The road passes through Croatia, with smaller stretches through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro and ends at the Montenegro-Albania border.
It is an undivided two-lane road for almost its entire length, with the exception of a short stretch through Zadar and a 24 kilometres (15 mi) dual-carriageway section from Plano (Trogir) to the southeast suburbs of Split.
[3] Since the Adriatic Highway closely follows the well-indented Croatian coastline, travel is considerably slower and less safe when compared to the motorways because of numerous blind curves and at-grade intersections.
Further 30 km (20 mi) after Ploče drivers also encounter a small strip of Bosnia and Herzegovina territory around town of (Neum) between Klek and Zaton Doli.
[4] The highway passes through a small strip of Bosnia and Herzegovina territory at Neum and is classified as M-2 road (Bosnian: Magistralna cesta M-2).
Within Montenegro, the road is official classified as the M-1 highway (Montenegrin: Magistralni put M-1), and runs from Debeli Brijeg border crossing with Croatia through Herceg Novi, Kotor, Budva, Petrovac, Sutomore, Bar and Ulcinj, before ending at the Sukobin border crossing with Albania, having two lanes for its entire length.
At Sutomore, the E65 and E80 routes go to the north and leave the road via the Sozina Tunnel, while the E851 continues on the M-1 to Sukobin border crossing.