Dairy cows are dried off to allow for a sufficient dry period. Previous work has been focused at interaction between dry off procedures and udder health or welfare. Drying cows off gradually implies that cows will be exposed to a series of changes before the dry off that might be questionable. This work aims to investigate the practices used (feeding management and milking routine) to dry off cows in 2 European Countries; France and Denmark and evaluate a possible association of dry off procedure with average milk production. Information on dry off management was collected at herd and animal level during a multicenter prospective cohort study including 558 dairy cows from 37 herds in France and 347cows from 21 herds in Denmark. Herds were randomly selected. All cows dried-off during the study duration were included. Information on production parameters, feeding and management practices at herd and cow level were collected. Abrupt dry-off implied no prior change in either milking frequency or feeding regimen. Gradual dry-off implied any change in these routines. Levels of milk production varied across the included farms with in mean (SD) 7,795.3 (±1,881) kg and 11,387.7(±2,394.8) kg in 305 d ECM in France and Denmark respectively. The information on how cows were dried-off at herd level (representing the overall management strategy at herd level) and at animal level (representing the actual included cows in the study) were collected. It must be highlighted how definitions of dry-off methodology were understood differently by farmers taking part in the study thus creating a large difference between the overall dry-off management at farm level and what was implemented at cow level. This study demonstrated high variability in dry off methodologies applied at herd and animal level in France and Denmark. Among farms included 31 from France and 6 from Denmark indicated to perform an abrupt dry off versus 6 respective 15 a gradual dry off. At animal level 46.1% and 32.6% of cows were dried off abruptly versus 53.9% and 67.4% were dried off gradually in France and Denmark respectively. In both countries both a gradual and an abrupt dry off method was applied at animal level irrespective of major differences in milk production at both animal and herd level.