Drink Driving on P Plates in Queensland — The Zero Limit and What It Costs You
Drink Driving — 2026-09-04 — by Sacha Sarah Smith, Civic Law
The alcohol limit on a P, learner or probationary licence is zero, and a reading of 0.01 is a criminal charge. What each reading costs you in months off the road, why a work licence is not available for it, and what is worth doing before court.
The alcohol limit on a P licence is zero, and zero means what it says. There is no allowance for one drink, no margin for a reading that is barely there, and no low range the way there is for an open licence. A breath test of 0.01 is over your limit, and it is a criminal charge in the Magistrates Court , not a ticket.
Most people who ring about this drank the night before, or had one or two with dinner and waited what felt like long enough. That is the ordinary way this charge happens, and none of it is a defence — the reading is the offence. What it does affect is how long you are off the road and whether the court records a conviction against you, and both of those are worth fighting for.
The part nobody expects is that a work licence is not available for this charge. Whatever the court gives you, you serve all of it. Our drink driving penalty estimator gives you the range for your reading, and Sacha will tell you at the first call what your realistic outcome looks like.
Who Is on the Zero Alcohol Limit
The zero limit is not only a P plate rule. Under the Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act 1995 (Qld) it applies to a list of drivers, and it applies whether you were driving, trying to start the car, or sitting in it in charge of it.
You hold a P1 or P2 licence. Any alcohol in your breath or blood is over your limit, for as long as you are on your Ps.
You hold a learner licence. Zero for you, and your supervisor has to be under 0.05 — under zero if you were learning in a truck or a bus.
You hold a probationary licence. This is the licence you are given after a drink driving disqualification, and it carries the zero limit as well.
You do not hold a licence. If you never got one, or yours expired, your limit is zero rather than 0.05.
You were driving for work. A truck, a bus, a road train, a taxi or limousine, a rideshare with a booking on, a tow truck, a driver trainer's car, a pilot or escort vehicle, or anything carrying a placard load of dangerous goods. Zero limit, whatever licence is in your wallet.
If none of those describe you, your limit was 0.05 and our article on losing your licence for drink driving is the one to read instead.
How Long You Are Off the Road
The disqualification is not something the Magistrate can decide against. Every one of these charges takes your licence — what is argued is the length, and where you land depends on your reading and on whether you have a drink or drug driving conviction behind you in the last five years.
Over zero but under 0.05. Three to nine months, on a first offence. The maximum fine is $3,454, and jail is on the section but not in the room for a first low reading.
0.05 to 0.099. At 0.05 you are charged with the same offence as an open licence holder. The Act sets the floor for that offence at two months, but the provision written for learner, provisional and probationary drivers sets it at three, so plan on three to nine months.
0.100 to 0.149. Three to twelve months, and at this reading you are into the interlock program — twelve months of driving nothing but a car with a breath tester wired into it, at about $2,600 of your own money. Our interlock article explains how that year works.
0.150 or above. At that reading you are taken to have been driving under the influence. Six months off the road is fixed by the Act as the minimum — the Magistrate can order longer but never less — and the maximum is a $6,908 fine or nine months in jail, with the interlock to follow.
A drink or drug driving conviction in the last five years. The range becomes three to eighteen months, and if that earlier conviction was for driving under the influence it is a fixed nine months instead. The five years runs between the two convictions, not between the nights you were caught. Our repeat drink driving article covers what else changes.
Within the range the Magistrate weighs your reading against the danger your driving created, real or potential. The distance, the hour, the road, passengers in the car, and whether anyone had already told you not to drive all go into that. This is where the case is either put properly or left to the police summary.
There Is No Work Licence and No Special Hardship Order
A work licence is the order that lets a disqualified driver keep driving for work. For this charge the Act closes it off, and it closes it off for the whole zero-limit group.
The zero-limit charge itself. Barred outright. It makes no difference how clean your record is, how far you live out, or that the apprenticeship ends without a licence.
