in the catalogue. In the mountains the picture flips. Da Lat is the enduro capital of the country; in Ha Giang the rentals gear their fleets to a three or four day loop and offer paid damage protection and riding gear on top; in Sa Pa it is cold and foggy, and a bike is taken for the passes, not the town. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are their own story. In the capital people rent to leave for the north, so touring fleets and one-way drop-offs in other cities are common; in Ho Chi Minh City some rentals live on monthly hire for people staying a while, and their minimum is two days rather than one. In Ninh Binh, which had no rentals in the catalogue at all until recently, the fleets are mostly 2012-2018 bikes and the prices match: simple scooters and semi-automatics.

The trap: a price without a duration

This is the single most common way motorbike rental prices mislead. A listing shows one figure “per day”, and the small print, or nothing at all, reveals that it is the weekly rate divided by seven, or the price “from five days”. Rent for two days and the total at handover is a different one, and it feels like a bait-and-switch even when nobody meant it as one.

Here is how it plays out. You find two rentals in the same city, and the first lists a scooter at a third less than the second. You message the first about three days and get a quote higher than the second one’s, because the low figure was the monthly rate divided by thirty. At the second shop a day costs exactly what is written, but its weekly rate is lower. For a three-day trip and for a two-week trip the winner is the opposite shop, and a single number on a website cannot show you that.

Ask one question and the ambiguity disappears: “what is the price for exactly the days I am taking it?” Any honest rental answers in a sentence. We treat a price without a stated duration as the one-day price, always, and we show the full total for your dates before you send anything.

A day, a week, a month

Rentals discount by length in steps. The usual grid looks like this: one daily rate for anything up to a week, another from seven days, and a separate figure for a month. Intermediate thresholds exist too: some shops drop the rate from the third or fourth day, and in Buon Ma Thuot we have seen three tiers at once, up to three days, three to seven, and from a month. A week is usually noticeably cheaper per day than a single day, and a month works out to roughly half. If you are staying three weeks, asking for the monthly price often costs less than paying for 21 days.

The monthly price is a separate number, not a day multiplied by thirty. We store it exactly as the rental quoted it and never divide it back into days: dividing a month by 30 leaves a tail of fractional dong, and multiplying back produces a sum the rental never said. A reader would take that sum as a promise. So when a rental has not named a monthly price, the card simply has none, rather than an “approximately”.

There is a flip side. Some rentals only hire for trips and have no monthly rate at all, while others are built around monthly hire and take a two-day minimum. All of that is on the card. On the model page we show the total for the whole period you picked before you send a request, so you can see where a week wins and where a month does, without doing the sums yourself.

Four things that move the price

Season. Da Nang in July and Da Lat around Tet are the two moments when everything is taken and nothing is negotiable. In the rainy season the same bike can be a third cheaper. Season shows up in the terms too, not only in the rate: in Da Lat there are rentals with one price for weekdays and another for weekends, and in Ninh Binh a shop that takes no cash deposit on ordinary days may ask for one in high season. Your dates change the conditions, not just the sum.

Year and condition. A five-year-old Nouvo and a current NVX are different machines at different prices, and both are called “a scooter” in listings. Rental price lists show it plainly: the same model from different years costs differently, and a fleet from 2012-2015 goes for less than a fresh one. The year and the odometer reading are fair questions to ask before you agree on anything. In the catalogue every offer states the year when the rental has given it.

Type and engine size. Between a 110cc semi-automatic and a 150cc enduro the gap is not one and a half times but several. Engine size changes something else as well: a category A licence is required for anything over 50cc, and under decree 168/2024 the fine for riding without one depends on whether the bike is over 125cc. So by choosing a more powerful bike you change not only the rental price but the price of a mistake.

Length. As described above: the same bike for a day, a week and a month is three different prices. Add the minimum term to that: one day at most shops, two at some. A request for a single day sent to a rental with a two-day minimum comes back with a different sum.

