A failed breath test in Thailand does not produce a roadside ticket. It produces a criminal case. The Land Traffic Act sets a first offence at up to one year's imprisonment and/or a fine of 5,000 to 20,000 baht, and requires the court either to suspend the driver's licence for at least six months or to revoke it. Where injury or death follows, the ranges rise steeply and revocation becomes mandatory at the top.
The part visitors rarely anticipate is procedural rather than numerical. Because drink-driving is excluded from the fixed-penalty system, an officer at the roadside has no power to settle it. The vehicle stops where it is and you go to a police station.
- First offenceUp to 1 year and/or 5,000–20,000 baht
- LicenceCourt must suspend for at least 6 months, or revoke
- Causing death3–10 years, 60,000–200,000 baht, revocation
- Cannot be ticketedExcluded from the fixed-penalty process by s.140
The penalties as the Act sets them
The drink-driving penalties sit in section 160 ter of the Land Traffic Act B.E. 2522 (1979). They are graded by what happened, not by how high the reading was.
| Outcome | Imprisonment | Fine | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drink-driving, no harm caused | Up to 1 year | 5,000–20,000 baht | Suspension of at least 6 months, or revocation |
| Causing injury to another | 1–5 years | 20,000–100,000 baht | Suspension of at least 1 year, or revocation |
| Causing serious injury | 2–6 years | 40,000–120,000 baht | Suspension of at least 2 years, or revocation |
| Causing death | 3–10 years | 60,000–200,000 baht | Revocation is mandatory |
A repeat offence within two years of the first carries up to two years and/or a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 baht. For scale, 20,000 baht is roughly £450, $600 or €520, and 200,000 baht is ten times that.
Note the structure. The imprisonment figure for a first offence is expressed as a maximum and is coupled to the fine with "and/or", so a first-time case with no aggravating features is not an automatic prison sentence. The injury and death bands are different: they are stated as ranges with a floor, which is what makes a drink-driving crash in Thailand so much more serious than a drink-driving stop.
Why there is no ticket
Section 140 of the Act allows a traffic officer to deal with an offence by warning or by issuing a ticket — but paragraph 2 excludes several offences from that process, including those under sections 157/1, 159, 160, 160 bis and 160 ter. Drink-driving, drug-driving, failing to stop after a collision and racing are all in that list. There is no lawful roadside settlement of any of them.
What the process actually looks like
A positive reading at a checkpoint is followed by a station, not a receipt. Expect roughly this sequence, and expect it to take hours rather than minutes:
- The test is repeated or recorded on an evidential device and the reading is documented.
- You are taken to the police station with jurisdiction over the place you were stopped. The vehicle is usually left or recovered separately.
- An inquiry officer takes the file. Statements are taken in Thai; you can ask for an interpreter, and calling the tourist police on 1155 gets you an English-speaking officer to translate.
- Depending on the hour and the court's schedule, the case may be dealt with the same day or the next working day. A night in the cells is a realistic outcome for a late-night stop.
- The court decides the penalty. A fine is paid to the court, not to the police.
Your rights at each stage — and the difference between a traffic matter and an arrest — are covered in your rights as a foreign driver in Thailand. The short version is that this is a criminal process, that anything you say is part of a file, and that it is a reasonable point at which to ask your embassy's consular section for a list of local lawyers.
Community service. Thai drink-driving sentences are frequently described in the press as including community service, sometimes at a hospital mortuary or emergency department. We were not able to trace that to the text of the Act, so we do not state it as a rule. Treat it as something a court may impose rather than something the statute requires.
The licence: suspension, revocation and what it means for a visitor
Section 160 ter does not leave the licence to the court's discretion. On a first offence the court must suspend for at least six months or revoke; the minimum suspension lengthens with the harm caused, and revocation is mandatory where death results.
How that is applied to a driver who holds no Thai licence — only a foreign one and an international driving permit — is a question we could not answer from an official source, and we are not going to guess at it. A Thai court cannot cancel a licence issued by another country's authority. What we can say is that a conviction is a conviction, that it exists on a Thai record, and that anyone who later applies for a Thai licence or renews one will be dealing with it.
For residents and long-stayers who do hold a Thai licence, there is a second, separate mechanism. Drink-driving is a four-point deduction under Thailand's driving licence points system, out of a starting balance of twelve, with a 90-day suspension when the balance reaches zero.
The financial consequence that is not the fine
For most readers the court fine will not be the largest number involved. Alcohol is a standard exclusion in travel insurance and in voluntary motor cover, and an insurer needs only the evidence, not a conviction, to decline a claim.
What is left underneath is Thailand's compulsory motor insurance, Por Ror Bor. It attaches to the vehicle rather than the driver, it pays for injury and never for property damage, and its medical ceiling is a figure a private hospital in Bangkok or Phuket can pass inside a day. Compulsory versus voluntary insurance in Thailand sets out the difference; what Thai hospital treatment costs after a crash puts a scale on it.
Three bills, not one. A drink-driving crash typically produces a court penalty, an uninsured medical bill, and a civil claim from the other party negotiated outside court. The third one is the least visible and often the largest, and it is the one your voided policy would have handled. What voids your motorbike cover in Thailand is the page that explains how quickly cover disappears.
Refusal carries the same weight
Declining the test does not move you into a lesser offence. Where an officer has reasonable ground to believe a driver is intoxicated and the driver refuses without reasonable justification, the Act presumes the prohibition was breached; the officer may also detain the driver for as long as is necessary to complete the test, and disobeying a lawful order to stop or be tested is separately punishable by a fine of up to 1,000 baht each time. The Royal Thai Police stated publicly in 2026 that refusal is treated as equivalent to drink-driving with the same penalties. The detail is in refusing a breath test in Thailand.
Drugs are punished differently, and not more lightly
Driving after taking narcotics or psychotropic substances falls under section 157/1 rather than 160 ter, and the penalty is constructed differently: one third more than the penalty that applies under the narcotics or psychotropic substances law, plus suspension of the licence for at least six months or revocation. The escalations where injury or death results mirror the alcohol ranges. Because cannabis is not handled as a special case, cannabis and driving in Thailand explains where it actually sits, and prescription medicine and driving covers the awkward middle ground.
Frequently asked questions
Will I go to prison for a first drink-driving offence?
The Act sets up to one year as a maximum for a first offence with no harm caused, and couples it to the fine with "and/or", so imprisonment is available but not automatic. The bands where somebody is injured or killed are different — those start at a floor of one, two or three years.
How high is the fine in practice?
We do not have a source for typical sentencing, and we will not invent one. The Act's range for a first offence is 5,000 to 20,000 baht and the court sets the figure within it. What we can say confidently is that this is a court fine, not a roadside amount, and it is not paid to the officer who stopped you.
Can I just pay and leave, like a speeding ticket?
No. Section 140 explicitly removes drink-driving from the warning-and-ticket process, so there is no fixed penalty to pay. Ordinary ticketable offences work as described in on-the-spot traffic tickets in Thailand; this is not one of them.
Does a conviction follow me home?
Thai convictions are Thai records, and whether one surfaces on a check in your own country depends entirely on that country's arrangements. It is a question for a lawyer in your home jurisdiction rather than for us.
What happens to the rental scooter or car?
It will not be left with you. Expect it to be recovered by the rental company or impounded, and expect the rental agreement to charge you for the recovery, the days lost and any damage. That is a contractual matter separate from the criminal one.
Is it different if I was over the lower 20 mg% limit rather than the general one?
No. There is no reduced offence for drivers in the lower-limit group — being over your applicable limit is the offence, and the penalties are the same. Who falls into that group is set out in Thailand's lower drink-drive limit.