I hold Swedish passport and I am traveling to UK this month. I've read that the legal age of drinking alcohol in UK is 16 to 18 depending on the type of beverage.
I am an undergraduate student and look about 18. Can I use my university card (Swedish uni) in place of my passport in bar entries? Since a typical university student is 18 or above so, can my university card be shown as a proof of age, even if it doesn't have a date of birth on it?
According to Drinkaware:
Acceptable forms of ID to prove you are over 18 include:
- A photo driving licence
- A passport
- A proof of age card, such as the PASS card from the national Proof of Age Standards Scheme.
This does not include foreign university identification.
Since 72D has clarified they are interested in just entering drinking premises as well as in ordering alcohol in them, it might be worth summarising the relevant UK drinking culture, and how it relates to age checks. I'm too old now for a lot of this to be recent personal experience, and some of the legal points are a bit different in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but I don't believe things have changed that massively.
Firstly, the legalities on children:
Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult when in places where the sale of alcohol is the main business (i.e. public houses, bars and nightclubs rather than restaurants). They can't buy or drink alcohol.
16 & 17 year olds are allowed unaccompanied. They can't buy alcohol, but can drink beer or wine with a meal if purchased by an adult with them.
Next the implementation. This depends a lot on the type of place and the time of day.
Larger wine bars and cocktail bars are much more likely to check at the door, and to set their own higher age range.
Nightclubs all have door staff, and may have many, many house rules to be admitted. In particular large all male groups are known for being told to look elsewhere.
You have marginally more chance of convincing a doorman to let you in with non-standard ID (passport, PASS card, or EU driving licence) than you do of using it when getting served alcohol, since the in the first case the establishment isn't actually committing an offence and thus isn't at risk of losing its licence. However, if the place is busy enough to have a doorman, they're still very likely to tell you to go elsewhere. If you just want a typically British experience, without fuss or argument and without the risk of losing your passport, stick to smaller pubs, early on weekday evenings and to soft drinks. You may even get to experience a pub quiz or a meat raffle.
Legally; no.
There are only a few forms of ID that are legally acceptable;
However the third one of these is not widely accepted. Generally a drivers license is taken as the standard form of ID in the UK.
Two points on this however:
The UK drivers license looks just like the Swedish drivers license and they will not be so strict in the UK about accepting this as Systemet can be about accepting UK licenses (Nordic only is their rule, and they stick to it).
You don’t need a full drivers license. A provisional license is fine.
Further to this…IDs are checked sporadically and generally bouncers and barmen use their own judgement. If you are in a student area and amongst a group of other students, then it is rare that they will ever bother to check your ID; many British kids use this to their advantage to drink illegally.
Overall- no you can't rely on your uni ID card to guarantee you will be served. It isn't useless, it might convince some people, but don't rely on it.
The best thing to do is take a photocopy of your passport or your driving license (a provisional is OK).
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