Hanoi runs just 21.6 km of metro today — but a five-line, 303.5-km program launched in June 2026 rewrites the map to 2030, and Line 3’s underground section finally reaches the main railway station in 2027.
Hanoi’s metro is young: Line 2A (13.1 km, Cat Linh–Ha Dong, opened 2021) and Line 3’s elevated section (8.5 km, Nhon–Cau Giay, opened August 2024) cover the western and southwestern corridors. Together they passed 62.2 million journeys by April 2026, with 6.6 million in the first four months of that year alone.
Both lines remain west of the center — which is why the underground phase of Line 3, descending from Cau Giay to Hanoi Railway Station, is the single most watched hole in the city.
The five-line program launched 22 June 2026 — Lines 1, 2, 8, 10 and 14, roughly 303.5 km at a preliminary ₫1,315 trillion — reaches Noi Bai airport, Ngoc Hoi, Hoa Lac, Dong Anh, Gia Lam and Co Loa.
Line 2 (Nam Thang Long–Tran Hung Dao, target 2029) threads the northern inner city; Line 5 (Van Cao–Hoa Lac, 2030) opens the western backbone toward the Hi-Tech Park and university belt.
Hanoi Railway Station remains the north’s rail pivot: Reunification Express services south to Hue, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, plus the Lao Cai overnight for Sapa — a tourism corridor in itself.
The North–South high-speed railway, approved as Vietnam’s largest-ever infrastructure program, would place its northern terminus at Ngoc Hoi, with metro Line 1 as the connector into the center.
Hanoi spent a decade as Southeast Asia’s largest city without a functioning metro; it intends to spend the next decade becoming the region’s fastest builder. The sequencing matters for hotels: Line 3 reaching the main station in 2027 wires the Old Quarter and French Quarter into the network just as Four Seasons and Fairmont open — the first time luxury keys in this city will sit on a metro map. When Line 14 reaches Noi Bai, the airport-to-suite trip changes category entirely.
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