Is my international driving permit valid in Vietnam?

We cannot tell you, and this page will not guess. Circular 108/2026/TT-BCA gives a foreign permit effect under whichever international treaty Viet Nam is a party to, and it leaves the operative list of countries to the Traffic Police Department, which must publish and update it annually. We were unable to obtain that list on 3 August 2026: the department website reset the connection every time we tried. Ask the Traffic Police Department directly before you rent or drive anything.

Does a permit issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention work in Vietnam?

Viet Nam has been a party to the 1968 Convention since 20 August 2014, so a permit issued under it is the strongest case on the evidence we hold. That still is not a confirmation. The circular routes the answer through a published list rather than naming the convention, and we have not read that list, so we report the treaty position and stop there.

My country only belongs to the 1949 Geneva Convention. Is my permit refused?

Not established either way, and the common claim that it is refused does not survive a reading of the circular. Article 30(2) refers to any treaty Viet Nam belongs to, and the United Nations depositary lists Viet Nam as a party to the 1949 Convention as well, on the basis of a 1953 accession by the Republic of Viet-Nam. Whether that participation survived the formation of a new State in 1976 is a question of treaty succession that we are not qualified to settle and that no source we hold answers.

Can I use a Vietnamese international driving permit inside Vietnam?

No. Article 30(1) of the circular says plainly that an IDP issued by Viet Nam under the 1968 Convention has no validity within Vietnamese territory. It is a document for driving abroad, and this is one of the few points on this page that the act settles outright.

Who publishes the list that decides this, and where?

Article 36(3)(c) of the circular puts the duty on Cục Cảnh sát giao thông, the Traffic Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security. It must publish and update the list of parties to the Vienna Convention annually on its own website, following the official notification of the United Nations. That is why we treat the depositary as a first-party source for treaty membership: the Vietnamese instrument itself points there.

What can I do instead of guessing?

Two things carry no risk of getting this wrong. Ask the Traffic Police Department for the current list before you travel, and keep the reply. Hiring a vehicle with a driver removes the question altogether, because the person driving holds a Vietnamese licence and you do not need a permit of any kind.

Driving permits in Vietnam: what is established and what is not

We cannot tell you whether your international driving permit is valid in Viet Nam, and no honest page can, because the list that decides it is not one we could obtain. What we can do is show you exactly what the law says, exactly which treaties your country and Viet Nam belong to, and exactly where the chain of evidence stops.

Most pages on this question give a confident yes or no by country. We are not going to. The rule is not a country list at all: it is a reference to another document, and that document is the part we are missing.

Read this page before you rent anything. Not because it gives you an answer, but because it tells you which authority to ask and what to ask them, and that is worth more than a guess dressed up as a fact.

The rule, in the words of the circular

Three provisions, and what each one settles

Circular 108/2026/TT-BCA is the current Vietnamese instrument on driving tests, driving licences and international driving permits. It was signed on 29 June 2026 and took effect on 1 July 2026. Three of its provisions decide everything on this page.

Article 30(1) states that an IDP issued by Viet Nam under the 1968 Convention on Road Traffic has no validity inside Vietnamese territory. This one is settled. A Vietnamese permit is a document for driving in other countries, and it does nothing for its holder at home.

Article 30(2)is the provision travellers actually need, and it is written as a reference rather than an answer. A foreign IDP takes effect in Viet Nam under whichever international treaty Viet Nam is a party to, on that treaty’s terms. The article names no convention. It gives no list of countries, sets no conditions of its own, and draws no distinction between one permit and another.

Article 36(3)(c) supplies the missing list, or rather says who must. The Traffic Police Department is required to publish and update, annually and on its own website, the list of countries party to the Vienna Convention, following the official notification of the United Nations. So the chain runs from the circular to a list, and from that list to the United Nations.

Two things follow. Vietnamese law names the United Nations depositary as the origin of the country list, which is why we treat it as a first-party source below. And the answer for any individual permit lives in a document the circular describes but does not contain.

Verified 2026-08-03Source: Bộ Công an (Ministry of Public Security of Viet Nam)

Which conventions Viet Nam belongs to

Article 30(2) turns on which treaties Viet Nam belongs to, so that is the first thing to establish. The depositary of both road traffic conventions is the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and its records list Viet Nam under both of them.