The deposit

A deposit in Vietnam comes in four kinds, and the catalogue tells them apart explicitly: cash, passport, another document, and “not published”. Cash is the most honest option: the sum is named in advance and comes back when you return the bike intact. The passport is the option you should not agree to: without it you cannot check into a hotel, board a flight or explain yourself to the police, and in a dispute the rental holds leverage rather than security. “Another document” means the shop keeps, say, your driving licence or an ID card while the passport stays with you; some rentals in Ho Chi Minh City and Ninh Binh work that way. “Not published” means exactly that: the rental has not written its terms and we have not asked, and the amount on the card means nothing.

Mixed forms exist too. In Hanoi rentals write “passport or cash” next to each model, and the cash figure depends on the bike: one sum for a plain scooter, many times more for a big motorcycle. Others refuse passports on principle and take only a cash deposit. For a traveller this comes down to one thing: the kind of deposit is as much a part of the price as the daily rate, and bikes cannot be compared without it. A bike that is slightly cheaper per day but leaves your passport in the owner’s drawer is not cheaper. It is a different product.

Why rentals ask for a deposit at all becomes clear from Article 264 of the Criminal Code: liability falls not only on the rider but on whoever handed the bike to a person without the right licence. That is why a shop wants to see your licence and to hold something. What we do: we show the kind of deposit and the amount on every card before the request. What we do not do: we never state on our own authority that a bike comes without a deposit. A zero in the deposit field appears only when the rental itself said so, and we do not paint it as a plus. It is a condition of the deal, not our achievement.

What is included and what is not

A helmet is not included everywhere. Most rentals in the catalogue give one or two helmets with the bike, but there are shops where helmets and riding gear are hired separately at a daily charge. The card shows it: green means included, orange means paid extra, and the helmet is the first line.

Insurance means three different things, and people mix them up. First, your own travel insurance, which covers a motorbike accident only under three conditions: riding is included in the policy, you hold a licence for the bike you are on, and you were wearing a helmet. Second, the basic insurance some partners declare on their bikes: that is a fact about paperwork, not a promise that a particular crash will be paid for. Third, paid damage protection, which rentals in Ha Giang sell in tiers depending on the bike. These are separate lines in the budget. The licence and insurance guide goes through them in detail.

Fuel is almost never included: you return the bike with roughly the fuel you got it with. Be careful with “full tank” in a price list. At one Hoi An rental that line sits next to a condition that fuel is not part of the daily price and the difference is paid on return. We do not tick that box on the card, because it would read as free petrol.

Delivery to a hotel, a station or the airport is priced by the rental, and each one sets it up differently: a free radius of a few kilometres with a charge beyond it, a separate airport price, free across the centre. Many do not deliver at all, and then you collect the bike at the shop. We do not promise delivery on a partner’s behalf: the delivery block appears on a card only once the rental itself has confirmed that it delivers.

One-way rental exists at some shops, and it is a separate service with a separate price. The Motorvina shop in Hue hires bikes for return in Da Nang or Hoi An and ships your luggage separately to meet you at the other end. Hanoi rentals offer drop-off in Ninh Binh, Hue, Da Nang or Ho Chi Minh City for a fee, and a chain with shops in Hanoi, Ha Giang, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City lets you pick up in one of its cities and leave the bike in another. If the card says nothing about it, the rental has not offered it.

Hidden costs

Fines are the largest expense that appears on no price list. Under decree 168/2024 the fine for riding without a valid licence depends on engine size, and for a bike over 125cc it is several times higher than for a small one; the bike can also be impounded, and an impounded rental is still your responsibility, both the fine and the rental’s losses. There are separate fines for riding without a helmet, where a passenger without one costs the rider the same fine again, for running a red light, for holding a phone while riding, and for alcohol, where the first tier starts near zero. The figures and the articles are in the traffic fines guide.

