Blood Alcohol Levels By State

Blood alcohol levels (BAC) are commonly misstated. You will often hear someone say something like, “The drinking limit is point 08.” Mathematically, .08 is 8 percent. If a blood alcohol level of 8 percent was the norm, all drunk drivers would have died before they ever opened their car door.

Therefore, .08 is a misnomer. It’s actually .08% or .08 percent. Mathematically this is .0008. This means that if you put all the blood in your body in a big bucket, then 8 parts of alcohol out of 10,000 parts of blood would be the BAC limit.

Below we have compiled BAC levels for all 50 states in the United States, plus Washington D.C. and various territories. Note: an * means we have checked this value as of September 2007. Otherwise these values are from 2001. Most of this list presents values for non-commercial drivers unless noted.

Update: The Federal Blood limit in the United States of America is now .08% country wide. States wishing to challenge this limit may face federal funding for highways and roads. States like Montana and South Dakota a challenged similar issues concerning federal compliance in the past, but reverted to the Federal law.

BAC Breakdown (circa 2001)

Alabama .08%
Alaska .08%
American Samoa (Very small island, few roads)
Arizona .08%* / .04%* (commercial drivers)
Arkansas .08%
California .08%*
Colorado .08%*
Connecticut .1%
Delaware .1%
District of Columbia .08%*
Florida .08%
Georgia .08%
Guam .08%
Hawaii .08%

Idaho .08%
Illinois .08%
Indiana .08%
Iowa .08%
Kansas .08%
Kentucky .08%
Louisiana .08%
Maine .08%
Maryland .08%
Massachusetts .08%
Michigan .1%
Minnesota .1%
Mississippi .1%
Missouri .08%
Montana .1%
Nebraska .08%
Nevada .1%
New Hampshire .08%
New Jersey .1%
New Mexico .08%
New York .1%
North Carolina .08%
North Dakota .1%
Northern Marianas Islands (unknown at this time)
Ohio .1%
Oklahoma .08%

Oregon .08%*
Pennsylvania .1%
Puerto Rico .08%
Rhode Island .08%
South Carolina .1%
South Dakota .1%
Tennessee .1%
Texas .08%
Utah .08%
Vermont .08%
Virginia .08%
Virgin Islands .08%
Washington .08%
West Virginia .1%
Wisconsin .08%
Wyoming .08%