One pint, 17 answers: what counts as a standard drink depends on where you live
Pour half a litre of 5% beer. Wherever you drink it, it holds about 19.7 g of pure alcohol. Ask a national health authority how many "standard drinks" that is, though, and the answer depends on the country: 2.5 units in the UK, 2.0 in Australia, France or Ireland, 1.6 in Denmark or Italy, 1.4 in the United States and 1.0 in Austria. I collected the official definitions of 17 countries, each from the health authority's own page. For the same glass they give 7 different answers.
The European Parliament's research service says the same thing in one sentence: "There is no international consensus on how much pure alcohol is contained in a standard drink." And since January, the US Dietary Guidelines no longer define one at all.
The same glass, counted 17 ways
The extremes are a factor of 2.5 apart. A British drinker who has had "two and a half units" and an Austrian who has had "one Standardglas" have drunk exactly the same beer. Neither of them is wrong. They're counting in different units that happen to share a name.
A drink is a counting unit, not a measurement
A standard drink isn't a physical quantity like a gram or a millilitre. Each health authority sets its own amount of pure alcohol and then writes its advice in that unit. Grouped by size, the 17 look like this:
- 8 g, the UK. The British unit is defined by volume: 10 ml of pure alcohol, which weighs about 7.9 g. The NHS formula is volume in ml times ABV divided by 1,000.
- 10 g, the most common size. Australia, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and Spain all use it.
- 10 to 12 g, Germany and Switzerland. Both publish a range rather than one figure, so the same beer is 1.6 to 2.0 Standardgläser.
- 12 g, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Sweden.
- 13.45 g, Canada. Health Canada defines it as 17.05 ml of pure alcohol, which is why the figure isn't round.
- 14 g, the United States, according to the NIAAA (more on that below).
- About 20 g, Austria. The Austrian Standardglas is the largest in the set, and the government's own Handbuch Alkohol describes it as an approximate size.
The European Parliamentary Research Service reached the same picture from the EU side in a June 2026 briefing on alcohol labelling: "Among EU countries, the most frequent value is 10 g of pure alcohol, followed by 12 g (though they range from 8 g to 20 g)." The 17 definitions here sit exactly inside that range, from the UK's 8 g to Austria's 20 g.
The US guidelines dropped the definition
Until this year, the US standard drink had an official home in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The 2020-2025 edition defined one alcoholic drink equivalent as 14 g (0.6 fl oz) of pure alcohol and advised 2 drinks or less in a day for men and 1 or less for women, on days when alcohol is consumed.
The 2025-2030 edition, published on 7 January 2026, replaced both. Its alcohol box opens with "Consume less alcohol for better overall health" and then lists who should avoid alcohol completely. It gives no daily number, and the words "standard drink" and the 14 g figure don't appear in it. A comparison of the two editions in The Lancet Regional Health - Americas lists the drink definition for 2025-2030 as "No information."
The 14 g drink still exists. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism keeps it on its own page: "In the United States, one standard drink contains about 14 grams, or about 0.6 fluid ounces, of pure alcohol." So the US still has a standard drink, but its dietary guidelines no longer say what it is or how many of them to stay under.
Why the size of a "drink" matters
Because advice, labels and research are all written in the local unit, the unit decides what the number means. Fourteen UK units are 112 g of alcohol. Fourteen US standard drinks would be 196 g, and fourteen Austrian Standardgläser 280 g. A headline that says "two drinks a day", a study that counts "drinks per week" or an app that shows "3 drinks" is only comparable with another one once you know which drink it means.
Grams avoid the problem. Ireland's labelling regulations will put the grams of alcohol in the product on the label, along with its calories. They were due to apply from May 2026 and have been postponed to 3 September 2028.
If you want to convert a particular drink, the standard drinks calculator takes any volume and strength and shows its grams of pure alcohol and its count in all 17 countries, with each authority linked. It runs in the browser and stores nothing.
