Solomon Islands E-Scooter Laws: What the Traffic Act Says (2026)

This article is general information about e-scooter law in Solomon Islands and is not legal advice. A Solomon Islands-admitted lawyer or the Solomon Islands Law Revision Commission can confirm the exact citation and current position for your situation. Information last verified on 23 July 2026.

Are e-scooters legal in Solomon Islands?

Solomon Islands regulates road vehicles through its Traffic Act, whose Interpretation section (s.2) defines "motor vehicle" as "any mechanically propelled vehicle, excluding any vehicle running on a specially prepared way such as a railway or tramway or any vehicle deriving its power from overhead electric power cables or such other vehicles as may from time to time by regulations under this Act be declared not to be motor vehicles."

Read carefully, the only power-source exclusion in that definition is overhead-cable power, the kind that runs a tram or trolleybus. A battery-powered e-scooter draws its power from an onboard battery, not an overhead cable, so it is not excluded by that clause, and it is not a rail vehicle either. It falls inside "mechanically propelled vehicle" by default, the same outcome as Brunei, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu reach through their own differently worded definitions. No provision bars e-scooters by name, but that absence is not the same as being legal to ride freely; it means a scooter is swept into the same licensing and registration regime written for cars.

What counts as an e-scooter here

The Act contains no wattage limit, speed limit, or dedicated device category for an e-scooter or PMD. Its structure instead groups vehicles under headings like "Classification of Motor Vehicles" and "Licensing and Registration of Motor Vehicles," with s.9 setting out the application process for a motor vehicle licence, none of which carve out a lower-power personal device.

Where you can ride

With a scooter treated as a motor vehicle subject to licensing and registration, no source located for this article describes a lawful path to ride an unregistered, unlicensed e-scooter on Solomon Islands' roads, cycle paths, or sidewalks.

Rider rules

Because no PMD category exists, no e-scooter-specific age, helmet, or licence rule was found. Whatever licensing standard applies to motor vehicles generally under the Act's registration and licensing Part would be the applicable standard, a standard not designed around a scooter and not confirmed by this research to have a practical path for one.

Penalties

This research did not confirm specific fine or penalty amounts for driving an unregistered or unlicensed motor vehicle under the Traffic Act, so none is stated here.

Enforcement in practice

No enforcement data specific to e-scooters, whether citation counts, seizures, or reported incidents, was found for Solomon Islands. That absence does not change the legal position described above and is not evidence that riding one is permitted. For how New Zealand handles e-scooters by comparison, see New Zealand's e-scooter laws.

A citation note worth knowing

Some secondary sources refer to this statute as "Chapter 131." The consolidated legislation file the Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII) itself serves is indexed as "ta77" (Traffic Act). The Act's own title page and body heading both read "CHAPTER 131 TRAFFIC", which settles the citation; the "ta77" that appears in PacLII's web address is that site's internal file name, not a competing chapter number.