Tasmania Drink Driving Penalties: Fines, Infringements and Disqualification

Tasmania is the only jurisdiction in this cluster confirmed to combine a genuine on-the-spot infringement pathway for lower-band drink driving with a two-tier immediate-disqualification power that applies at a different BAC threshold for full licence holders than for learner and provisional drivers.

Which law applies and how the offence is structured

Tasmania's drink and drug driving offences and penalties sit in the Road Safety (Alcohol and Drugs) Act 1970 (Tas). Licence disqualification and suspension mechanics, meaning how a court-ordered disqualification translates into a suspended or cancelled licence, and the restricted-licence and special-hardship process, live separately in the Vehicle and Traffic Act 1999 (Tas), sections 17 to 18. The mandatory alcohol interlock scheme sits entirely outside both principal Acts, in the Vehicle and Traffic (Driver Licensing and Vehicle Registration) Regulations 2021, a structural difference from states that anchor their interlock scheme directly in the main Act.

For the underlying BAC limit and how Tasmania compares nationally, see Australia's drink driving limits by state. This page covers the offence and penalty layer built on top of that limit.

BAC offence tiers

Tasmania's core drink driving offence, section 6(1), is a single section with no internal BAC bands written into its own text: it prohibits driving with alcohol present above "the prescribed concentration," which section 2(1) defines as 0.05 grams per 100 millilitres of blood, or 0.05 grams per 210 litres of breath, the same 0.05 figure used across the national comparison. The BAC-band tiering that a Tasmanian driver actually experiences is created entirely downstream, in the section 17 penalty table, which splits section 6 into four de facto bands: under 0.05 (the zero-tolerance categories, a separate deeming rule), 0.05 to under 0.1, 0.1 to under 0.15, and 0.15 or more.

Zero-tolerance categories, section 6(2) to (4): any detectable alcohol, not just alcohol above 0.05, is an offence for a person who does not hold an Australian driver licence; holds a learner or provisional licence; is driving under a licence condition requiring zero alcohol; is driving a "prescribed vehicle" (a passenger-transport-service vehicle, a bus or coach seating 13 or more, a heavy vehicle over 4.5 tonnes gross vehicle mass, or a dangerous-goods vehicle); is driving on a restricted licence issued after a disqualification under this Act; or has, with no time limit at all, been convicted of manslaughter or causing death by dangerous driving arising from the same course of conduct as an alcohol or drug offence (section 6(3)(c)). A separate, genuinely time-limited rule sits in section 6(4): a person convicted of 3 or more offences under this Act arising from at least 3 separate incidents within any 10-year period is zero-tolerance-bound, unless 10 or more years have passed since the last conviction and the person has given the Registrar a medical certificate confirming they are not alcohol-dependent. A third trigger, added in 2017 (section 6(3)(ca)), catches reckless or negligent driving, or a Traffic Act 1925 section 32 offence, occurring together with a section 4 or section 6 conviction.

Impairment and drug-presence offences

Section 4 prohibits driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or a drug to the extent of being incapable of proper control of the vehicle. Notably, Tasmania treats this as a single combined alcohol-or-drug impairment offence, not split into separate alcohol-impairment and drug-impairment provisions the way some other states are.

Section 6A(1), driving with a prescribed illicit drug present in blood or oral fluid, is Tasmania's presence offence, subject to a lawful-prescription defence. "Prescribed illicit drug" is defined by regulation, and the current list runs to 18 substances: MDA, MDEA, MDMA, amphetamine, cocaine, THC, heroin, GHB, ketamine, LSD, methaqualone, methylamphetamine, morphine, DET, DMT, PMA, PCP and psilocybin, a materially broader statutory list than the narrower roadside oral-fluid screening panel used practically in most other states. The roadside oral-fluid TEST device itself most likely still screens a narrower practical subset; the 18-substance list is the offence's chargeable and evidentiary scope, confirmed via blood or oral-fluid lab analysis, not necessarily the exact panel the roadside device screens for.

Penalties

Section 17 sets a two-part table: Part 1 for a first offence and Part 2 for a subsequent offence, where "subsequent" means a prior conviction under section 4, 6, 6A(1), 14(5), or a prior refusal. The court must impose a fine within the range shown and/or imprisonment up to the maximum shown, and must, in addition, disqualify the person for a period within the range shown. The penalty-unit value is $213 per unit for the 2026-27 financial year, set under the Penalty Units and Other Penalties Act 1987 and indexed annually to CPI.

