Abstract We report the vibrationally resolved cation spectra of benzimidazole and benzotriazole, which give the respective adiabatic ionization energies (IEs) to be 67552 ± 5 cm −1 and 70474 ± 5 cm −1 . Comparing these data with that of indole, one finds that the IE of these aza-aromatic bicyclic molecules increases with the number of the N atoms. Most of the active modes of the benzimidazole cation are related to the in-plane ring vibrations. In contrast, the observed spectral bands of the benzotriazole cation correspond to the out-of-plane N2–H and skeleton N1N2N3 bending vibrations. These experimental findings may be attributed to the nature and the N atoms in the five-membered ring.