Tet, the Vietnamese New Year (late January or February), reshapes Hanoi for about a week — and it affects motorbike rentals more than any other week of the year.
Shops close or run thin
Tet is the one period when shops of every kind close, and rental shops are no exception; many shut for several days while owners return to their home provinces. Around the holiday, staffing is thin even when a shop is nominally open. Opening hours you see on a shop’s page are normal-day hours; during Tet, they may not apply. Confirm opening and return arrangements explicitly for the exact dates of your rental, and expect a firm answer only from the shop itself. Nguyen Tu’s normal hours are 09:00–21:00 daily; holiday-period arrangements should be confirmed directly by phone or message.
Book ahead, confirm in writing
If you want a bike across the Tet week, book early — see how-to-book-a-motorbike-rental-hanoi for the booking basics, and during Tet add two habits: confirm the pickup time in a message the day before, and confirm the return arrangement in the same message. A shop that closes for five days needs to know whether your return date falls inside the closure, and so do you.
The city changes character
Hanoi empties dramatically during Tet as millions travel home. Traffic that is normally dense becomes light, and for a rider this is the easiest and most pleasant week of the year to explore the city — but with caveats. Street food and small services close for the first days. Parking lots at temples and pagodas, by contrast, hit their annual peak, as visiting shrines is the core Tet activity.
Prices and terms
Never assume holiday pricing either way: ask what the rate for your exact dates is when booking, agree it in the reservation, and treat the agreed number as the whole truth. Deposit and late-return terms still apply — see motorbike-rental-deposit-hanoi and late-return-rental-motorbike-hanoi — and if your return date might slip past the shop’s closure, agree in advance what happens instead of discovering it on the day. Because shops close, mid-holiday breakdowns can be slower to resolve; ride gently and read rental-motorbike-breakdown-hanoi before setting out.
Other holiday periods
Reunification Day (30 April) and Labour Day (1 May), and National Day (2 September), each give multi-day holiday traffic waves in and out of the city — not closures on the Tet scale, but higher demand on rentals and busier roads on the first and last days. Booking ahead is wise for those long weekends too.
The short version
Tet rental is a great experience made of two phone messages: one to book and confirm your dates against the shop’s actual opening, one to agree the return plan. Do those, and the empty-city riding is yours.