All 17 definitions, with sources
| Country | Official term | One drink | 0.5 l at 5% | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | unit | 8 g (10 ml) | 2.5 | NHS |
| Australia | standard drink | 10 g | 2.0 | Australian Government Department of Health |
| France | verre standard | 10 g | 2.0 | Santé publique France (Alcool Info Service) |
| Ireland | standard drink | 10 g | 2.0 | HSE |
| Netherlands | standaardglas | 10 g | 2.0 | Trimbos-instituut |
| New Zealand | standard drink | 10 g | 2.0 | Health New Zealand |
| Poland | porcja standardowa | 10 g | 2.0 | KCPU |
| Spain | unidad de bebida estándar | 10 g | 2.0 | Ministerio de Sanidad |
| Germany | Standardglas | 10-12 g | 1.6-2.0 | BIÖG (Kenn dein Limit) |
| Switzerland | Standardglas | 10-12 g | 1.6-2.0 | Sucht Schweiz |
| Denmark | genstand | 12 g | 1.6 | Sundhedsstyrelsen |
| Finland | alkoholiannos | 12 g | 1.6 | THL |
| Italy | unità alcolica | 12 g | 1.6 | Istituto Superiore di Sanità |
| Sweden | standardglas | 12 g | 1.6 | 1177 |
| Canada | standard drink | 13.45 g | 1.5 | Health Canada |
| United States | standard drink | 14 g | 1.4 | NIAAA |
| Austria | Standardglas | 20 g | 1.0 | Handbuch Alkohol Österreich (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH) |
Download and reuse
The table is available as a CSV file: standard-drink-definitions.csv. It has one row per country with the official term, the size in grams (low and high, the same where there's no range), whether the authority defines it by mass or by volume, the authority, the source URL, the date I last checked it (30 October 2026) and the count for half a litre of 5% beer.
The table, the CSV and the chart are free to reuse under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: credit "CheersCount" and link to this page. The definitions themselves belong to the authorities that publish them, so check the linked source before quoting a figure in your own work.
What this table can't tell you
Seventeen countries aren't the world. The list holds the countries whose health authority publishes a single standard-drink size that I could trace to an official page. Norway and Japan are missing because I couldn't find one official figure for either, and most of Asia, Africa and South America isn't covered at all. The EU numbers agree with the European Parliament's survey, but a country that's absent here may use any size.
Frequently asked questions
How many grams of alcohol are in a standard drink?
It depends on the country. Among the 17 national definitions compared here, a standard drink is 8 g in the UK (where the unit is defined as 10 ml), 10 g in Australia, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and Spain, 10 to 12 g in Germany and Switzerland, 12 g in Denmark, Finland, Italy and Sweden, 13.45 g in Canada, 14 g in the United States and about 20 g in Austria.
How many standard drinks are in a pint of beer?
Half a litre of 5% beer holds about 19.7 g of pure alcohol. That is 2.5 UK units, about 2 standard drinks in Australia or Ireland, 1.6 in Denmark or Italy, 1.5 in Canada, 1.4 in the United States and 1 in Austria. A UK pint (568 ml) of 4% lager is 2.3 units by the NHS formula.
What is a standard drink in the US?
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) defines it as about 14 g, or about 0.6 fluid ounces, of pure alcohol. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030 no longer include a definition: the previous edition defined one alcoholic drink equivalent as 14 g, and the current one says "Consume less alcohol for better overall health" without a number.
Is there an international standard drink?
No. The European Parliamentary Research Service puts it this way: "There is no international consensus on how much pure alcohol is contained in a standard drink. Among EU countries, the most frequent value is 10 g of pure alcohol, followed by 12 g (though they range from 8 g to 20 g)."
Can I reuse this data?
Yes. The table and the chart are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0). Download the CSV from cheerscount.com/data/standard-drink-definitions.csv, and credit "CheersCount" with a link to this page. Each row links the health authority it comes from.
I build CheersCount, a drink log that counts in whichever of these sizes you choose (8, 10, 12, 13.45, 14 or 20 g), so a week of drinks reads in the unit your own country's advice uses.
Sources
- Katsarova, I. (2026). Alcohol labelling in the EU: Public health, consumer information and policy challenges. European Parliamentary Research Service, briefing PE 772.871, updated 26 June 2026. Box "What is a 'standard drink'?", p. 2.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture (2026). Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030, p. 5.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2020). Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025. Superseded; cited for the former definition and limits.
- Peltier, M.R., Chander, G., Jones, H.E., Chang, G., McKee, S.A. (2026). Less than what? Response to alcohol consumption recommendations in the 2025-2030 dietary guidelines for Americans. The Lancet Regional Health - Americas 60:101510. DOI: 10.1016/j.lana.2026.101510. Table 1.
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. What Is A Standard Drink? Updated December 2025.
- Government of Ireland. S.I. No. 423/2025, amending the commencement of the Public Health (Alcohol) (Labelling) Regulations 2023.
- Health Canada. Canada's Guidance on Alcohol and Health (17.05 ml or 13.45 g).
- The other national definitions: the source column of the table above.
This post compares published definitions of a counting unit; it isn't medical advice and says nothing about how much anyone should drink. For what your own country's guidance means for you, talk to a health professional.