The effective ionic charge Zeff is a means to assess the impurity content of a fusion plasma. It can be derived from measurements of bremsstrahlung intensity. These have been extended at ASDEX Upgrade by the usage of the sight lines for the charge exchange recombination diagnostic. Together with a previously installed sight line array it is now possible to routinely determine the bremsstrahlung intensity over the whole minor radius purely from spectroscopic measurements. In a tokamak where the plasma facing components are made up of various materials, this is necessary to check if measurements are disturbed by line radiation. The bremsstrahlung background of the respective spectra is determined using Bayesian probability theory, giving consistent and improved error statistics. Using the information for electron temperature and density profiles, the Zeff profile is determined by an integrated method. The same approach to assess the Zeff profile has been demonstrated to be successful also at the JET tokamak.