What are the legal alcohol limits in the Netherlands?

Answer

For road users in the Netherlands, the legal BAC limit is 0.5‰; and 0.2‰ for novice drivers and novice (light) moped riders (see Table 1). For pedestrians there is no legal alcohol limit. However, the police can report a pedestrian for public intoxication. In such a case, the police will not take a breathalyser test or a blood test, but will assess the physical characteristics of drunkenness and the behaviour of the pedestrian. In contrast to most European countries, The Netherlands do not have a different limit for professional drivers (see Table 2). The effect of a lower limit for professional drivers has not been examined and is therefore unknown.

Tabel

Table 1. Legal alcohol limits for different road user groups in the Netherlands [8] .

Tabel

Table 2. Legal European alcohol limits in 2021 [9] .

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Part of fact sheet

Driving under the influence of alcohol

 During the most recent measurements, in 2022, 2.6% of the Dutch drivers were under the influence of alcohol during weekend nights, which amounts to Meer

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