How Big Is the No/Low Alcohol Market? Share, Growth and the 2027 Forecast Explained

What share of drinks volume does the no/low alcohol segment hold?

The no-alcohol segment is forecast to reach nearly 4% of total beverage alcohol (TBA) volume across ten key markets by 2027, in IWSR’s release of 18 December 2023. The page gives no baseline share for 2023, so the distance still to travel cannot be computed from that source alone.

The sentence that carries the figure reads: IWSR expects no-alcohol to command nearly 4% of TBA volumes across the T10 markets by 2027. Two details narrow it. The 4% is attached to no-alcohol, meaning products without alcohol, and not to the wider no/low group that adds reduced-alcohol drinks. The denominator is TBA, which the release does not define beyond its name, and the headline of the same page speaks of the “overall alcohol market”, a looser phrase than the body text.

The ten markets matter as much as the percentage. The release notes that they account for approximately 70% of global no/low alcohol volumes, so they form the core of the segment without being the whole of it. A share of 4% across those ten markets is a different quantity from a share of 4% of every drink sold in the world, and a different quantity again from a share of value.

Where does the 4% forecast come from, and why is it often presented as global?

The 4% forecast comes from IWSR, a drinks market data provider, and was published on 18 December 2023 and modified on 5 June 2024. Two press relays of 19 February 2026 repeated it as a share of global volumes, a wording that the IWSR page does not use.

Both relays cover The 2026 No/Low Alcohol Report from Good Culture Ingredients. The Vinetur article attributes the figures to the report and describes them as global. The Winemag.it article of the same date names IWSR as the data source and refers to the top 10 markets. The Good Culture landing page, consulted on 6 November 2026, carries no figures, and the report sits behind a download form that was not completed for this article. The chain therefore runs from IWSR to Good Culture to two press articles, with the perimeter narrowing or widening at each step.

Little-known fact. The forecast is older than the report that popularised it. The IWSR page states that its analysis reflects the 2023 data release, so the 2027 share quoted in 2026 rests on figures that pre-date the 9% volume growth IWSR reported for 2025. Good Culture Ingredients is a supplier of beverage ingredients and offers the report free to the industry, a context worth keeping in view when the report is cited as an independent measurement.

What do the growth figures of 36%, 37% and 9% actually measure?

Three growth figures circulate in 2026 and none shares a perimeter. IWSR forecast on 22 January 2026 that global no-alcohol analogues would grow 36% in volume between 2024 and 2029, after growing 9% in 2025. A rise of 37% by 2027 from a 2020 base is reported by Winemag.it for no/low volume in the top 10 markets.

Converted into annual rates, a calculation made for this article and not an IWSR figure, +37% over seven years is about 4.6% a year and +36% over five years is about 6.3% a year. The two percentages look alike but describe different segments, perimeters and spans: one is a no/low index in ten markets, the other a global no-alcohol volume forecast. Neither is a market value. The January 2026 release gives no value forecast and no share of total beverage alcohol, while the December 2023 release gives a value of over USD 13 billion for the no/low category without stating whether that figure is global or limited to ten markets.

The 18 billion servings quoted for 2029 equal two per person on the planet in IWSR’s own comparison. A count of servings cannot be turned into litres or into a share of volume without a base year, and the release publishes none.

How far apart are national shares of the no/low segment?

National shares of no/low alcohol in total beverage alcohol volume range from above 10% in Germany and Spain to under 2% in Canada and the United States, as stated in IWSR’s December 2023 release. The same release forecasts the fastest annual volume growth in the United States, at 15%, and the slowest in Germany and Spain, at 2% each.

The pattern is that of mature and emerging markets side by side: where the share is already high, forecast growth is slow, and where it is low, growth is fast. The United States grew by 25% a year between 2019 and 2023 in the same release, so the forecast of 15% is already a slower pace. The spread explains why one ten-market share hides very different situations. Germany and Spain, at the top of the share ranking, are also the two markets whose beer segment is documented in the analysis of the European non-alcoholic beer share.

