Drink-Driving Limits in Europe: The BAC Limit in Every Country

One glass of wine can be legal at dinner and an offence after the border. Every European country’s blood-alcohol limit in one sourced table, including the zero-tolerance bloc.

Ramis Kalkan

Updated: Jul 29, 20269 min read

Car keys beside water and a road map at a dinner table, the choice behind every drink-driving limit in Europe.

Most European countries set the drink-drive limit at 0.5 grams of alcohol per litre of blood. Four enforce absolute zero: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. A near-zero bloc sits at 0.2, and the UK is the continent’s oddity, with 0.8 in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland but 0.5 in Scotland. The full country-by-country table, each figure tied to an official source, is below.

The trap in those numbers is the border. A glass of wine with dinner can be within the limit where you ate it and an offence in the country you enter twenty minutes later. On a cross-border road trip, the limit that matters is always the one painted on the map ahead of you, not the one at home.

One rule before the table, because this is health-and-law territory: these figures tell you what the law is, not what is safe. Alcohol affects driving below every legal limit on this page, and the only fully safe amount behind the wheel is none.

Key Takeaways

The European standard is 0.5 g/L of blood alcohol, but the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia enforce absolute zero for all drivers.

Estonia, Iceland, Poland, and Serbia run near-zero limits of 0.2 g/L, best treated as zero in practice.

Most 0.5 countries drop to 0.2 or zero for novice and professional drivers, so a new licence changes your limit abroad.

The UK has two regimes: 0.8 g/L in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and 0.5 g/L in Scotland, which changes at an internal border.

The limit that applies is the country you are driving in. It resets at every border, exactly like speed limits.

The Full Table: Drink-Drive Limits by Country

Limits are stated as blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in grams per litre of blood (g/L). Where a country publishes its figure in another unit, the table normalises it; the linked official sources carry the native wording.

Country	General limit (g/L)	Novice / professional drivers
Austria	0.5	0.1
Belgium	0.5	0.2 (professional)
Bulgaria	0.5	0.5, no separate lower limit
Croatia	0.5	0.0 (under-24s, professional, instructors)
Czech Republic	0.0	0.0, all drivers
Estonia	0.2	0.2, all drivers
France	0.5	0.2 (probationary, public transport)
Germany	0.5	0.0 (probationary period and under-21s)
Greece	0.5	0.2 (novice, professional, motorcyclists)
Hungary	0.0	0.0, all drivers
Iceland	0.2	0.2, all drivers
Ireland	0.5	0.2 (learner, novice, professional)
Italy	0.5	0.0 (under-21s, first 3 years, professional)
Moldova	0.3	0.0 (professional)
Netherlands	0.5	0.2 (first 5 years)
Poland	0.2	0.2, all drivers
Portugal	0.5	0.2 (first 3 years, professional)
Romania	0.0	0.0, all drivers
Serbia	0.2	0.0 (novice, professional, motorcyclists, and more)
Slovakia	0.0	0.0, all drivers, cyclists included
Slovenia	0.5	0.0 (novice and professional)
Spain	0.5	0.3 (first 2 years, professional)
Switzerland	0.5	0.1 (probationary, learners, instructors, professional)
Turkey	0.5 (private cars)	stricter rules apply to commercial drivers
UK: England, Wales, N. Ireland	0.8	no separate statutory lower limit
UK: Scotland	0.5	no separate statutory lower limit

The Zero-Tolerance Countries

The Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia treat any measurable alcohol as an offence, for every driver. There is no “one small beer” in Prague or Budapest. The legal answer to how much you can drink before driving is exactly nothing, and Slovakia extends its zero even to cyclists.

Romania adds a hard edge to its zero: above 0.8 g/L the offence moves from administrative to criminal. Across the whole bloc, the practical rule for a visiting driver is simple and unforgiving. If tonight includes alcohol, tomorrow’s driving starts late.

The zero-tolerance logic also reaches inside 0.5 countries through their novice and professional rules: Germany’s probationary drivers, Italy’s first-three-years licence holders, Croatia’s under-24s, and Slovenia’s novices all drive under an absolute alcohol ban even though the country’s general limit is 0.5.

The Near-Zero Bloc: 0.2 g/L

Estonia, Iceland, Poland, and Serbia sit at 0.2 g/L, a limit best understood as “zero with a measurement margin”. The rule’s design intent is that drinking and driving simply don’t mix at all, and the practical advice follows: treat 0.2 countries as zero.

Serbia deserves a special note for drivers heading south-east: its 0.2 general limit drops to absolute zero for a long list of categories, including all motorcyclists and every professional driver, under its road-safety law. On the Balkan corridor, the safe assumption is that the beer with lunch waits until the driving is done.

The 0.5 Standard, and the Catch Inside It

From Portugal to Austria, 0.5 g/L is the continental default, and it’s the number most European drivers carry in their heads. Two details complicate it on a road trip.