The 1968 entry is straightforward: accession on 20 August 2014, with a reservation that concerns dispute settlement and nothing relevant here. The 1949 entry is the complication. It records an accession dated 2 November 1953, made by the Republic of Viet-Nam, and the depositary attaches a note pointing to its own historical record.

That record says the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the Republic of South Viet-Nam united on 2 July 1976 to constitute a new State. It does not say what becomes of treaties that a predecessor joined. For Yemen, in a comparable situation, the depositary spells out that the united State counts as a party from the earlier date. For Viet Nam it says no such thing, and the status table still carries the 1953 date.

We are not going to resolve that. It is a question of treaty succession law, the sort of question a government legal office answers, and reaching a view on it would be exactly the kind of confident guess this page exists to avoid.

Viet Nam's own participation, per the United Nations depositary, 2026-08-03
Convention	Status	Depositary note
Vienna, 8 November 1968	PartyAcceded 2014-08-20	Depositary footnote 19, notification upon accession: Viet Nam selected VN as its distinguishing sign under Article 45(4). Separate reservation under Article 54(1): Viet Nam does not consider itself bound by Article 52.
Geneva, 19 September 1949	PartyAcceded 1953-11-02	Depositary footnote 3 to the Participant column: the 1953 accession was made by the Republic of Viet-Nam. The depositary's Historical Information note 1 for Viet Nam records that the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the Republic of South Viet-Nam united on 2 July 1976 to constitute a new State, and — unlike the depositary's note for Yemen — does not state how pre-union treaty participation carries over. Read at https://treaties.un.org/pages/HistoricalInfo.aspx on 2026-08-03. The status table still lists Viet Nam with the 1953 date.

Both rows matter, and the second is why no simple answer follows. The depositary lists Viet Nam as a party to the 1949 Convention on the strength of an accession of 2 November 1953 by the Republic of Viet-Nam, and its own historical note records that a new State was constituted on 2 July 1976 without saying what becomes of treaties joined before that date. Whether that participation carries over is a question of treaty succession law. It is not ours to answer, and we do not.

Verified 2026-08-03Source: United Nations (Secretary-General as depositary)

Convention membership by country

This table answers one question only: which of the two conventions your country belongs to, according to the depositary. It does not answer whether your permit is valid in Viet Nam. Nothing in it should be read as recognition or as refusal.

91 countries and territories are parties to the 1968 Convention. Another 10 signed it without ratifying, which leaves them outside it. 103 are parties to the 1949 Convention, and 49 of them are in the 1949 Convention without being in the 1968 one.

That last group is larger and more familiar than the question usually suggests. It holds the United States, Canada, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Iceland. It also holds Spain and the Republic of Korea, whose citizens enter Viet Nam without a visa at all under Resolution 44/NQ-CP, so this is not a question that only affects distant markets.