Part 1, first offence:

Part 2, subsequent offence:

A court may impose a lesser fine or disqualification than the table minimum only on proof of "special circumstances." Every other offence under the Act not covered by this table, such as failing to remain for testing or the key-surrender offence, falls instead under section 17A: a maximum 10 penalty units ($2,130) or 6 months' imprisonment, plus a discretionary (not mandatory) disqualification of up to 3 years. Driving while disqualified under this Act, or while a restricted licence is suspended, carries its own harsher scale under section 19A: a first offence up to 40 penalty units ($8,520) or 6 months' imprisonment, plus a further discretionary disqualification of up to 3 years; a second or subsequent offence up to 80 penalty units ($17,040) or 12 months' imprisonment, plus a further disqualification of up to 5 years.

On-the-spot infringement notice pathway

Tasmania genuinely has an infringement pathway for a meaningful slice of drink driving offending, resolving what would otherwise be an open question about whether the state is court-only. Section 18A authorises police to issue a traffic infringement notice for any offence prescribed by regulation, and Schedule 2 of the Road Safety (Alcohol and Drugs) Regulations 2018 prescribes the eligible offences, fixed penalty units, and, where applicable, a fixed disqualification period, in place of the section 17 court range:

Critically, regulation 18(2) of the Road Safety (Alcohol and Drugs) Regulations 2018 excludes an infringement notice far more broadly than a serious-priors-only reading would suggest. An infringement notice cannot issue for a section 6(1) or 6A(1) offence if the person has any prior conviction under the Road Safety (Alcohol and Drugs) Act itself, of any kind, however minor, not only a serious one; a prior manslaughter, causing-death-by-dangerous-driving, or grievous-bodily-harm-by-dangerous-driving conviction; a prior dangerous driving conviction on its own; a Traffic Act 1925 section 32 conviction; or was driving a "prescribed vehicle" at the time. The 0.15-and-above band is separately excluded because Schedule 2 only prescribes fixed penalties up to "less than 0.15." In practice, any drink or drug driving history at all under this Act, not just a serious manslaughter or dangerous-driving prior, removes infringement-pathway eligibility. That cutoff is internally consistent with the immediate-disqualification threshold below.

Immediate roadside disqualification: the road safety disqualification notice

Section 18B lets an approved operator issue an on-the-spot "road safety disqualification notice" if an officer reasonably believes the person has committed an impairment offence under section 4; committed a section 6 offence where the alleged concentration is 0.15 grams or more for a full or foreign licence holder, or 0.07 grams or more for anyone who does not hold a full or foreign licence (a learner or provisional driver); committed what would be a subsequent offence if convicted; or refused a breath, oral fluid or blood test.

A restricted-driver-licence holder has that licence suspended; anyone else is disqualified immediately, on receipt of the notice, before any court appearance. The disqualification runs until the sooner of the charge being determined by a court, or the expiry of the minimum disqualification period from the section 17 first-offence table for the alleged band or offence, with any time already served credited against a later court-ordered disqualification. The notice can be cancelled by the Commissioner of Police or by Magistrates Court order on severe-and-unusual-hardship grounds, or appealed to the Magistrates Court on the same ground.

The two thresholds are not equally well supported. The 0.15 full-licence figure is independently corroborated by a second source and is internally consistent with the infringement-notice cutoff described above. The 0.07 learner and provisional figure rests on a direct read of the Act's own text alone this session, with no second independent source found either confirming or contradicting it. Note that 0.07 is the immediate-disqualification threshold for these drivers, a different rule from the separate 0.00 general BAC limit that already applies to learner and provisional drivers under section 6(2) to (4); the two figures should not be conflated.

Mandatory Alcohol Interlock Program (MAIP)

The MAIP is set out entirely in regulation, at regulations 60 to 75 of the Vehicle and Traffic (Driver Licensing and Vehicle Registration) Regulations 2021. The Registrar must issue a replacement licence as an interlock licence if it replaces a licence cancelled for: an offence with a BAC of 0.15 or more; a subsequent offence, where the prior and subsequent offence both occurred within a 5-year period; a refusal; an impairment offence under section 4; or a substantially corresponding interstate offence. A narrow exemption applies to someone who committed the triggering offence while holding only a learner licence and no other licence class at the time; the Registrar also retains general discretion to impose an interlock condition in any other circumstance.

The interlock condition is only removed once at least 450 days of monitoring data has been provided, with no lockout recorded in the final 180 consecutive days; a person holding a full exemption instead needs 730 offence-free days. A fresh alcohol offence, a tampering finding, a lockout event, a missed service, or a licence, registration or interlock lapse can restart or pause the monitoring period, so the 450 and 180-day figures are a floor, not a guarantee. The holder must nominate a vehicle, use only a Registrar-approved provider, present for service at required intervals, and maintain a zero BAC while driving under the interlock licence, regardless of the general 0.05 limit. Up to 6 months of interstate interlock monitoring data can count toward the Tasmanian clock. Interfering with the device, driving on someone else's breath sample, or knowingly driving with a tampered or bypassed interlock each carry up to 20 penalty units for a first offence, rising to 40 penalty units or 3 months' imprisonment for a subsequent one. Exemptions exist for medical inability to operate the device, residence on or regular travel to an island without weekly ferry service, a genuine second-vehicle work necessity, or severe hardship, each needing Registrar approval and most still requiring zero BAC.

