A metered taxi in Hanoi should show a running fare from the moment the car pulls away, calculated by distance and time. A cyclo has no meter at all. Its price is whatever the rider agrees before getting in. Confusing the two, or trusting the wrong livery, is where visitors lose money.
How a taxi meter is actually built
Every legal taxi meter in Hanoi works the same way in structure, even though the numbers differ between companies. There is a flag-fall charge for the first kilometre or so. After that, the fare rises per kilometre, usually on a sliding scale that drops slightly once the trip runs long. A separate rate applies when the car is stationary in traffic, charged by time rather than distance. None of this is set by a single national price list. Each operator publishes its own tariff, and tariffs change. Mai Linh, one of the country’s largest taxi groups, publishes its current rates on its own site, and that is the place to check a figure rather than any article, including this one.
Vehicle size matters too. A four-seat car and a seven-seat car usually run on different scales, printed on a sticker inside the door or on the meter housing itself. Read that sticker before the ride starts. It tells you which scale applies, and it is the same information the driver is working from.
The liveries that get copied
Vietnamese press coverage and independent travel writers who cover Vietnam closely, including Vietnam Coracle, have long described a specific problem in Hanoi and other cities: cars painted to resemble a trusted company’s livery, sometimes down to the phone number printed on the door, but not actually part of that fleet. The tactic works because a tired or jet-lagged traveler reads color and shape, not the small print. A few patterns recur often enough to be worth naming.
| Genuine operator | How it’s normally recognized | Reported copycat pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Mai Linh | Green livery with the Mai Linh name and logo in a consistent house font, company phone number printed on the doors | Green cars with “Mai Linh Group” or a near-identical name in a slightly different font, or with no phone number at all |
| G7 Taxi (an alliance of several Hanoi companies) | Green-and-white livery with “G7” clearly marked, alongside a member company’s own name | The “G7” mark added to an unaffiliated car, without a genuine member company name alongside it |
| Any metered operator | A visible company name, a printed phone number, and a driver ID card displayed inside the car | A blank or missing ID card, and a driver reluctant to let you look at the meter clearly |
None of this needs memorising in detail. The check is simple: does the name match the paint exactly, is there a phone number, and is there a driver ID card on display? If any of those is missing, choose a different car.
The meter that’s already running
One specific trick is worth knowing by name. A driver starts the meter before the car has even pulled away, so by the time you notice, it already reads some amount above zero. A genuine flag-fall should sit close to the minimum shown on that door sticker. If the meter reads meaningfully above that minimum — as a rough marker, more than roughly 20,000 dong — before the car has moved at all, something is wrong.
Say so before the car sets off, not after. A short, clear phrase works better than an argument: “Đồng hồ chưa chạy, xin bật lại” — “the meter hasn’t run yet, please reset it.” If the driver won’t reset it, get out. This costs nothing and takes ten seconds at a kerb where another taxi is rarely far away.
The same caution applies to cash handed over at the end. Vietnam’s currency runs to six figures, so ordinary fares are five-digit numbers, and the 20,000 dong note and the 500,000 dong note are both blue polymer notes of a similar size. Count the zeros, not the color, every time money changes hands in this city, whether it’s a taxi, a market stall or a cyclo.
Cyclos: no meter, so the price is a conversation
A cyclo is a pedal-powered tricycle with a passenger seat at the front, and it carries no meter of any kind. What it costs is whatever driver and passenger agree before the ride starts, for a route and a rough duration also agreed in advance. Cyclos operating around the Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem (Hoàn Kiếm) today are largely a tourist activity rather than everyday transport, organized through associations that register drivers and, in some cases, publish set-route options.
Agree the figure in dong, not in a foreign currency, and confirm whether it covers the whole route or a shorter distance than you think you’re getting. Writing the number down, or showing it on a phone screen, avoids any dispute about what was actually said. There is no meter to appeal to afterwards, so the agreement made at the kerb is the entire contract.
Where an app removes the guesswork
A ride-hailing app shows the fare before you book, calculated by the app rather than negotiated at the roadside, and that fare doesn’t move once the trip starts unless the route changes substantially. It solves the livery problem entirely, because the driver and car are identified in the app before you get in. What each app-based option is actually good for — a car for the ring roads, a bike through Old Quarter alleys too narrow for a car — is covered in GrabCar vs GrabBike in Hanoi: What Each One Is Actually For.
Hanoi’s metro, covered in The Hanoi Metro: Two Lines, and Why Neither Goes Where You Want, doesn’t reach the Old Quarter, Hoan Kiem or the airport, so most visitors are choosing between walking, a taxi and an app for almost every trip. Getting the taxi step right matters more here than in a city with a fuller rail network.
Whatever gets you to the kerb, the last thirty seconds is the same everywhere in the city: crossing the road on foot, at a steady pace, without stopping halfway. That skill is set out in full in How to Cross the Road in Hanoi Without Panicking, and it applies just as much to reaching a taxi rank as to sightseeing.
More on getting around the city, including how fares and routes actually work, sits in the Getting Around archive. Details on how this site checks what it publishes, and where its information comes from, are on the About page; what the site collects from readers is set out in the privacy policy.
Access Hanoi is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources. We have not visited the places described here and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented ‘local favorites’ — where something is singled out as notable, we say who says so. Opening times, fares, closures and prices change at short notice, so treat everything here as a starting point and confirm with the museum, operator or venue directly before building a day around it. We give no advice on visas, insurance, health or safety; use your own government’s official guidance for those.