Sad but true, national governments want their pound of flesh, and they take a cut of all commerce crossing your borders.
There’s no way to legally avoid this, so it’s going to be the same wherever you order from unless they’re smuggling it into your country illegally.
To provide you with a general idea though, we have outlined below the different types of fees you can typically expect to pay:
- DHL customs clearance administration fee: £15 per order (a rip off, we know). Worth noting that because this is per order, it’s cheaper to spread it across more bottles. This will soon be reduced to £5 per order.
- Customs duty: Tax imposed on goods when they are transported across international borders.
- Excise Duty: Usually a fixed amount per litre of pure alcohol for spirits.
- VAT / AVT / GST: Value Added / Added Value tax / Goods and Services Tax
We can’t promise your country won’t invent more charges to slap on, but these are all the ones we know about…
Here are some worked examples of the usual import costs due for a range of countries we ship to:
In each case, we have calculated the import costs for both 1 bottle and 6 x 70cl bottles at 40% ABV each retailing for £45.
Obviously, because some of these costs apply only once to the whole order, the cost per bottle drops a lot as the number of bottles in the order increases. Just sayin’ 😉
Australia
| Fee | Example 1
1 x £45 70cl bottle at 40% |
Example 2
6 x £45 70cl bottles at 40% |
| DHL Fee | £15.00 | £15.00 |
| Customs Duty | £2.25 | £13.50 |
| Excise duty | £14.33 | £86.02 |
| VAT/ AVT/ GST | £10.55 | £45.85 |
| Estimated Total Due | £42.13 | £160.37 |
| Total Cost Per Bottle | £42.13 | £26.73 |
Germany
| Fee | Example 1
1 x £45 70cl bottle at 40% |
Example 2
6 x £45 70cl bottles at 40% |
| DHL Fee | £15.00 | £15.00 |
| Customs Duty | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Excise duty | £3.14 | £18.84 |
| VAT/ AVT/ GST | £16.55 | £66.27 |
| Estimated Total Due | £34.69 | £100.11 |
| Total Cost Per Bottle | £34.69 | £16.69 |
South Korea
| Fee | Example 1
1 x £45 70cl bottle at 40% |
Example 2
6 x £45 70cl bottles at 40% |
| DHL Fee | £15.00 | £15.00 |
| Customs Duty | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Excise duty | £65.52 | £251.28 |
| VAT/ AVT/ GST | £15.65 | £60.02 |
| Estimated Total Due | £96.17 | £326.30 |
| Total Cost Per Bottle | £96.17 | £54.38 |
Singapore
| Fee | Example 1
1 x £45 70cl bottle at 40% |
Example 2
6 x £45 70cl bottles at 40% |
| DHL Fee | £15.00 | £15.00 |
| Customs Duty | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Excise duty | £14.43 | £86.60 |
| VAT/ AVT/ GST | £7.38 | £30.49 |
| Estimated Total Due | £36.81 | £132.09 |
| Total Cost Per Bottle | £36.81 | £22.02 |
Again, these are just examples based on our best understanding of how customs charges work in each of these countries – if it gets to the border and they decide to charge an anti-fun tax there’s not much we can do about it. Sorry 🙁
Please feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions on the above or want further clarity on the import charges that you’ll likely get hit with and we’ll do our best to help!
