Alcohol — Argentina
What travelers need to know about alcohol in Argentina. What is legal at home can be a serious crime here — each rule links to its official source.
Alcohol in Argentina: prohibited — what is legal at home can be a serious crime here.
Drinking alcohol in the street, and inside stadiums or other venues while mass sporting, educational, cultural or artistic events are held there, is prohibited across Argentina except in the places and at the hours expressly authorised by the competent authority (Ley 24.788, art. 4). The same Act bans the sale of any alcoholic drink to anyone under 18 anywhere in the country, whatever kind of outlet it is (arts. 1 and 4), and an alcoholic drink means any drink containing alcohol at any strength (art. 3). The national fine falls on the seller or the premises; penalties aimed at the individual drinker come from provincial and municipal contravention codes, not from this statute.
Ley 24.788, art. 14: a fine of 500 to 10,000 pesos, or closure of the premises for ten days, for breaching the sale bans in arts. 1 and 4; on a repeat offence the fine runs from 1,000 pesos at its minimum to 50,000 pesos at its maximum, and closure for up to 180 days. These are the amounts printed in the 1997 Act.
§ Ministerio de Justicia (Argentina), Normativa / InfoLEG — Ley 24.788, Ley Nacional de Lucha contra el Alcoholismo, arts. 1, 3, 4 and 14; currency checked against InfoLEG's own register of norms modifying or complementing Ley 24.788 (verVinculos modo=2, id 42480), which lists 12 implementing norms and no amendment to arts. 1, 4 or 14Verified Oct 6, 2026