First, the novice and professional drops. A driver two years into their licence is at 0.2 in France and Ireland, 0.3 in Spain, 0.1 in Austria, and flat zero in Italy and Slovenia. If your licence is young, your limit abroad is usually not 0.5, whatever the general rule says.

Second, the outliers inside the standard. Switzerland’s strict group, new drivers, learners, instructors, and professionals, runs at 0.1 ‰ rather than a literal zero, a designed allowance for trace alcohol. And Bulgaria pairs Europe’s joint-highest motorway speed limit with a flat 0.5 that does not drop for novices or professionals, an unusual combination worth knowing on the Bulgarian leg of a Balkan drive.

The UK’s Two Drink-Drive Limits

The United Kingdom is the only country in the table with an internal border between drink-drive regimes. England, Wales, and Northern Ireland allow 0.8 g/L, among the highest general limits in Europe, while Scotland cut its limit to 0.5 to match the continental standard. Drive from Carlisle to Glasgow and your legal threshold drops by more than a third without a single passport check.

The practical consequence runs in both directions. Continental drivers visiting England get more legal headroom than at home, which is a fact and not an invitation. Scots and continental drivers are already living at 0.5, and for anyone crossing to Scotland after a pub lunch in England, the border is the moment yesterday’s mental arithmetic expires.

How the Limits Play Out on a Cross-Border Trip

The drink-drive table behaves exactly like the speed-limit table at European borders: every crossing resets the number, instantly and without ceremony. A Munich-to-Prague evening drive crosses from 0.5 into absolute zero. Vienna to Budapest does the same. A north-Balkan run through Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia moves through 0.5-with-zero-groups, 0.5, and 0.2 within a few hours.

Morning-after driving is where honest maths matters most. Alcohol leaves the body slowly, at a rate you cannot speed up with coffee, food, or sleep, and a late night can leave you over a zero or 0.2 limit well into the next day. No self-estimate is reliable enough to bet a licence on. If the evening was long and the country is strict, the only professional-grade answer is to delay the drive.

Enforcement backs all of this with roadside breathalyser testing across the continent, random in many countries. In Turkey, to take one sourced example, exceeding the 0.5 limit brings a fine, the car pulled from traffic, and a six-month licence confiscation, and the wider rulebook for that border is in our guide to driving in Turkey. Italy’s law escalates to criminal penalties and possible arrest above 0.8. The pattern is continental: the fines are the gentle end of what’s available.

The Short Version

Drink-driving limits in Europe run from 0.8 g/L in England down to absolute zero in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, with 0.5 as the broad standard and 0.2 as the near-zero tier, and nearly every 0.5 country cuts novices and professionals to 0.2 or zero. The limit resets at each border, and no figure in this table is a safety promise: driving is simply better done sober. If a European route is taking shape, check the vignette and toll rules for each country on it alongside the alcohol rules, and browse our driving guides for the rest of what changes when the border does.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the drink-drive limit in most of Europe?

0.5 grams of alcohol per litre of blood is the general limit in most European countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Austria. Novice and professional drivers usually face 0.2 or zero even in these countries.

Which European countries have a zero drink-drive limit?

The Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia enforce absolute zero for all drivers. Estonia, Iceland, Poland, and Serbia sit just above at 0.2 g/L, which one drink can reach.

What is the drink-drive limit in the UK?

Two limits: England, Wales, and Northern Ireland allow 80 mg per 100 ml of blood (0.8 g/L), while Scotland’s limit is 50 mg per 100 ml (0.5 g/L). The lower Scottish limit applies the moment you cross the border.

Is one beer over the limit in Europe?

In the zero and 0.2 countries, treat the answer as yes: any measurable alcohol can be an offence. In 0.5 countries it depends on body weight, timing, and the drink itself, which is exactly why no reliable at-the-kerb estimate exists. If the country is strict or the licence is new, the working answer stays yes.

Do lower limits apply to new drivers abroad?

Usually. Most 0.5 countries cut new drivers to 0.2, 0.1, or zero, France, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Germany, Italy, and Slovenia among them. Your years of licence experience travel with you, so the novice limit follows you across the border.

Can I drive the morning after drinking in Europe?

Only if enough time has genuinely passed, and that takes longer than most people assume. Alcohol clears at a slow, fixed rate that coffee and sleep don’t accelerate, so after a late night you can still be over a zero or 0.2 limit at breakfast. When in doubt, push the departure.

What happens if I fail a breath test abroad?

At minimum, a fine and typically an immediate driving ban of some duration; at the strict end, vehicle immobilisation, licence confiscation for months (Turkey’s six-month rule, for example), or criminal proceedings at higher readings, as in Italy above 0.8 g/L.

Are drink-drive limits blood or breath measurements?

The statutory limits are usually defined in blood (g/L or mg per 100 ml), with an equivalent breath figure used at the roadside. Both appear in each country’s official source linked below; the table above uses the blood figure for comparability.

Sources