ETG 200 ng/mL Calculator: How It Works and What Your Result Means

If you’re being tested under a program that uses a 200 ng/mL EtG cutoff, you probably have one question: how does drinking, timing, and body weight translate into an actual number? Our ETG 200 ng/mL calculator above gives you a research-informed estimate of your urine ethyl glucuronide (EtG) level and shows exactly where that estimate sits relative to the 200 ng/mL threshold.

This page explains what the calculator does, the science behind the model, how to read your results, and how the 200 ng/mL cutoff compares to the other reference levels you’ll encounter in EtG testing.

What Is the ETG 200 ng/mL Calculator?

The ETG 200 ng/mL calculator is a free tool that estimates your urine ethyl glucuronide concentration based on five inputs: how many standard drinks you had, how long you drank over, your body weight, your sex, and how many hours have passed since your last drink. It then compares that estimate against the 200 ng/mL EtG reference cutoff — one of several thresholds labs and testing programs use to decide whether a result counts as positive.

It’s important to be clear about what EtG actually is before using any calculator built around it. EtG is not alcohol itself — it’s a metabolite your liver produces after you drink, which is exactly why it can still be detected long after alcohol has cleared your system. If you want the full background on what ethyl glucuronide is and why testing programs rely on it, our What Is EtG? guide covers that in detail, and How Does EtG Testing Work? walks through the lab side of the process.

Why the 200 ng/mL Cutoff Specifically?

EtG testing doesn’t use a single universal threshold. Depending on the program, you’ll typically see cutoffs at 100, 200, 300, or 500 ng/mL:

Cutoff	Typical use case	Sensitivity
100 ng/mL	Strict abstinence monitoring (some clinical/treatment programs)	Highest — most sensitive to light or incidental exposure
200 ng/mL	A middle-ground threshold used by some clinical and monitoring programs	Moderate
300 ng/mL	Reduces false positives from incidental exposure	Lower sensitivity
500 ng/mL	Common in workplace and some legal/criminal justice settings	Least sensitive, reserved for clearer evidence of drinking

A lower cutoff like 100 ng/mL stays positive longer and can pick up smaller amounts of exposure, while a higher cutoff like 500 ng/mL requires more alcohol or more recent drinking to trigger a positive result. The 200 ng/mL mark sits between these — strict enough to catch recent light-to-moderate drinking, but with somewhat more room than the 100 ng/mL threshold.

If your testing program uses a different cutoff, we also have a dedicated ETG 100 ng/mL Calculator, or you can set any custom cutoff yourself using our Advanced ETG Calculator.

How the ETG 200 ng/mL Calculator Estimates Your Results

The calculator runs your inputs through a multi-step model:

1. Ethanol intake — your standard drinks are converted to grams of pure ethanol (roughly 14 g per standard drink), then adjusted for how much alcohol your liver likely metabolized while you were still drinking.
2. Peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) — calculated using the Widmark formula, which accounts for your body weight and sex-based distribution constant.
3. Peak EtG concentration — estimated by scaling your peak BAC using a proportionality commonly applied in EtG estimation models.
4. Elimination over time — your estimated EtG level is then reduced from its peak using first-order elimination kinetics (EtG breaks down at a fairly consistent percentage rate per hour, not a fixed amount), based on your reported hours since your last drink.
5. Cutoff comparison — your final estimate is checked against the 200 ng/mL reference cutoff, and if it’s still above that line, the calculator estimates roughly how many more hours it would take to fall below it.

The Research Behind the Model

Because this is an ethyl glucuronide calculator and not an ethanol calculator, the elimination and timing assumptions are pulled from controlled human pharmacokinetic studies rather than guesswork:

• Urinary and blood EtG elimination follows first-order kinetics with a median half-life of around 2.2 hours (range roughly 1.7–3.3 hours), based on controlled-dosing research published in Forensic Science International (Høiseth et al., 2007).
• Peak urinary EtG concentrations typically occur a few hours after the peak blood ethanol concentration, a timing lag confirmed across multiple independent dosing studies (Halter et al., 2008; Dahl et al., 2002).