Participation in the road traffic conventions, 143 countries and territories, per the United Nations depositary
Country or territory	Vienna 1968	Geneva 1949
Albania	PartyAcceded 2000-06-29	PartyAcceded 1969-10-01
Algeria	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1963-05-16
Andorra	PartyAcceded 2024-09-25	Not in the list
Argentina	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1960-11-25
Armenia	PartyAcceded 2005-02-08	Not in the list
Australia	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1954-12-07
Austria	PartyRatified 1981-08-11	PartyRatified 1955-11-02
Azerbaijan	PartyAcceded 2002-07-03	Not in the list
Bahamas (The)	PartyAcceded 1991-05-14	Not in the list
Bahrain	PartyAcceded 1973-05-04	PartyAcceded 2025-03-11
Bangladesh	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1978-12-06
Barbados	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1971-03-05
Belarus	PartyRatified 1974-06-18	Not in the list
Belgium	PartyRatified 1988-11-16	PartyRatified 1954-04-23
Benin	PartyAcceded 2022-07-07	PartySucceeded 1961-12-05
Bosnia and Herzegovina	PartySucceeded 1993-09-01	Not in the list
Botswana	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1967-01-03
Brazil	PartyRatified 1980-10-29	Not in the list
Brunei Darussalam	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 2020-03-12
Bulgaria	PartyRatified 1978-12-28	PartyAcceded 1963-02-13
Burkina Faso	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 2009-08-31
Cabo Verde	PartyAcceded 2018-06-12	Not in the list
Cambodia	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1956-03-14
Canada	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1965-12-23
Central African Republic	PartyAcceded 1988-02-03	PartySucceeded 1962-09-04
Chile	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	PartyAcceded 1960-08-10
Congo	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1962-05-15
Costa Rica	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	Not in the list
Côte d'Ivoire	PartyAcceded 1985-07-24	PartySucceeded 1961-12-08
Croatia	PartySucceeded 1992-11-23	PartyAcceded 2020-02-07
Cuba	PartyAcceded 1977-09-30	PartyAcceded 1952-10-01
Cyprus	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1962-07-06
Czech Republic	PartySucceeded 1993-06-02	PartySucceeded 1993-06-02
Democratic Republic of the Congo	PartyAcceded 1977-07-25	PartySucceeded 1961-03-06
Denmark	PartyRatified 1986-11-03	PartyRatified 1956-02-03
Dominican Republic	Not in the list	PartyRatified 1957-08-15
Ecuador	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	PartyAcceded 1962-09-26
Egypt	PartyAcceded 2023-12-15	PartyRatified 1957-05-28
El Salvador	PartyAcceded 2024-08-27	Not in the list
Estonia	PartyAcceded 1992-08-24	PartyAcceded 2021-04-01
Ethiopia	PartyAcceded 2021-08-25	Not in the list
Fiji	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1972-10-31
Finland	PartyRatified 1985-04-01	PartyAcceded 1958-09-24
France	PartyRatified 1971-12-09	PartyRatified 1950-09-15
Georgia	PartyAcceded 1993-07-23	PartyAcceded 1993-07-23
Germany	PartyRatified 1978-08-03	Not in the list
Ghana	Signed onlySigned 1969-08-22, not ratified	PartyAcceded 1959-01-06
Greece	PartyAcceded 1986-12-18	PartyAcceded 1952-07-01
Guatemala	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1962-01-10
Guyana	PartyAcceded 1973-01-31	Not in the list
Haiti	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1958-02-12
Holy See	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	PartyAcceded 1953-10-05
Honduras	PartyAcceded 2020-02-03	Not in the list
Hungary	PartyRatified 1976-03-16	PartyAcceded 1962-07-30
Iceland	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1983-07-22
India	Not in the list	PartyRatified 1962-03-09
Indonesia	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	Not in the list
Iran (Islamic Republic of)	PartyRatified 1976-05-21	Not in the list
Iraq	PartyAcceded 2017-02-01	Not in the list
Ireland	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1962-05-31
Israel	PartyRatified 1971-05-11	PartyRatified 1955-01-06
Italy	PartyRatified 1996-10-02	PartyRatified 1952-12-15
Jamaica	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1963-08-09
Japan	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1964-08-07
Jordan	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1960-01-14
Kazakhstan	PartyAcceded 1994-04-04	Not in the list
Kenya	PartyAcceded 2009-09-09	Not in the list
Kuwait	PartyAcceded 1980-03-14	Not in the list
Kyrgyzstan	PartyAcceded 2006-08-30	PartyAcceded 1994-03-22
Lao People's Democratic Republic	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1959-03-06