Blowing over 0.05 while you were on your Ps. Also barred. The bar attaches to the fact that you were a zero-limit driver, not to the charge you ended up with.
Drug driving on your Ps. Same position, same reason.
A learner licence. Barred twice over — a work licence is only ever available to someone who held a provisional or open licence when it happened and right up to the disqualification.
A special hardship order is not the fallback. That order belongs to licences suspended for demerit points or for driving more than 40km/h over the limit. It has nothing to do with drink driving, and asking for one here gets you nowhere.
So the ban runs from the day you are sentenced to the day it ends, and you do not drive in between. In Cairns, on the Tablelands and down the coast that is the whole problem — there is no train, the buses do not run to a 5am start, and a licence is the job. Which is why the months, not the fine, are what the case is about.
Whether You Can Drive Between Now and Court
That depends on the reading, not on your licence type.
Under 0.100, first charge. Your licence is suspended on the spot for twenty-four hours, and driving inside that day is a separate offence worth a fine of up to $2,417.80 and another six months off the road. Once the twenty-four hours is up you keep driving until the court deals with the charge, and the disqualification starts the day you are sentenced.
0.100 or above, or refusing the test at the station. Your licence is suspended from the moment you are charged and stays that way until the matter is over. The replacement licence that lets a suspended driver keep driving on conditions until court is not open to you — the regulation gives it only to open licence holders, so a P, learner or probationary driver is off the road from the charge to the sentence.
A second charge while the first is still on foot. The new charge suspends you immediately, whatever you blew.
Driving while that suspension runs. A separate criminal charge, up to $6,908 or a year in jail, and a further two to five years off the road on top of whatever the drink driving charge produces. It is the single worst thing you can do to your own case.
Getting Back on the Road Takes Longer Than the Ban
Nothing is handed back at the end. The disqualification cancels the licence you held, so you apply again at Transport and Main Roads, pay again, and start further back than you were.
You come back on a probationary licence. Same class and type as the licence that was cancelled — a P2 comes back as a P2 probationary, not as your Ps.
The zero limit comes with it. One drink on that probationary licence is a second offence, and a second offence inside five years carries three to eighteen months.
A year on it before you move up. You have to hold the probationary licence for at least twelve months after the ban ends before you can go back to a P2 or apply for an open licence.
Your open licence moves out. If you were first on your P1 under 23 and your P2 under 25, what is left to serve is two years less the P2 time you had already put in, and never less than another year. That year on the probationary licence counts towards it — the two periods run together, they do not stack.
What Is Worth Doing Before Court
The length of the ban and the question of a conviction are the two live issues, and what you bring to court moves both.
The circumstances of the driving. A 0.02 at ten on a Sunday morning is not a 0.04 at 3am with three mates in the car. Your lawyer puts that in front of the Magistrate properly instead of leaving the prosecution's version to stand.
What you have done since. A driver education course, a stretch off alcohol, or counselling where drinking is the real problem. Sacha will tell you which of those is worth doing on your facts, and which is a waste of your money.
Your traffic and criminal history. For a young driver a clean history is usually the strongest thing on the file, and it is why most first offences finish near the bottom of the range.
What losing the licence costs you. A letter from your employer, your apprenticeship coordinator or your course convenor, and something concrete about the income or the study you lose, goes to the length of the ban.
Character references . References from people who know you and can say why this was out of character go to whether a conviction is recorded.
Keeping it off your record. The court can give you the fine and the ban without recording a conviction, which keeps the charge off your criminal record for job applications, visas and licensing. At your age that is worth as much as the months. It does not shorten the ban.
Talk to Civic Law
A first zero-limit charge is usually finished in one appearance. Whether that appearance produces three months or nine, and a conviction or none, comes down to what is put before the Magistrate on the day.
Call Sacha Sarah Smith on 0425 429 458 with your reading, your licence type and anything already on your traffic history. She will tell you the range you are facing, what is worth doing before the date, and what it costs. Our court process guide sets out what the day itself looks like.
Drink Driving — Guilty Plea
Licence Disqualification Appeal