Holding a phone while riding is one of the defined distraction violations of Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP: 800,000–1,000,000 VND for motorbike riders under Article 7(4)(đ), with licence points deducted besides. The band sits between the small document offences and the signal violations — the law treats the phone as mid-grade dangerous, and the crash statistics agree.
What exactly is banned
The clause targets using a phone while driving — the rider who texts, scrolls, or takes a call in hand. Handheld navigation falls inside it: a rider holding a mounted-phone’s worth of directions on a phone in one hand is riding one-handed and distracted, which is the conduct the clause polices. The checkpoints read it that way too.
What is not banned
A phone in a proper mount, used as navigation without the rider’s hands leaving the controls, is a different situation — the violation targets handheld use. Bluetooth calls through a helmet set leave the hands free. The difference the law draws is attention and control: eyes up, hands on bars.
The delivery-rider problem
Vietnam’s app-delivery economy runs on handlebar phones, and enforcement has followed the risk accordingly — the 2025 schedule’s phone fine is multiple times the earlier band precisely because the behaviour multiplied. Riders renting motorbikes should not copy the delivery rider’s phone-in-hand navigation habit; the fine band applies to tourists identically.
The practical setup for visitors
Mount the phone before moving, set the destination before kicking off, and let voice guidance do the work. In Hanoi traffic the phone-in-hand moment is also the moment the flow changes — the rider looking down is the rider the flow moves around, and the fine is the cheaper of the two outcomes.
Information, not legal advice. Verified against Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP and the Ministry of Public Security fine summaries on 2026-09-22.