How many new consumers has the no/low segment recruited?

IWSR counted 61 million more no-alcohol buyers in 2024 than in 2022 across its ten key markets, against 38 million more for low-alcohol, in a release of 18 December 2024. The figure of more than 60 million repeated in February 2026 corresponds to the no-alcohol count alone, in ten markets and not worldwide.

The study behind the count is IWSR’s No- and Low-Alcohol Strategic Study 2024, which was not opened for this article. The release does not define “buyers” and publishes no combined total, so the sum of 99 million is arithmetic and not an IWSR statement. The December 2023 release adds a profile: almost a fifth of no-alcohol consumers in the previous year, 17%, were new entrants, and substituters, drinkers who replace an alcoholic drink, made up 43% of no/low consumers in 2023, up from 41% in 2022. Abstainers fell from 19% to 17%.

A custom IWSR survey fielded in August 2025 in the same ten markets, with 7,973 consumers of legal drinking age of whom 4,181 bought no/low alcohol, found that 37% of no-alcohol beer buyers and 40% of no-alcohol wine and spirits buyers cited a healthy lifestyle choice (release of 22 January 2026). The segment is therefore described by its own data as a moderation category fed by existing drinkers, more than by people who abstain.

Which alcohol thresholds define the no, low and no/low categories?

The Good Culture report, as relayed by Vinetur and Winemag.it, defines alcohol-free as 0.0% ABV, non-alc or dealcoholised as up to 0.5% ABV and low alcohol as up to about 1.2% ABV, depending on the country. The IWSR pages consulted state no ABV threshold, so a share cannot be tied to a legal category without checking national definitions.

Legal thresholds differ by jurisdiction. EU beer excise law starts at 0.5% ABV, as set out in the comparison of excise duty on alcohol-free beer, and Spanish labelling allows the term sin alcohol for beer below 1% ABV. The same product can sit in the “no” category for a marketer and in the “low” category for a regulator. The vocabulary of the labels is mapped in the guide to no, low and mid-strength labels. A market share quoted without its threshold is a number without a unit.

Which claims about the no/low market remain unverified?

Four claims remain unverified against primary pages as of 6 November 2026: the Good Culture report itself, the 37% index in IWSR data, the surveys behind the Gen Z and United Kingdom percentages, and any market value for 2027. Each is left out or labelled as reported.

The press relays also state that more than half of Gen Z and Millennial drinkers want to reduce their alcohol intake and that 76% of adults in the United Kingdom report moderating their consumption. Neither relay names a survey, a sample or a date, so neither figure is reproduced here as fact. The same applies to the statement that about one in three adults in the United States chooses non-alcoholic options on various occasions.

No source consulted gives a 2027 market value in dollars or euros, and none gives a Belgian share of the segment; the Belgian beer picture is covered in the analysis of 2025 consumption figures. No projection beyond the periods quoted by IWSR is made here.

Frequently asked questions

How big is the global no/low alcohol market?

No global size can be stated from the sources consulted. IWSR gave a value of over USD 13 billion for the no/low category in December 2023 without stating its perimeter, and forecast nearly 4% of total beverage alcohol volume across ten key markets by 2027 for no-alcohol alone.

Will 4% of the world’s drinks be no/low alcohol in 2027?

Not on the evidence of the IWSR page. The 4% is a forecast for no-alcohol across ten markets, measured as a share of total beverage alcohol volume and published on 18 December 2023. Press relays of February 2026 described it as global, a wording the IWSR page does not contain.

How fast is the no-alcohol segment growing?

IWSR expected global no-alcohol analogue volume to grow 9% in 2025 and 36% between 2024 and 2029, reaching over 18 billion servings. The 36% is a cumulative rate, which works out at about 6.3% a year by calculation.

Which alcohol content counts as no or low?

Definitions vary by country. The Good Culture report uses 0.0% ABV for alcohol-free, up to 0.5% for dealcoholised and up to about 1.2% for low alcohol, while the IWSR releases consulted state no threshold. National law and labelling rules decide which category a product falls in.