Vehicle sanctions

Tasmania gives police a power to impound the vehicle a person was driving at the point of arrest for an impairment, BAC, drug-presence, or key-surrender-refusal offence, and have it removed for safekeeping; the owner can reclaim it on payment of the reasonable cost of impounding, removal and safekeeping, and a court may separately order the convicted person to pay those costs. This is a cost-recovery safekeeping power tied to the moment of arrest, not a standalone punitive impoundment or forfeiture regime with its own trigger threshold and fixed holding period, the way some other states' automatic post-conviction vehicle-impound schemes work. A search of both principal Acts found no separate vehicle-impoundment or forfeiture provisions tied specifically to drink or drug driving beyond this arrest-time power. That is stated as a documented finding of this page's research rather than an absolute claim: Tasmania's Traffic Act 1925 is referenced once in the Road Safety (Alcohol and Drugs) Act in connection with a different, unrelated provision, and whether that or another Tasmanian statute has a separate hoon-driving vehicle-seizure scheme was outside the scope of this page.

First-vs-repeat escalation

Escalation is built into the section 17 table itself, with Part 2 roughly doubling the penalty-unit and disqualification range of Part 1 at every band. On top of that, the section 18B immediate-disqualification power triggers automatically for any subsequent offence regardless of BAC level, and the MAIP mandatory-interlock trigger specifically catches a subsequent offence within a 5-year window. A restricted or special-hardship licence is also barred for anyone whose offence falls within 3 years of a prior disqualification ending. "Subsequent offence" is defined narrowly: a prior conviction under section 4, 6, 6A(1), 14(5), or a prior refusal, and is not triggered by a prior conviction for the Act's other, ancillary offences such as the liquor-consumption or key-surrender provisions.

Refusing a test

Refusal is not a separately numbered, uniquely penalised offence in Tasmania; it is folded directly into the section 17 penalty table at the same top tier as impairment and the 0.15-and-above band: 5 to 30 penalty units ($1,065 to $6,390), 12 to 36 months disqualification, and up to 12 months' imprisonment for a first offence, rising to 10 to 60 penalty units ($2,130 to $12,780), 24 to 72 months, and up to 24 months for a subsequent offence. Refusal is deliberately deemed into the top penalty tier, not merely into whatever the highest applicable band happens to be. The underlying refusal conduct is criminalised across several sections depending on exactly what was refused, from failing an initial breath-test direction through to refusing a directed breath analysis, oral fluid analysis or blood sample after becoming liable; one specific objection provision is treated as equivalent to impairment for penalty purposes, while narrower testing-obstruction offences such as failing to remain for testing fall instead under the lower, general section 17A penalty. Refusal also triggers the section 18B immediate roadside disqualification and the MAIP mandatory-interlock trigger, on the same footing as a 0.15-and-above result.

Court process

Proceedings under the Act are heard by a magistrate sitting alone, in the Magistrates Court of Tasmania, with no jury, for any matter not resolved by an infringement notice.

Getting your licence back

Reinstatement mechanics run through the Vehicle and Traffic Act. A disqualification of 4 months or less results in automatic suspension: the licence is returned to the driver at the end of the period without needing to reapply. A disqualification of more than 4 months results in cancellation: the person must actively reapply for a new licence at a Service Tasmania shop with fees and identification, and receives a letter 28 days before the disqualification ends specifying any conditions, which can include entry into the MAIP or a Case Management program of educational or counselling requirements, medical review, periodic monitoring, added logbook hours, or a probationary licence. Where the offence triggers a mandatory interlock, the replacement licence issues as an interlock licence from the outset, and the interlock condition is not removed until the MAIP monitoring thresholds described above are met.

Separately, a special hardship order lets a court authorise a conditional restricted licence during disqualification, but this is barred entirely for: any offence within 3 years of a prior disqualification ending; a BAC of 0.15 or above; an impairment conviction under section 4; a refusal-type offence; any learner or provisional-licence holder or unauthorised driver, except in a drug-presence-only case; anyone driving a prescribed vehicle; and any testing-refusal offence. In practice this excludes a restricted licence for almost every serious drink-driving conviction, leaving it realistically available mainly for a lower-band first offence by a full-licence holder.

For related Tasmanian driving-law topics, see Tasmania's demerit points system and the Australia driving laws hub.