If you fancy a trip over on one of the Ferries this year to France, you can bring back plenty of stock for the holidays, you have quite generous allowances as long as its for your personal use, and to be on the safe side, be able to prove its for your personal use. Once you shop inside the EU these days all seems relatively straight forward.
So...If you are thinking of going across the Channel to replenish beers, wines, spirits or tobacco products, there are no limits on the amounts of duty and tax paid goods you can bring back personally from another EU country, as long as they are for your own use. You may, however, be asked questions at the UK border if you have more than:
o 110 litres of beer,
o 90 litres of wine,
o 10 litres of spirits
o 20 litres of fortified wines,
o 800 cigarettes,
o 200 cigars,
o 400 cigarillos or
o 1kg of tobacco
Quite generous allowances there. Plenty of scope for a merry old Christmas.But just to say again...please be able to establish these quantities are genuinely for your own use.
However if you shop from outside the EU you are in a different ballpark altogether, rules are much tighter.