Latvia	PartyAcceded 1992-10-19	Not in the list
Lebanon	Not in the list	PartyRatified 1963-08-02
Lesotho	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1973-09-27
Liberia	PartyAcceded 2005-09-16	Not in the list
Liechtenstein	PartyAcceded 2020-03-02	PartyAcceded 2020-03-02
Lithuania	PartyAcceded 1991-11-20	PartyAcceded 2019-02-04
Luxembourg	PartyRatified 1975-11-25	PartyRatified 1952-10-17
Madagascar	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1962-06-27
Malawi	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1965-02-17
Malaysia	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1958-09-10
Maldives	PartyAcceded 2023-01-09	Not in the list
Mali	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1962-11-19
Malta	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1966-01-03
Mexico	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	Not in the list
Monaco	PartyAcceded 1978-06-06	PartyAcceded 1951-08-03
Mongolia	PartyAcceded 1997-12-19	Not in the list
Montenegro	PartySucceeded 2006-10-23	PartySucceeded 2006-10-23
Morocco	PartyAcceded 1982-12-29	PartySucceeded 1956-11-07
Myanmar	PartyAcceded 2019-06-26	Not in the list
Namibia	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1993-10-13
Netherlands (Kingdom of the)	PartyAcceded 2007-11-08	PartyRatified 1952-09-19
New Zealand	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1958-02-12
Niger	PartyAcceded 1975-07-11	PartySucceeded 1961-08-25
Nigeria	PartyAcceded 2018-10-18	PartyAcceded 2011-02-03
North Macedonia	PartySucceeded 1993-08-18	Not in the list
Norway	PartyRatified 1985-04-01	PartyRatified 1957-04-11
Oman	PartyAcceded 2020-06-09	Not in the list
Pakistan	PartyAcceded 1986-03-19	Not in the list
Papua New Guinea	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1981-02-12
Paraguay	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1965-10-18
Peru	PartyAcceded 2006-10-06	PartyAcceded 1957-07-09
Philippines	PartyRatified 1973-12-27	PartyRatified 1952-09-15
Poland	PartyRatified 1984-08-23	PartyAcceded 1958-10-29
Portugal	PartyRatified 2010-09-30	PartyAcceded 1955-12-28
Qatar	PartyAcceded 2013-03-06	Not in the list
Republic of Korea	Signed onlySigned 1969-12-29, not ratified	PartySucceeded 1971-06-14
Republic of Moldova	PartyAcceded 1993-05-26	Not in the list
Romania	PartyRatified 1980-12-09	PartyAcceded 1961-01-26
Russian Federation	PartyRatified 1974-06-07	PartyAcceded 1959-08-17
Rwanda	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1964-08-05
San Marino	PartyRatified 1970-07-20	PartyAcceded 1962-03-19
Saudi Arabia	PartyAcceded 2016-05-12	Not in the list
Senegal	PartyAcceded 1972-08-16	PartySucceeded 1962-07-13
Serbia	PartySucceeded 2001-03-12	PartySucceeded 2001-03-12
Seychelles	PartyAcceded 1977-04-11	Not in the list
Sierra Leone	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1962-03-13
Singapore	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1972-11-29
Slovakia	PartySucceeded 1993-02-01	PartySucceeded 1993-02-01
Slovenia	PartySucceeded 1992-07-06	PartySucceeded 2017-07-13
South Africa	PartyAcceded 1977-11-01	PartyAcceded 1952-07-09
Spain	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	PartyAcceded 1958-02-13
Sri Lanka	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1957-07-26
State of Palestine	PartyAcceded 2019-11-11	Not in the list
Sweden	PartyRatified 1985-07-25	PartyRatified 1952-02-25
Switzerland	PartyRatified 1991-12-11	Signed onlySigned 1949-09-19, not ratified
Syrian Arab Republic	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1953-12-11
Tajikistan	PartyAcceded 1994-03-09	Not in the list
Thailand	PartyRatified 2020-05-01	PartyAcceded 1962-08-15
Togo	Not in the list	PartySucceeded 1962-02-27
Trinidad and Tobago	Not in the list	PartyAcceded 1964-07-08
Tunisia	PartyAcceded 2004-01-05	PartyAcceded 1957-11-08
Türkiye	PartyAcceded 2013-01-22	PartyAcceded 1956-01-17
Turkmenistan	PartyAcceded 1993-06-14	Not in the list
Uganda	PartyAcceded 2022-08-23	PartyAcceded 1965-04-15
Ukraine	PartyRatified 1974-07-12	Not in the list
United Arab Emirates	PartyAcceded 2007-01-10	PartyAcceded 2007-01-10
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland	PartyRatified 2018-03-28	PartyRatified 1957-07-08
United States of America	Not in the list	PartyRatified 1950-08-30
Uruguay	PartyAcceded 1981-04-08	Not in the list
Uzbekistan	PartyAcceded 1995-01-17	Not in the list
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)	Signed onlySigned 1968-11-08, not ratified	PartyAcceded 1962-05-11
Viet Nam	PartyAcceded 2014-08-20	PartyAcceded 1953-11-02
Zimbabwe	PartyAcceded 1981-07-31	PartySucceeded 1998-12-01

