According to the RA Law on Ensuring Road Traffic Safety, a bus is considered to be:

Explanation

A car with more than 8 passenger seats, built and equipped for the safe and comfortable carriage of passengers and luggage.

The boundary between a passenger car and a bus is a single number: 8 passenger seats. A car has up to 8 seats, a bus more than 8. The driver's seat is not counted — which is why technical listings write this as "8+1". Memorise the words "more than" precisely, because the whole difference between the options lies in those two words.

The reason this sharp line exists is regulatory, not aesthetic. Carrying passengers collectively carries a heavier responsibility: a different licence category (category D for buses), stricter technical inspection rules, a separate speed limit, and passenger-carriage permit requirements. To make clear which vehicle falls into which regime, the law needed a countable, unambiguous criterion, and seats were the most countable one available. Its everyday application in Armenia is the city minibuses and intercity routes: their capacity is usually more than 8 passengers and they are legally buses, so their drivers cannot make do with a car licence.

• "8 seats or more" would make a vehicle with exactly 8 passenger seats a bus, whereas that same vehicle falls into the car class under the definition of a car; the two definitions would then contradict each other.

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