Abstract The feasibility of ice-draft profiling using an upward-looking bottom-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) is demonstrated. Ice draft is determined as the difference between the instrument depth, derived from high-accuracy pressure data, and the distance to the lower ice surface, determined by the ADCP echo travel time. Algorithms for the surface range estimate from the water-track echo intensity profiles, data quality control, and correction procedures have been developed. Sources of error in using an ADCP as an ice profiler were investigated using the models of sound signal propagation and reflection. The effects of atmospheric pressure changes, sound speed variation, finite instrument beamwidth, hardware signal processing, instrument tilt, beam misalignment, and vertical sensor offset are quantified. The developed algorithms are tested using the data from the winter-long ADCP deployment on the northwestern shelf of the Okhotsk Sea.