“Not in the list” means the depositary does not list that country for that convention. The depositary's list of participants is exhaustive, so absence is its statement and not our inference. “Signed only” means the country signed without ratifying, which does not make it a party.

Verified 2026-08-03Source: United Nations (Secretary-General as depositary)Verified 2026-08-03Source: United Nations (Secretary-General as depositary)

Where the evidence stops

The chain from the circular to an answer has three links, and the third is missing. The circular points at a list. The list is the responsibility of the Traffic Police Department. We could not read it.

On 3 August 2026 the department website reset the connection on every attempt, after roughly twenty seconds each time. We did not work around it. Changing the request to look like something else, or retrying past what the server was willing to serve, would turn a recorded result into a manufactured one, and our own rules forbid it. The site of the road administration that handled licences before the duty moved is reachable, and two relevant sections of it were read in full; neither mentions the convention, and that body is not the one the circular names in any case.

So the honest position is narrow and worth stating exactly. The rule is known. The treaty memberships are known. The document that connects them to your permit is one we have not seen, and until we do, this site will publish neither a recognition nor a refusal for any country.

Every check behind this section, with the date and the error returned, is recorded in the register of source checks. If the list becomes readable, the table on this page gains a column and this section shrinks.

This table is not published yet

Not published as of 2026-08-04

Every row here needs a source URL and a verification date before it can be shown. Those are still being confirmed, so the table stays empty rather than filled with numbers you cannot check.

We hold no confirmed record saying that any country's permit is recognised in Viet Nam, and none saying it is refused. Both statements would need the list named by Article 36(3)(c), and we do not have it.

The authority to ask is Cục Cảnh sát giao thông, the Traffic Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security, at csgt.vn — the site named by Article 36(3)(c) and the one we could not reach. Ask for the current list of parties to the Vienna Convention as published under that article, and keep the answer with your travel documents.

Questions we can answer, and one we cannot

Is my international driving permit valid in Vietnam?: We cannot tell you, and this page will not guess. Circular 108/2026/TT-BCA gives a foreign permit effect under whichever international treaty Viet Nam is a party to, and it leaves the operative list of countries to the Traffic Police Department, which must publish and update it annually. We were unable to obtain that list on 3 August 2026: the department website reset the connection every time we tried. Ask the Traffic Police Department directly before you rent or drive anything.
Does a permit issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention work in Vietnam?: Viet Nam has been a party to the 1968 Convention since 20 August 2014, so a permit issued under it is the strongest case on the evidence we hold. That still is not a confirmation. The circular routes the answer through a published list rather than naming the convention, and we have not read that list, so we report the treaty position and stop there.
My country only belongs to the 1949 Geneva Convention. Is my permit refused?: Not established either way, and the common claim that it is refused does not survive a reading of the circular. Article 30(2) refers to any treaty Viet Nam belongs to, and the United Nations depositary lists Viet Nam as a party to the 1949 Convention as well, on the basis of a 1953 accession by the Republic of Viet-Nam. Whether that participation survived the formation of a new State in 1976 is a question of treaty succession that we are not qualified to settle and that no source we hold answers.
Can I use a Vietnamese international driving permit inside Vietnam?: No. Article 30(1) of the circular says plainly that an IDP issued by Viet Nam under the 1968 Convention has no validity within Vietnamese territory. It is a document for driving abroad, and this is one of the few points on this page that the act settles outright.
Who publishes the list that decides this, and where?: Article 36(3)(c) of the circular puts the duty on Cục Cảnh sát giao thông, the Traffic Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security. It must publish and update the list of parties to the Vienna Convention annually on its own website, following the official notification of the United Nations. That is why we treat the depositary as a first-party source for treaty membership: the Vietnamese instrument itself points there.
What can I do instead of guessing?: Two things carry no risk of getting this wrong. Ask the Traffic Police Department for the current list before you travel, and keep the reply. Hiring a vehicle with a driver removes the question altogether, because the person driving holds a Vietnamese licence and you do not need a permit of any kind.