Taking wine into Barbados

Cardelia

Does anyone know if there are limits regarding how much wine a person can bring into Barbados? Unsurprisingly, wine is hellishly expensive out there because it's all imported but I've been asked to see if it's possible to bring some bottles out for friends and save them money. The duty free limit is only 1 litre per person which isn't going to get very far, so I'm looking at duty paid as well.

To give you an example of the savings, a bottle of Penfolds Bin 28 costs £10 (duty paid) in this country, but it currently costs £22 (duty paid) in Barbados. A bottle of Bollinger NV can be picked up for £28 here but in Barbados it's over £50. And their VAT level is only 15% as opposed to 17.5% here.

Obviously I'm not going to start shipping out cases and cases of wine, but Virgin allow one bag of 23 kg free of charge, and then a second bag of 23 kg costs £32. That's a lot of bottles, even allowing for my stuff and protective insulation. 6 bottles of wine weighs about 8 kilos, so I could comfortably fit 18 bottles before hitting weight limits. Is that likely to arouse suspicions at customs? I can't find guidelines on how much duty paid stuff I can bring into the country, only the duty free guidelines of 1 litre per person. Any help gratefully received!

chrestomanci

I would get in touch with immigration officials at Barbados if you can; clear this up with them and perhaps ask for written confirmation you can print out and present in case of trouble?

PolishBigSpender

I think you're misunderstanding what "Duty Paid" actually means. It's only really relevant on EU journeys and means that it has been purchased with excise taxes paid in an EU country - so you can import it into another EU country without paying tax (due to the EU being a customs union).

In this case, you'll be travelling outside the EU, so there is no such concept of "Duty Paid" - you can import 1 litre of wine without paying tax, but anything over this will require payment of duty to the Barbados government. Essentially, you can bring as much as you like in - but you'll have to declare it and pay the taxes to the Barbados government.

Whether or not this is cost effective is up for you to decide.

Cardelia

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

I think you're misunderstanding what "Duty Paid" actually means. It's only really relevant on EU journeys and means that it has been purchased with excise taxes paid in an EU country - so you can import it into another EU country without paying tax (due to the EU being a customs union).

In this case, you'll be travelling outside the EU, so there is no such concept of "Duty Paid" - you can import 1 litre of wine without paying tax, but anything over this will require payment of duty to the Barbados government. Essentially, you can bring as much as you like in - but you'll have to declare it and pay the taxes to the Barbados government.

Whether or not this is cost effective is up for you to decide.

Ah, that's helpful, thank you. I didn't realise this free movement of goods only applied to the EU.

Following on from that, does this mean I can stock up on as much wine as I can carry at the duty free at Gatwick so long as I declare it and pay the relevant taxes when going through customs in Barbados? It doesn't matter that tax wasn't paid at point of sale, as long as tax is paid at point of entry?