Travelling Abroad And Duty Free Limits

Hasib Howlader | 28th March 2025

If you are travelling abroad this summer, it’s good to bear in mind the amount of goods that you can bring back to the UK without having to pay tax and duty… In this guide we answer the key questions, such as “How many cigarettes can i bring to UK airports or borders from abroad?”

We also cover how the alcohol and tobacco allowances have changed since Brexit.

The full duty free allowance guidelines from the government are here, but these are the key takeaways:

Alcohol allowance

As part of your personal allowance, you can bring in the following without need to pay VAT and excise duties or customs duty – both:

• Beer: up to 42 litres
• Wine (still): up to 18 litres

And you can also bring in either:

• Spirits and other liquors with over 22% alcohol: Up to 4 litres
• Alcoholic drinks with up to 22% alcohol (excluding beer or still wine) including sparkling wine, cider or fortified wine e.g. port, sherry): Up to 9 litres

You can also split this last allowance. For example, you could bring in 2 litres of spirits and 4.5 litres of port as well (i.e. half of your total allowance for each).

If you go over your personal allowance, you ned to pay import VAT and duty on everything that counts as alcohol, not just the value above the allowance. So if you bring in 43 litres of beer, you have to pay tax and duty on all of it, since you have exceeded your 42 litre allowance for beer.

Tobacco allowances

In terms of tobacco, you can bring in one of the following:

• 200 cigarettes
• 50 cigars
• 100 cigarillos
• 250g of tobacco
• 200 sticks of tobacco for electronic heated tobacco devices

Again, you can split this allowance. For example, you could bring in 100 cigarettes and 50 cigarillos (half of your total personal allowance for each).

And as before, if you exceed this personal allowance, then you have to pay tax and duty on everything in the tobacco category. If you bring in 200 cigratees and 100 cigarillos, you have exceed your tobacco peronal allowance because it’s one or the other, not both, meaning you’re required to pay tax and duty on all 300 items.

Allowances for Other Goods:

You are entitled to bring in other goods, such as perfumes, worth up to £390 but only £270 for sea travellers or if you arrive by private plane.

However, if you buy a single item worth more than this, then you will pay duty on its full value.

When do you need to declare your goods?

You will need to make a declaration when you:

• Have gone over your allowance
• Intend to sell any of the goods
• Have restricted or banned items

For anything you bring in above your allowance, you will need to pay Customs Duty.

When you declare your items, you may not need to pay customs duty on items if they were grown or made in the EU using only EU ingredients or materials, you bought them in the EU and you are bringing them in from an EU country.

If this is the case, you can claim a zero rate of customs duty for each item. You need to have evidence that this scenario is true for each item you claim these rates for and show it to a Border Force officer if they ask for it.

The level of evidence you need also depends on the total value of the items you want to claim these rates for. Find out more about declaring goods.

When travelling to EU Countries – alcohol and tobacco allowances in 2019 (pre-Brexit):

We published the first version of this article on 22nd August 2019, before the UK withdrew from the EU. Here are extracts from the original blog, for comparison:

If you are coming back from an EU country, you can bring back an unlimited amount of most goods as long as they are for your own use, you transport them yourself and you have paid duty and tax in the country you bought them.

However, when tobacco and alcohol is brought back, HMRC has provided the following guidance as to the amounts that are considered to be for personal use:

I.e. if you are bringing back more than these guideline amounts, expect to pay Customs Duty!

When travelling to non-EU Countries:

Similar to the rules above, when you are coming back from a non-EU country, the maximum amounts of tobacco and drinks that you can bring back without having to pay duty or UK tax are as follows:

• beer – 16 litres and
• wine (not sparkling) – 4 litres

You can also bring either:

• spirits and other liquors over 22% alcohol – 1 litre or
• fortified wine (for example port, sherry), sparkling wine and alcoholic drinks up to 22% alcohol – 2 litres

You can split this last allowance, for example you could bring 1 litre of fortified wine and half a litre of spirits (i.e. halving both allowances).

• 200 cigarettes or
• 100 cigarillos or
• 50 cigars or
• 250g tobacco

Again, you can also split this allowance – so you could bring in 100 cigarettes and 25 cigars (both half of your allowance) but you cannot combine allowances with other people.

Allowances for Other Goods:

You are entitled to bring in other goods worth up to £390 (such as perfumes). However, if you buy a single item worth more than £390, then you will pay duty on its full value.

When do you need to declare your goods?

You will need to make a declaration when you:

• Have gone over your allowance
• Intend to sell any of the goods
• Have restricted or banned items

For anything you bring in above your allowance, you will need to pay Customs Duty:

• At 2.5% for goods worth up to £630
• For goods worth more than £630, the rate will depend on the type of good

Final thoughts: How many cigarettes can I bring to UK guidelines

You can bring in up to 200 cigarettes as part of your personal allowance, without needing to pay tax and duty, but no other form of tobacco on top of this.

We hope you have found this article useful. For wider reading, take a look at some of our other tax articles, including:

• Tax and accounting treatment for website development costs
• Reclaiming pre-registration VAT
• How to treat VAT on recharged expenses
• VAT oddities

Here at at Howlader and Co we have some of the most experienced chartered accountants London businesses and individuals have trusted for years.

If you are in need of any professional advice, please contact us.