Hi,
It's possible to bring your bike in to Vietnam legally. However, it is very complicated and expensive. You would need to in advance arrange and pay for a complete package guided tour with a legal tour operator. As a single rider this can add a lot of money to the trip. In a group the tour becomes a lot cheaper but you still need to stick with the guide and to the literary.
Once you booked the package tour the next step is to arrange all the necessary documents to enter Vietnam with your motorbike. The cost is $1100. So if you have a max group number of 6 people it's only $184 per rider (Any Pillions don't have to pay). The price for a package tour varies and depends on the itinerary and the number of riders in a group.
Without doing it legally it is near impossible to enter Vietnam on your bike. They are extremely strict at the borders and will not allow any body, no matter the circumstances to enter, even if a generous gift or amount of money is offered. Please note: if you attempt to get you bike in by different means for example by putting your bike on a truck and if the border control find it, they find it they will impound the bike. As a matter of fact its very likely they will re register it in Vietnam and sell it to make a very handsome profit.
Even if you get through and the police ever stop you, unfortunately without Vietnamese ownership papers the police will impound the bike. As a foreigner its very unlikely you will get stopped but if you do they are within the law to impound the bike. You can always try to pay a "fine" but the bike is so valuable to them you would need to offer a lot of money. I know many expats here who have bikes with no papers and the bikes are worth a lot of money and they have never been stopped by the police but it's always a risk.
So basically it's better to do it legally or not to do it at all. The easiest and cheapest way to do complete your tour including Vietnam is to just leave your bike in a secure location near to the border and arrange rental bikes to dropped of at the border so you can continue the trip.
The Vietnamese transportation police are so anal about this and i hope one day soon they allow or make it a lot easier for tourists to bring in their bikes in to Vietnam to travel but i believe the main reason why at the moment they re so strict is because they have a huge importation tax on bikes and cars. This is one of the main ways they can get tax out of the citizens and allowing the open borders for bikes outside of Vietnam to come in is likely to disrupt this.
If you have any questions or concerns relating to this information you can reply to this thread and i will do my best to answer or if you require more information to arrange any of the above you can email me:
Chris@flamingotravel.vn
Flamingo Travel Vietnam - rentals/tours
It's possible to bring your bike in to Vietnam legally. However, it is very complicated and expensive. You would need to in advance arrange and pay for a complete package guided tour with a legal tour operator. As a single rider this can add a lot of money to the trip. In a group the tour becomes a lot cheaper but you still need to stick with the guide and to the literary.
Once you booked the package tour the next step is to arrange all the necessary documents to enter Vietnam with your motorbike. The cost is $1100. So if you have a max group number of 6 people it's only $184 per rider (Any Pillions don't have to pay). The price for a package tour varies and depends on the itinerary and the number of riders in a group.
Without doing it legally it is near impossible to enter Vietnam on your bike. They are extremely strict at the borders and will not allow any body, no matter the circumstances to enter, even if a generous gift or amount of money is offered. Please note: if you attempt to get you bike in by different means for example by putting your bike on a truck and if the border control find it, they find it they will impound the bike. As a matter of fact its very likely they will re register it in Vietnam and sell it to make a very handsome profit.
Even if you get through and the police ever stop you, unfortunately without Vietnamese ownership papers the police will impound the bike. As a foreigner its very unlikely you will get stopped but if you do they are within the law to impound the bike. You can always try to pay a "fine" but the bike is so valuable to them you would need to offer a lot of money. I know many expats here who have bikes with no papers and the bikes are worth a lot of money and they have never been stopped by the police but it's always a risk.
So basically it's better to do it legally or not to do it at all. The easiest and cheapest way to do complete your tour including Vietnam is to just leave your bike in a secure location near to the border and arrange rental bikes to dropped of at the border so you can continue the trip.
The Vietnamese transportation police are so anal about this and i hope one day soon they allow or make it a lot easier for tourists to bring in their bikes in to Vietnam to travel but i believe the main reason why at the moment they re so strict is because they have a huge importation tax on bikes and cars. This is one of the main ways they can get tax out of the citizens and allowing the open borders for bikes outside of Vietnam to come in is likely to disrupt this.
If you have any questions or concerns relating to this information you can reply to this thread and i will do my best to answer or if you require more information to arrange any of the above you can email me:
Chris@flamingotravel.vn
Flamingo Travel Vietnam - rentals/tours
