The Government has just issued Decree 238/2026/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of regulations on sanctioning administrative violations in the field of road traffic in Decree 168/2024/ND-CP.
One of the notable contents is the addition of sanctions for car users who are not registered for passenger transport business but still accept to carry people to collect money.
Carrying people for money, receiving reservations can all be penalized
Decree 238 supplements clause 8a to Article 20 of Decree 168. Accordingly, drivers of cars who do not engage in passenger transport business but commit one of the following acts will be fined from 12-14 million VND:
Carrying people with money;
Signing a contract to transport people on the vehicle;
Receiving reservations to carry people on the bus.
Thus, the sanctioned act is not limited to cases where drivers have directly received money from passengers. Using non-business cars to sign contracts or receive reservations to carry people is also within the scope of regulation of the new regulations.
This regulation may affect cases of using personal cars to regularly receive passengers via phone, social networks or other forms of booking trips, while vehicles do not operate according to regulations on passenger transport business.
However, determining whether a specific case is "carrying people and collecting money" or not will be based on the nature of operations, agreements between parties and related documents and evidence. It is not advisable to implicitly consider every case where accompanying people contribute fuel money or share costs as a transport business act.
6 points deducted from driver's license
In addition to a fine of 12-14 million VND, the driver of the vehicle performing the above act will also be deducted 6 points from the driver's license.
According to the management mechanism for driver's license points, each license has 12 points. In case all points are deducted, drivers are not allowed to drive vehicles according to that type of license and must conduct a legal knowledge test on road traffic order and safety according to regulations to recover points.
The above-mentioned fine is applied directly to car drivers who commit violations. This is a separate sanction for using non-business passenger transport vehicles to transport people to collect money, sign contracts or receive bookings, regardless of whether the vehicle carries many or few passengers.
Decree 238/2026/ND-CP takes effect from August 15, 2026. For acts that have occurred and ended before the decree takes effect but are subsequently detected or are being considered for settlement, functional agencies apply the regulations that take effect at the time the act is committed.
