Hanoi to charge drivers entering city center from 2028

The Hanoi People’s Committee is seeking public comment on a draft resolution that would phase the charge in by ring roads: inside the downtown Ring Road 1 from Jan. 1, 2028, inside Ring Road 2 from Jan. 1, 2030, and inside the outlying Ring Road 3 from Jan. 1, 2032.

Ring Road 1, the innermost of the capital’s three loops, encircles the dense historic core around the Hoan Kiem and Ba Dinh areas, where traffic and population are heaviest.

The scale of the problem is hard to overstate. Hanoi has about 8.1 million motor vehicles, including roughly 7 million motorbikes, about 95% of them running on gasoline, and 1.1 million cars. Another estimated 1.2 million vehicles pour in daily from neighboring cities and provinces.

The fee is only one front in the city’s campaign against that traffic. Under a separate resolution the Hanoi People’s Council approved on Nov. 26, 2025, the capital will open its first low-emission zone inside Ring Road 1 in July 2026, restricting gasoline motorbikes by time of day or area before wider bans follow.

That move grew out of a July 2025 directive ordering Hanoi to push fossil-fuel two-wheelers out of the inner city altogether. The congestion charge would layer an economic deterrent over those emissions rules in the same downtown footprint.

The Department of Construction, which drafted the fee proposal, said the center is buckling under fast-rising private vehicle numbers while the land available for roads stays limited, leaving congestion to lengthen commutes, drive up costs and foul the air. Charging drivers to enter, it argued, is a necessary lever to “regulate demand for private vehicle use, reduce traffic volume and encourage people to use public transport.”

Phasing the toll ring by ring keeps it realistic and gives residents and businesses time to adapt, the department said, with Ring Road 1 going first because its congestion is the worst.