# Vietnamese License Plate Recognition: Heimdall Decodes Provincial Codes, Plate Colors, and the 2023 Owner-Linked Plate System

> HITech's license plate recognition supports Vietnamese plates. A Vietnamese plate combines a two-digit provincial code with a serial letter and digits, and uses white, yellow, blue, and red backgrounds to distinguish private, commercial, government, and military vehicles; since 2023, plates are also tied to the owner's personal ID. We model the Vietnamese specifications and recognize the registration number, provincial code, background color, and single-/two-row layout.

Published: 2026-06-19
Keywords: Vietnamese License Plates, License Plate Recognition, Provincial Codes, Owner-Linked Plates
Canonical: https://www.hitech.com.tw/en/news/2026-06-19
Publisher: Heimdall Intelligent Technology (HITech) — https://www.hitech.com.tw

Heimdall Intelligent Technology's license plate recognition engine supports Vietnamese license plate (Biển số xe) recognition. Vietnam's plate composition, background colors, and management system have distinctive characteristics and have undergone several important reforms in recent years — including the yellow-plate scheme for commercial vehicles and the new owner-linked plate (Biển số định danh) system — so that, beyond the registration number, AI recognition must also understand the plate type, layout, and vehicle-registration information. We model the Vietnamese plate specifications and collect local imagery to help parking, residential, and traffic-management sites in Vietnam adopt recognition.

A few facts worth noting about Vietnamese plates:

(1) Provincial code: the first two digits indicate the registering province or municipality — e.g., Hanoi uses 29–33 and 40, Ho Chi Minh City uses 41 and 50–59, and Da Nang uses 43; because of administrative expansion and historical changes, one city can map to several codes.

(2) Yellow commercial plates: since August 2020, commercial vehicles (taxis, freight, etc.) must use a yellow background with black text, distinct from the white-on-black of private vehicles.

(3) Owner-linked plates: under Circular 24/2023/TT-BCA, effective 15 August 2023, the new owner-linked plate (Biển số định danh) system binds the plate to the owner's national ID number (for individuals) or enterprise ID (for businesses) — i.e., to the owner rather than the vehicle; when a vehicle is sold, the plate is returned and kept by the owner for their next vehicle rather than transferred to the buyer (this applies to five-digit plates).

(4) Background colors: white/black for private vehicles, yellow/black for commercial, blue/white for government and state agencies, and red/white for military; diplomatic and foreign-related vehicles use white with red text, showing codes such as NG (Ngoại giao, diplomatic), NN (Nước ngoài, foreign organizations or individuals), and QT (international organizations) depending on the vehicle.

The fields that need to be recognized on a Vietnamese plate mainly include:

(1) Registration number: the plate's primary identifier and the core of recognition.

(2) Provincial code: the leading two digits, identifying where the vehicle is registered.

(3) Series letter: the letter after the provincial code (e.g., A, B, C, D), distinguishing plate series and forming part of the full plate number.

(4) Background color and plate type: private, commercial, government, military, or diplomatic, judged from the background and text color.

(5) Layout: cars are usually single-row, while motorcycles mostly use a two-row layout, which must be handled separately.

The current Vietnamese plate format mainly follows the five-digit system established after 2010. Although the management rules have since been revised (e.g., the 2020 yellow-plate scheme and the 2023 owner-linked plate system), the basic plate encoding format has stayed consistent: a two-digit provincial code + a one-letter series + a five-digit registration number — e.g., 30A-123.45, where 30 is Hanoi's provincial code, A is the series letter, and 123.45 is the plate number (shown split by a dot into three and two digits). Older four-digit plates also remain in circulation.

For AI plate recognition, beyond reading the registration number correctly, the system must also read the provincial code, series letter, background color, and single-/two-row layout together, so it can deliver more complete and reliable results in parking management, residential access control, and traffic-management applications. Because the new five-digit and older four-digit plates coexist, the AI model typically needs to support both the new and old formats.

Heimdall Intelligent Technology already supports license plate recognition for Taiwan, Japan, the U.S., Europe, and Vietnam, and continues to expand its global plate database and AI-model capabilities, helping cross-border parking management, residential access control, logistics fleet management, and smart-traffic applications adopt plate recognition quickly. Operators with parking, residential, or traffic-management needs in Vietnam, or with Vietnamese plate recognition requirements, are welcome to contact us — we will tailor a recognition solution to the local plate specifications and your site conditions.

## Media

- image: https://www.hitech.com.tw/images/example/vietnam-license-plate-1.webp