The vapour pressure osmometry technique (VPO) has been used to obtain the osmotic coefficients of the binary mixtures of the primary and secondary alcohols 1-propanol, 2-propanol, 1-butanol, 2-butanol and 1-pentanol with the ionic liquid 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium dicyanamide, BMpyrDCA. From these coefficients, the corresponding activity coefficients and vapour pressures of the mixtures have been also determined. The results have been discussed in terms of solute-solvent and ion-ion interactions and have been compared with those taken from literature in order to analyse the influence of the anion or cation constituting the ionic liquid. For the treatment of the experimental data, the Extended Pitzer model of Archer and the MNRTL model have been applied, obtaining standard deviations from the experimental osmotic coefficients lower than 0.015 and 0.065, respectively. From the parameters obtained with the Extended Pitzer model or Archer, the mean molal activity coefficients and the excess Gibbs free energy for the studied mixtures have been calculated. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.