Driverless Trucks, Camera-Opened Barriers: Việt Nam Writes Customs Rules for Its Smart Border Gates

On the Lạng Sơn border, Việt Nam and China have been building a freight lane where containers are carried across by unmanned vehicles. Cranes load and unload them automatically, and gates open when a camera matches a truck to its customs record. Until now nothing in customs law said how such a lane should be supervised. Thông tư 128/2026/TT-BTC fills that gap. It takes effect on 15 October 2026, eight days from now. It is a short circular, 13 articles plus one data annex, but it is one of the first Vietnamese legal texts to deal directly with autonomous vehicles moving goods across a border. It also hands a large part of the day-to-day checking to software.

The document

Number: Thông tư 128/2026/TT-BTC
Issued by: Bộ Tài chính (Ministry of Finance), signed by Deputy Minister Nguyễn Đức Chi on behalf of the Minister, on the proposal of the head of Cục Hải quan (the Customs Department)
Signed: 27 August 2026
Effective: 15 October 2026
Full title (abridged): customs inspection, supervision and management of exported, imported and transit goods and of vehicles operating in smart border gate areas (khu vực cửa khẩu thông minh) approved by the Prime Minister
Legal bases include: Luật Hải quan 54/2014/QH13; Nghị định 08/2015/NĐ-CP as amended by Nghị định 167/2025/NĐ-CP; Nghị định 336/2026/NĐ-CP on the National Single Window; Nghị định 47/2024/NĐ-CP on national databases; and Nghị định 194/2025/NĐ-CP on data sharing between state agencies

Article 13 sets a limit on scope. The circular applies only to smart border gate pairs that a competent authority has formally put into operation. It does not change procedures at ordinary land border crossings.

What a “smart border gate” is in law

Article 3 gives the concept legal definitions for the first time:

An unmanned smart transport vehicle is a motor vehicle that partly or fully automates driving, routing and handling road situations, and that carries containers (loaded or empty) inside the smart gate area.
The smart gate area is a zone with clearly mapped boundaries inside a land border gate. It covers export and import holding yards, a physical-inspection zone, a container-scanner zone, a control and operations centre, an automated container-handling zone and the dedicated road for driverless vehicles.
The operator is a company licensed by the border province’s People’s Committee to build and run the gate.
The goods allowed through are those on a list agreed between the border provinces of Việt Nam and China. Article 12 lets the province negotiate with its Chinese counterpart to add products to that list and then notify the Ministry of Finance.

What changes

1. Driverless vehicles skip exit and entry formalities. Article 4(3) says unmanned vehicles entering and leaving the smart gate area do not have to complete customs exit or entry procedures for the vehicle itself. They remain under customs inspection, supervision and control. Instead of declaring each trip, the operator registers its fleet once on the National Single Window before the first run, using the fields in the annex (vehicle ID, purpose, container number, container type). Any change must be filed at least 2 hours before the vehicle reaches the gate. A vehicle can pass only after the customs data system has accepted and approved it (Article 6). Vietnamese vehicles temporarily crossing into China, and Chinese vehicles temporarily entering Việt Nam, may stay in the smart gate area for up to 48 hours. After that the operator must notify customs, and a vehicle that does not return must go through normal customs procedures.

2. Software opens the gates. The area must have cameras that recognise driverless vehicles, electronic barriers, surveillance cameras, electronic scales and a cargo-management system, all connected directly to the customs electronic data-processing system (Article 4(1)). On the export side (Article 7), the operator’s system compares the declared domestic truck with the camera image at the entrance and opens the barrier automatically if they match. It records “get-in” when the goods enter the controlled area and “get-out” when they physically leave, and sends both events to customs in real time. Imports follow the same logic in reverse (Article 8).

3. Risk analysis moves upstream. For imports, Vietnamese customs receives cargo and vehicle data from Chinese customs through the National Single Window. Article 5 tells officers to run risk analysis on that data before the goods arrive. Until the Single Window can take the Chinese feed, the operator must send the data at least 30 minutes before a driverless vehicle reaches the gate. Article 11 adds that once the Ministry of Finance and China’s General Administration of Customs sign their data-sharing agreement, customs will share import data with the operator through the Single Window, reversing the direction of the flow.

4. Deadlines and fallbacks. Imported goods may stay in the smart gate area for 30 days from arrival. An owner who comes to clear them after that faces a penalty. Article 9 covers system failures. If the operator’s system goes down, it must tell customs immediately, and officers supervise shipments directly. If the customs system fails, customs hands the operator paper lists of cleared consignments. A broken-down driverless vehicle is repaired or sent back to China.

5. Officers keep the final say, with liability attached. The head of the border customs team can stop a vehicle or hold goods for physical inspection when there are signs of smuggling. Article 6(2)(c) adds something new: if a stop turns out to be wrong, the resulting damage must be compensated under the law.

Before this circular, smart-gate traffic fell under the general rules of Thông tư 38/2015/TT-BTC, written for human-driven trucks and paper-era inspections. Thông tư 128 does not replace those rules. It adds a layer for a lane where nobody is behind the wheel.

Who it affects

Gate operators: they carry the heaviest IT duty. Article 11 requires them to build an operations system linked to the Chinese operator’s system, the customs data system and the National Single Window, and to provide data for collecting infrastructure-use fees. Article 3(5) requires that system to ensure network information security and personal-data protection, which brings in Việt Nam’s cybersecurity and data-protection rules.
Exporters and importers: truck details must be declared on the Single Window before arrival, and goods are released by automated matching. A mismatch sends the driver to a separate lane.
Logistics firms and drivers: domestic trucks collecting imports get their pickup position from the operator’s system.
Customs: Cục Hải quan must assign warehouse codes to each smart gate and upgrade the Single Window for ASEAN and China data exchange.

Practical implications

The main pilot is in Lạng Sơn, on the dedicated freight route at the Hữu Nghị international border gate. Trade press has also reported driverless-vehicle trial runs at Tân Thanh, and Quảng Ninh is preparing as well. According to Thời báo Tài chính Việt Nam, the regional customs branch (Chi cục Hải quan khu vực VI) already runs a vehicle-declaration platform with QR fee payment, which has processed more than 310,000 vehicle declarations this year, and uses AI cameras to watch cargo yards. Thông tư 128 gives that infrastructure a legal basis. For businesses shipping through these lanes, the practical message is to treat data quality as clearance speed. A licence plate or container number that does not match the camera read stops the barrier.

The circular also connects to recent posts on this blog. It relies on the National Single Window decree, Nghị định 336/2026, which takes effect on the same day, and it follows the direction of the Customs Law amendment, Luật 11/2026, towards big-data and risk-based customs control.

Open questions

Which gates count? The circular applies only once a gate pair is formally put into operation. The press has not yet published a decision naming the first operational pair.
Traffic law for the vehicles: the circular deals with customs only. It does not cover road-traffic licensing, insurance or liability for accidents involving driverless vehicles on the dedicated road.
Cross-border data: Vietnamese and Chinese operators exchange cargo and vehicle data “through a mechanism agreed by the two sides”. How that fits Việt Nam’s rules on transferring data abroad is not explained.
The China data agreement: several provisions depend on a Ministry of Finance and Chinese customs agreement that has not yet been signed.

Sources

This post is general information, not legal advice.