Duty free

snowmen

Heard a number of people coming back from holiday being refused buying duty free when their boarding pass to Belfast is scanned.
Are we not able to get duty free any more along with the rest of GB?

Mnoee

There's different rules for NI and GB, there's a leaflet on gov.uk that says what's allowed from where. Can't say I've traveled outside the EU for a long time and the airport deals within the EU are rarely worth it, so no personal experience recently. 

samtaylor99

That's interesting. All EU departures?  Tobacco & Alcohol products only ?

la531983

samtaylor99 said:

That's interesting. All EU departures?  Tobacco & Alcohol products only ?

UK customs information - Northern Ireland - GOV.UK https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948077/UK_customs_information_Northern_Ireland.pdf 

Page 15.

snowmen

Mnoee said:

There's different rules for NI and GB, there's a leaflet on gov.uk that says what's allowed from where. Can't say I've traveled outside the EU for a long time and the airport deals within the EU are rarely worth it, so no personal experience recently. 

True - I always compare to the likes of Tesco offers when deciding whether to buy or not.

The most recent person I know was travelling from Greece (on the EU country list on page 15) but was not allowed to buy alcohol at the airport on the way back, and there was an announcement on the plane to say they weren't allowed to sell duty free alcohol on the flight either.

snowmen

Doing a bit of further research it looks like you can bring back alcohol from the EU to NI but it has to be duty paid.
https://www.gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use/arriving-in-northern-ireland

If you are bringing back alcohol from the EU to GB it can be duty free.
https://www.gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use/arriving-in-Great-Britain

So in effect you can buy alcohol in a local shop in Greece and bring it back to NI but can't buy alcohol at the duty free shop at the airport.

RikM

Leaves a strange loophole, there. Travelling EU to GB then on to NI, you can buy Duty Free... I guess they're just not bothered about that

qwert_yuiop

Is that a loophole? We’re still in the single market. Presumably stopping in Heathrow or wherever over there means you’re in transit.

RikM

But it probably means they should be checking at the, um, border between GB and NI...

qwert_yuiop

Yes. Looks like we’re the granny flat in this house. 

Who saw that coming back in summer 2016? Most of us, probably.

None of this will matter when the next prime minister gets GB back in the single market.