The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has just submitted to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council a draft resolution on policies to support people using public passenger transport by bus in the city.
This submission will be considered and approved at the 3rd Session, XI HCMC People's Council term 2026 - 2031 (regular session) taking place from June 19 to 20.
According to the submission, the total estimated cost incurred to implement the bus ticket exemption policy in the last 6 months of 2026 is about 665 billion VND.
Of which, about 454 billion VND is used to exempt tickets on 109 bus routes that are subsidized from the city budget. The remaining 211 billion VND is for 26 bus routes that are not subsidized.
Ho Chi Minh City will implement a policy of 100% fare exemption for passengers in 2 phases.
Phase 1 (from July to the end of September 2026): The city supports 100% of ticket prices in the form of contracted bus trip revenue. People are allowed to use buses completely free of charge and are not required to verify their identity.
According to this plan, the State will pay the transport unit based on the standard revenue of bus trips, instead of calculating according to the actual number of passengers. The goal is to create maximum favorable conditions to attract people to use buses, gradually forming the habit of traveling by public transport.
To control policy implementation, management agencies will apply technology in monitoring transport activities. Data from the GPS system is used to determine the number of operating trips; cameras on vehicles serve to control service quality; and the electronic ticket system is used to statistically count passenger volume.
In addition, passengers are still encouraged to perform identification and operations on electronic ticket vending machines to support identification of beneficiaries, prevent policy abuse and contribute to ensuring security and order on buses.
Phase 2 (from October to the end of December 2026): After the electronic ticket system operates stably, the city will switch to a support mechanism according to the principle of "actual payment, actual spending", i.e. payment based on the actual number of passengers using the service.
Accordingly, the State will directly pay for tickets for each passenger through the electronic ticket system. This mechanism helps improve control capabilities, shifting from the form of contracted trip revenue to payment based on actual passenger data that has been verified.
All passengers, including the elderly, students, people with meritorious services and other groups, must carry out identification verification when using the bus.
Verification is carried out through card scanning or QR codes using non-cash payment methods such as bank cards, e-wallets, MultiGo applications or VNeID on the scanner system installed on the vehicle.
Data recording each service use of passengers will be the basis for the State to pay fares to transport units.
