Fuel price zones

Reference

Petrolimex publishes two official retail fuel prices, Zone 1 and Zone 2. Each store records which zone it sells in, either set automatically from its address under the current Zone 2 decision or confirmed by a person, and a confirmed zone is never overwritten automatically.

Overview#

Zone 2 official prices run up to about 2% above Zone 1. A store's zone is stored on the store with a record of where it came from, not worked out each time a page opens. Which areas are Zone 2 is kept as data: a dated decision listing every province, replaced each year. The official prices themselves are described on Government fuel prices.

The two zones#

Zone 2 is a ceiling, not a fixed price: a Zone 2 store may sell below its zone's official price, and many do. Some fuel items have an official price in only one zone; a store review shows only the items priced in the chosen zone.

What decides a zone#

• The law sets the rule, each wholesaler sets the list. The regulation fixes the criteria and the 2% cap, and each wholesaler declares its own Zone 2 areas.
• The list changes every July, and stations do move between zones. The list in force is Petrolimex decision QĐ 573/PLX-QĐ-TGĐ, from 2 July 2026, replacing QĐ 630 of July 2025.
• The pre-2025 province decides. Petrolimex names some Zone 2 areas by distribution branch, each serving one pre-2025 province, so the zone is decided per pre-2025 province (63 in all).
• Islands are always Zone 2 under QĐ 573, whatever the zone of their province.
• Other wholesalers may declare different lists. For their stores, the zone can be set by hand.

Zone decisions#

Each decision records its issuer, its number, the date it was issued, the moment it takes effect, the zone it gives islands, and one zone per pre-2025 province, with a note of the basis for each. A decision must list all 63 pre-2025 provinces exactly once; a decision that misses or repeats a province is refused. A province may be left without a zone, meaning "do not assign automatically". The decision in force is the latest one whose effective time has passed. A new decision is loaded as data and the stores are re-classified; no software change is needed.

Under QĐ 573, 42 pre-2025 provinces are Zone 2 and 21 are Zone 1. The Zone 1 provinces are Hà Nội, Hải Phòng, Hải Dương, Quảng Ninh, Hưng Yên, Vĩnh Phúc, Thái Nguyên, Thừa Thiên - Huế, Đà Nẵng, Quảng Ngãi, Khánh Hòa, Hồ Chí Minh, Bình Dương, Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu, Bình Phước, Đồng Nai, Tây Ninh, Long An, Tiền Giang, Bến Tre and Cần Thơ; every other pre-2025 province is Zone 2, including Bắc Ninh and Bắc Giang.

The islands recognised are Vân Đồn, Cô Tô, Cát Hải (including Cát Bà), Bạch Long Vĩ, Cồn Cỏ, Lý Sơn, Hoàng Sa, Trường Sa, Phú Quý, Côn Đảo, Phú Quốc, Kiên Hải and Thổ Châu.

Fields#

The store record carries:

How a store gets its zone#

A confirmed zone always wins: classification never overwrites it. Saving the store form without changing the zone keeps its source, so a zone from the address stays from the address. A new store starts with no zone until it is classified or set by hand.

Rules of automatic classification#

• Scope: every active store whose zone is not confirmed. Confirmed stores are counted as skipped and left untouched.
• Addresses read, in order: the store's own address, then its map location's address, then the province of its map location.
• Conflicting addresses: if two of them point to different provinces (as merged in 2025), no zone is found and the store is treated as below.
• Islands first: an address naming an island gets the decision's island zone. The island counts only when the same address also names the island's present-day (post-2025) province, so a street called Vân Đồn in Hồ Chí Minh City is not the island. Hoàng Sa and Trường Sa also need a word such as "huyện", "đặc khu" or "đảo" before them, because they are common street names.
• Otherwise: the first address that names a province gives the zone of that pre-2025 province.
• No zone found (no province named, or conflicting provinces): a store whose zone came from the address has its zone cleared, since an out-of-date rule zone is worse than none. A store that had no zone stays without one and is reported as unresolved.
• Price check: the store's own fuel prices since the decision took effect are compared with each zone's official price on the same date. When the rule says Zone 1 but at least two of those prices, and at least 80% of those that match a zone, equal the Zone 2 price exactly, the store is held: nothing is written and it keeps the zone it already had, because a Zone 1 store may not price above Zone 1. A Zone 2 store pricing at Zone 1 is a legal discount: its zone is written and it is listed for information.
• Results: each store is set, unchanged, cleared, held, unresolved or skipped as confirmed. Held, unresolved and cleared stores are listed one by one, and so are Zone 2 stores whose prices match Zone 1. A held or unresolved store gets a zone only when one is set by hand on the store form or the price review.

Where the zone is shown#

Permissions#

Edge cases#

• Choosing a different zone on the price review: the page warns "This store is recorded as Zone 1. Confirming will change it to Zone 2." Confirming saves the new zone as confirmed.
• Confirming without a zone is refused with "Choose this store's price zone before confirming prices." and nothing is saved.
• No official prices in the chosen zone: the review shows "No government fuel prices available in this zone." and keeps the chooser so another zone can be picked.
• Inactive stores are not classified.

Related#

• Government fuel prices
• Stores
• Review and confirm a store's fuel prices
• Add prices for many stores at once
• Loading a new zone decision and classifying stores is a platform-team task.