One thing worth being upfront about: these same studies also report that an individual’s peak EtG level doesn’t correlate tightly with their peak BAC — there’s real person-to-person variation even at an identical dose. That’s why every result on this page is presented as an estimate, not a predicted lab value. For more on why calculator-based estimates and actual lab results can diverge, see our guide on How Accurate Is an EtG Calculator?

Factors That Can Push Your Actual EtG Level Higher or Lower

The calculator gives you a population-average estimate. Your actual result can differ meaningfully because of:

• Hydration and urine dilution — drinking a lot of water can lower your measured ng/mL concentration without actually clearing EtG from your body faster.
• Liver and kidney function — slower metabolism or reduced renal clearance can keep EtG levels elevated for longer than the model predicts.
• Body composition — body weight and water content affect how alcohol (and therefore EtG) distributes through your system.
• Drink strength and absorption speed — drinking on an empty stomach, or drinking faster than the body can process, changes how much ethanol converts to EtG at any given moment.
• Incidental alcohol exposure — mouthwash, hand sanitizer, and some food products contain enough ethanol to produce a low-level positive EtG result even without intentional drinking.
• Laboratory method — different labs and assay types can report somewhat different values for the same sample.

Is 200 ng/mL a Positive or Negative Result?

Whether an estimated (or lab-reported) EtG level counts as “positive” depends entirely on your program’s chosen cutoff — the number itself doesn’t have a universal pass/fail meaning outside that context. If your program’s cutoff is 200 ng/mL, then an estimate at or above 200 ng/mL corresponds to a positive range, and an estimate below it corresponds to a negative range. Always confirm the exact cutoff and interpretation policy your program uses, since this calculator cannot know that for you.

How Long Does EtG Stay Above 200 ng/mL?

This depends heavily on how much you drank and how quickly your body eliminates EtG. As a rough pattern based on the elimination model above: a small amount of alcohol (one to two standard drinks) may fall below a 200 ng/mL estimate within several hours, while heavier or more prolonged drinking can keep estimated levels above 200 ng/mL well into the next day. Enter your own numbers into the calculator above to see a personalized estimate rather than relying on general ranges — individual results vary too much for a single rule of thumb to be reliable.

Using the Calculator Alongside Our Other Tools

If you’re comparing scenarios, testing programs, or just want to see how sensitive your estimate is to a different cutoff, a few of our other tools are useful alongside this one:

• The ETG Calculator gives a quick, simplified estimate if you don’t need the full detail.
• The Advanced ETG Calculator lets you input a custom cutoff instead of a fixed 200 ng/mL reference.
• The ETG 100 ng/mL Calculator is built specifically around the stricter 100 ng/mL threshold used by many clinical and treatment programs.

For background reading, our Guides section covers the science of EtG testing in more depth, including detection windows, testing accuracy, and how the tests are actually run in a lab.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the ETG 200 ng/mL calculator accurate? It provides a research-informed estimate, not a lab-equivalent result. Individual EtG levels vary substantially due to hydration, metabolism, liver and kidney function, and lab methodology, so treat the output as a planning tool rather than a guarantee.

What’s the difference between the 100 ng/mL and 200 ng/mL EtG cutoffs? The 100 ng/mL cutoff is more sensitive and stays positive longer for the same amount of drinking. The 200 ng/mL cutoff requires a somewhat higher or more recent alcohol exposure to trigger a positive result. See our ETG 100 ng/mL Calculator if that’s the threshold your program uses.

Can I use this calculator to guarantee I’ll pass a test? No. This tool is for educational and informational purposes only. It cannot account for your individual metabolism, hydration status, or the specific lab method your test uses, and it should never be the sole basis for a testing, compliance, or safety decision.

Does mouthwash or hand sanitizer affect EtG results? Yes. Products containing ethanol — including some mouthwashes and hand sanitizers — can produce a measurable EtG result even without drinking alcohol. This is one of the reasons EtG testing is interpreted carefully rather than treated as absolute proof of drinking.

A Note on Accuracy and Use

This calculator, like every tool on ETG Calculator Hub, is built for educational purposes and does not replace an actual laboratory test. Our full data-handling and accuracy notes are available on our Disclaimer and Privacy Policy pages, and our Terms & Conditions outline how the site and its tools are meant to be used. If you have questions about how this calculator was built, feel free to contact us or learn more about our approach to research-informed calculators.