Late return. A rental day is not always 24 hours. In Da Lat we have seen price lists where the day runs from five in the morning to nine in the evening, and in Ninh Binh a shop where returning before ten in the morning counts as half a day. Agree the return hour in advance and ask what being late costs: that is cheaper than finding out at the counter.

Repairs and scratches. Normal wear, a dead battery, a worn clutch, an engine problem you did not cause, is the rental’s problem. A flat tyre is traditionally on the rider. Damage from a fall is on you, and here the price depends on what was recorded at handover. A scratch that is not in your photos is yours. A scratch that was there but did not make it into the frame is yours too, because there is nothing to prove otherwise.

Parking. In Hoi An the old town is closed to motorbikes for most of the day: you park outside and walk, and that is one more small line that is not in the rental price and adds up over a week.

How not to overpay: a checklist

1. Ask for the price for your exact dates, not “per day”.

2. Ask about the minimum term and the weekly and monthly steps. Three weeks may be cheaper at the monthly rate, and a one-day request may not be accepted at all.

3. Compare with the deposit, not without it: its kind and its amount. Cash you get back; a passport you may have to buy back.

4. Check what is included: a helmet, a second helmet if you ride two-up, a raincoat, a phone holder, roadside assistance. Anything not confirmed in writing is not included.

5. Find out how the day is counted and what being late costs. A day that ends at nine in the evening is not the same as 24 hours.

6. If you want delivery, ask the price and the radius; the airport is usually a separate figure. Collecting the bike yourself is often cheaper and lets you choose the helmet.

7. Take a bike your licence covers. A fine, an impounded bike and an insurer with a clean reason to refuse cost more than any rental discount.

8. Photograph the bike from every side at handover, in daylight, with the odometer visible, and send the photos by message so they carry a timestamp. Agree in writing what counts as normal wear. Four minutes that settle almost every dispute.

Frequently asked questions

Why is the price on a rental’s own site lower than in your table? Usually because the site shows a weekly or monthly rate as if it were daily, or a range like “from this to that for a scooter” with no model named. Our table takes the daily rate for a named model and nothing else; rentals that publish only ranges are not in the catalogue at all.

Can I haggle? Walking into a shop on the street is usually a little cheaper: you can bargain and touch the bike before agreeing to anything, and we will not pretend otherwise. What a request through us gives you instead is the price, the deposit and the documents stated before you show up, in a language you read, rather than negotiated at the counter.

Is a prepayment required? Not through us: a request needs no account and no prepayment, and you pay the rental at handover. Some rentals ask for a small prepayment of their own to confirm the dates, for example in Ha Giang; when a shop does that, it says so in its reply, and the money goes to the shop, not to us.

Which is cheaper, renting a bike or taking a tour? The daily rate is only part of the cost of a trip. Petrol on a loop route, a bed every night, food, entrance permits, none of that is in the rental price, and all of it is in a tour price. Count it honestly before comparing; the rent or tour guide does the arithmetic in words.

What if the rental does not reply? Then that is visible to us and to you, instead of being a wasted afternoon outside a locked door. Send a request to another shop in the same city; nothing stops you sending several. We can see whether a rental answered an enquiry or not.

How it works with us

A request with no sign-up and no prepayment: a name and one contact, no passport scans and no document numbers. The request goes from you to us and from us to the rental, never directly. The rental confirms by message, or does not, and then you and we both see it rather than discovering it at a closed door.

You pay the rental directly and exactly the sum it quoted: no commission, no markup, and we neither hold nor see the money. The deposit goes to the rental too, not to us. In a dispute our leverage is the partner’s place on the platform, not withheld money, and the guest comes first.

Everything this article describes sits on one card in the catalogue: the daily rate, the weekly and monthly steps, the total for your dates, the deposit, what is included, and delivery terms. Open a city, choose the type of bike, and the sum for the trip is in front of you before you write to anyone.

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