Bringing wine back form France to UK

edjamese1

Hi. I am driving to France in a couple of weeks in my truck with 3 friends (Folkstone to Calais). Does anyone know if the limits on bringing wine back to the UK are per person or per vehicle. It really isn't clear and no amount of Googling has been helpful in answering the question. I don't want to get stung for bringing too much back! Thanks in advance.

Doshwaster

HMRC says:

https://www.gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use/arriving-in-Great-Britain

and https://www.gov.uk/government/news/duty-free-extended-to-the-eu-from-january-2021 

maman

They're definitely personal allowances so 18l of wine each. I have found in the past though that Border Control are more likely to check on trucks and vans than private cars but that was before Brexit when they were suspicious of you selling on goods intended for personal consumption. 

edjamese1

maman said:

They're definitely personal allowances so 18l of wine each. I have found in the past though that Border Control are more likely to check on trucks and vans than private cars but that was before Brexit when they were suspicious of you selling on goods intended for personal consumption. 

thanks for this. so if there are 4 of us in a car, then we are allowed to bring this in each you think?

edjamese1

Doshwaster said:

The bit that is confusing me on this on the gov web page is the quote 'You cannot combine allowances with other people to bring in more than your individual allowances.' it makes me worried that bringing 4 times the 18l in will breach the personal allowance. It would be easier to bring it over on a raft by the sounds of it as they let anything across the channel that way!

maman

AFAIK it means you shouldn't technically be asking, for example, a teetotaller in your group to bring in their allowance for your consumption.

You said a truck rather than a car in your original post @edjamese1 which is why I pointed that out. It happened to us but they accepted a family celebration as the (true) reason. 

Sandtree

You can buy 18L each but if one of your party only wants to buy 10L then the other 8L of allowance cannot be used by others... basically make sure you have separate receipts each for the 18L or less rather than one invoice for 20L and that you all say its for yourselves etc.

phatbear

maman said:

AFAIK it means you shouldn't technically be asking, for example, a teetotaller in your group to bring in their allowance for your consumption.

Not strictly true as the teetotaller can gift the items to someone who drinks as long as there is no payment for the afore mentioned items, this includes payment in kind, ie for services etc

 

maman

phatbear said:

maman said:

AFAIK it means you shouldn't technically be asking, for example, a teetotaller in your group to bring in their allowance for your consumption.

Not strictly true as the teetotaller can gift the items to someone who drinks as long as there is no payment for the afore mentioned items, this includes payment in kind, ie for services etc

 

Of course, but I wouldn't risk telling Border Control that. The non drinker would need to show that they'd paid for it even if they planned to 'gift' it later. My concern is that this group needs to be squeaky clean as a group in a truck with maximum allowance can attract attention. 

Ganga

Would UK customs /border control really be worried about a person bringing back slightly more than18 litres of wine ? cigarettes ,cigars and drugs maybe.

mgdavid

Ganga said:

Would UK customs /border control really be worried about a person bringing back slightly more than18 litres of wine ? cigarettes ,cigars and drugs maybe.

No, they definitely won't. I've been abroad and back twice in the last 6 weeks and at no point has anyone even asked or mentioned what european-purchased goods I have on board the motorhome. No checks are being done, no questions asked.

I buy from a wine wholesaler in Ardres (20 mins from Calais) and the owner just told me last Monday that none of his British customers have been stopped or checked since Brexit.

BTW Border Force in Calais is outsourced to ECS who are employing local French staff - they certainly don't mind us buying lots of their wine and bringing it back, it's in their interest to ignore it.