Traffic jams are starting to appear in North Korea

A post on X claims that traffic jams have become commonplace in North Korea since the law on private car use was revised in 2025. The claim comes from a single source and has not been confirmed by official channels.

In recent years, the North Korean regime has allowed a trickle of private cars, something unthinkable decades ago. A post on X asserts that traffic jams are starting to become a common sight in the country and links this to the **2025** revision of the law governing the use of private vehicles. The image accompanying the post shows a road with several vehicles, although the scene does not allow the date or the exact location to be verified.

## What the post says and where it comes from

The message, posted by an account that trinc North Korean affairs, claims that since the **2025** regulatory change traffic has grown and the roads are "far busier". It cites no media outlets, institutions or vehicle figures. It is therefore a visual testimony with an interpretation: the link between the law and the traffic jams is made by the poster, not by any official record.

It is worth remembering that North Korea does not publish traffic statistics comparable to those of other countries. Any claim about the volume of cars or the length of queues is based on outside observations, not administrative data.

## Why a traffic jam in Pyongyang matters

The image of empty streets has accompanied descriptions of the country for decades. Private cars circulating in numbers large enough to form queues imply access to fuel, permits and purchasing power outside state distribution. That does not make the country a market economy, but it does point to internal inequality where a minority can afford a vehicle.

The **2025** legal revision fits with that gradual shift: the state does not hand out cars, but it tolerates and taxes their use. In this context, the traffic jam is less a traffic anecdote and more an indicator that private money is flowing through channels that did not exist before.

## What cannot be claimed from this post

There is no official confirmation from the North Korean authorities, no registration figures, no time series. Nor is it known how many of those vehicles are private and how many belong to state bodies. The post speaks of "private car use", but makes no distinction.

With a single testimony and an image without verified geolocation, the prudent course is to treat the story as an attributed observation. That the traffic jams exist is plausible; that the **2025** law is the main cause is a reasonable hypothesis, not a proven fact.