Portugal Drink-Driving Crackdown: Nationwide Alcohol Checks Until 24 August

If you drive anywhere in Portugal between now and Sunday 24 August, plan on seeing police checkpoints. Portugal’s road-safety authority (ANSR) and both national police forces (GNR and PSP) launched a nationwide drink-driving operation on 18 August 2026 under the slogan Taxa Zero ao Volante — zero alcohol at the wheel.

Nothing about the law has changed. What changes this week is the odds of being tested — and Portugal’s limits are stricter than many foreign drivers assume: 0.5 g/L of blood alcohol for most drivers, and 0.2 g/L — effectively zero — if you have held a licence for under three years or drive professionally. Here is what the operation involves, where the limits sit, and what it costs to be over.

What is the “Taxa Zero ao Volante” operation?

It is the eighth of 11 campaigns in Portugal’s 2026 national enforcement plan (Plano Nacional de Fiscalização), run jointly by ANSR, the GNR and the PSP from 18 to 24 August 2026. ANSR handles the awareness side; the two police forces step up roadside operations aimed at alcohol and the other behaviours behind serious crashes.

Alcohol “continues to represent a risk to all road users, affecting a driver’s reflexes, reaction time and decision-making, even when consumed in small quantities”, the three authorities said in a joint statement (our translation).

For you as a driver, the practical meaning is simple: for the rest of this week, the breathalyser stop is not a remote possibility but something to actively expect — including the morning after a long dinner.

What is the drink-driving limit in Portugal?

The limit sits in article 81 of the Código da Estrada, Portugal’s road code, and it applies to anyone driving here — the country that issued your licence makes no difference.

Driver	Blood-alcohol limit
Most drivers in Portugal	Under 0.5 g/L
New drivers (first 3 years of a licence) and professional drivers	Under 0.2 g/L
England, Wales and Northern Ireland (for comparison)	Under 0.8 g/L
Scotland (for comparison)	Under 0.5 g/L

Two things in that table catch foreign drivers out. First, Portugal’s general limit is well below the limit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland — a level of drinking that is legal to drive on at home may be an offence here. Second, the 0.2 g/L band is broad: it covers drivers in the regime probatório — the probationary period covering the first three years of a first licence — along with taxi and heavy-vehicle drivers, drivers of children’s transport and emergency vehicles.

How much drink reaches either number depends on your weight, your meal and your pace, so there is no safe rule of thumb — and the authorities’ joint statement warns that driving suffers “even when consumed in small quantities”. The campaign’s slogan is the only planning assumption that always works: if you are driving, 0.0.

What are the penalties if you are over the limit?

The consequences scale with the reading. For a driver on the standard limit:

Blood alcohol	What it is	Fine	Driving ban
0.5 to under 0.8 g/L	Serious offence (contraordenação grave)	€250–1,250	1 month to 1 year
0.8 to under 1.2 g/L	Very serious offence (muito grave)	€500–2,500	2 months to 2 years

At 1.2 g/L or more, drink-driving stops being a traffic offence and becomes a crime under article 292 of the Penal Code: up to 1 year in prison, or a fine of up to 120 daily rates — a court-set fine indexed to your income — with the case decided in court rather than by a roadside notice.

Drivers on the 0.2 g/L limit shift down a band: 0.2 to under 0.5 g/L is already the serious offence, and 0.5 g/L or more is the very serious one, per the ANSR’s infractions table.

The line worth underlining is the ban: even the lowest band carries a driving prohibition of at least a month, which for a visitor can mean a holiday’s hire car gone and for a resident a commute gone. This is not a parking-ticket class of fine.

Why is Portugal running this campaign now?

The authorities published the 2025 numbers alongside the launch, and they are blunt. Of every 100 road-accident victims autopsied in Portugal in 2025, 28 were over the legal alcohol limit — and 78% of those were at or above the criminal 1.2 g/L level. Police ran roughly 2.1 million roadside alcohol tests in 2025; 1.6% came back positive, and alcohol accounted for about 2.4% of all recorded road offences.

August is peak season on Portuguese roads — festivals, beach traffic, visiting drivers — which is exactly when a checkpoint campaign reaches the most people.

What should you do next?

• Driving a hire car this week? Our getting around Portugal guide covers the tolls, the electronic-only motorways and when a car is actually worth it — and this week, add the checkpoint to your assumptions.
• Out for the evening? Decide the driver before the first drink, or plan the night around a taxi or transit — the same guide covers the travel cards that make Lisbon and Porto easy without a car.
• A non-EU resident with a Portuguese licence? A drink-driving ban is the last thing your paperwork needs: your licence’s validity is now tied to your residence permit as of June 2026.

This post is general information, not legal advice. Enforcement campaigns and road rules change — verify the current position with ANSR before relying on it, and if you are facing a drink-driving charge, speak to a lawyer.