Short answer: for motorbike riders in Vietnam, the “expired licence” fine question has a twist — Vietnamese motorbike licences do not expire. Article 57(5) of Law 36/2024/QH15 issues the A1, A and B1 classes with no time limit. What the fine schedule does punish is riding on a licence that is no longer valid: fully point-deducted, suspended, tampered or otherwise voided — and that is banded exactly like riding with no licence, at 2,000,000–4,000,000 VND up to 125 cc and 6,000,000–8,000,000 VND above (Article 18(5)(a), (7)(b) of Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP).
The expiry rules, precisely
Article 57(5) of the law divides the licence book by clock. The motorbike classes — A1, A, B1 — are issued without time limit; a Vietnamese motorbike licence in a drawer for twenty years is still valid. The car classes expire: B and C1 after 10 years, the heavy and passenger classes after 5. That is where “expired licence” fines genuinely live in the schedule: Article 18(8)(a) prices a car licence expired for under a year at 8–10 million VND, and Article 18(9)(a) one expired for a year or more at 18–20 million VND. The motorbike rider searching “expired licence fine” is usually reading a car article.
What actually voids a motorbike licence
Since the clock cannot, other mechanisms do. A licence whose twelve points have all been deducted stops being a valid licence. A licence suspended by a serious violation stops being usable for its suspension period. A licence tampered with, or issued by nobody, was never valid. Article 18(5)(a) and (7)(b) gather all of these into the same bands as no licence at all — the schedule’s honest position is that “not currently valid” and “never had one” are the same fact to the officer at the stop.
Foreign riders have a clock of their own: a national licence that expired abroad is not exchangeable and not valid here, and a 1968-convention IDP’s validity tracks its printed expiry and the national licence behind it. The foreign licence that lapsed in year three of a five-year stay is the motorbike version of the expired-licence fine, priced in the no-valid-licence bands above.
Renewal, replacement, and the clock’s one honest exception
Because A1/A/B1 never expire, “renewal” for motorbike riders means card replacement — damaged, lost or re-issued after a points restoration — a procedure covered in the validity-and-renewal article. The rider carrying a physically destroyed licence is a carriage problem, not a validity problem; the rider whose points hit zero has a restoration path on the points system’s schedule.
For visitors checking their own paper
Check two dates before riding in Vietnam on foreign paper: the national licence’s expiry and the IDP’s expiry. If either has lapsed, the pair is not valid here regardless of what it once covered, and the band for riding on it is the unlicensed band. A five-minute passport-folder check is cheaper than the smallest figure in this article.
Information, not legal advice. Verified against Law 36/2024/QH15 and Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP on 2026-09-22.