Long rentals outlast paperwork. Visas get extended, licences expire, IDs renew — and a bike that was legal to ride in week one can be illegal to ride in week five without anything about the bike changing.
The rule that decides everything
Your right to ride comes from your documents, not from the rental agreement. If your licence or visa lapses mid-term, riding stops being legal until it is renewed, even though the rental continues. The document requirements are in long-term-rider-licence-checklist-hanoi and idp-vietnam-motorbike-rules.
Renew before the expiry, not after
Start renewals early: visa extensions take processing time, IDP or licence questions depend on your nationality, and Vietnamese licence procedures have their own queues. A month of buffer turns a crisis into paperwork. Track every expiry date from day one of the rental.
What to do with the bike meanwhile
Keep the bike but stop riding it — guarded parking, as in keeping-rental-motorbike-secure-hanoi, and let the shop know. Riding on expired documents risks fines and, in bad cases, the situations described in police-impound-motorbike-vietnam. A bike parked safely for a week costs nothing compared to that.
Tell the shop
Inform Nguyen Tu if your documents expire mid-term, especially if the expiry affects the rental end date or your plans to extend. It is a normal conversation for a long-term renter, and the shop would rather know before the return date than at it.
The one-line version
Documents expire, rentals continue — renew early, park the bike rather than ride on expired papers, and keep the shop informed.