Importing wine for a wedding.

Doing best man for my best friend next year and he has asked me to help with an aspect of the wedding.

A friend of his fiance who is in America and who cannot make the wedding wants to buy the wine as a present for them. She wants to purchase the wine in America and ship it over.

I have done a search and it seems 4 litres is the max you can bring in on a flight and after that things move into a different area.

The amount would be 50 bottles.

Can anybody explain to me the how the tax and import duty works in this situation, and also can I get a friend who is a restaurant owner and also a pub owner to accept the items on our behalf and does that have any tax implications etc for him..

Any advice is greatly appreciated as I am a bit lost as to how to sort this issue out, or even if somebody has another suggestion on how to get the wine in, legal of course. :0).



Many thanks, Conor.

Between the cost of shipping and the imposition of excise duties and VAT, it looks to me like it's a really bad idea. Can it be suggested to the friend that the wine be sourced in Ireland? Or that she consider a different present?

You need a licence from the Dept. of Agriculture to import wine. It's more difficult if you are importing from outside the EU.

You also need to contact Customs & Excise.

This might help www .uefl.ie/services/wine-imports/index.php

Thanks for all advice, I want to try to explore and look at how to get wine in, and possibly how much it will cost and if a restaurant owner friend can accept on my friends behalf and what tax implications etc could that mean for him.

After i have all this info I can advise friend about another present etc. but I want to exhaust every avenue prior to that.

Thanks, Conor.

Dont forget to check if venue charge corkage! Extra cost.

Cheers folks, many thanks for the advice. WIll post back when I find out info.

Regards, Conor.

Taking all the extra added costs into consideration, your American friend would be wiser to pay for someone to go over to France with a car on the ferry and have access to a huge selection of great wines and champagne at very resonable prices. I could not imagine that any American wine would be higher in quality than any decent French wine. My cousin brought all wine and champagne over and saved a considerable amount even factoring in corkage cost. As far as I know, you can bring in quite a lot of wine without paying customs and excise duties providing it is for personal use ( as in the case of a wedding) and not for selling on for a profit.

+1. You can get details of allowance limits on duty paid wine, spirits, beer, port etc. on the Irish Government Revenue site. At the moment, the limit on wine (standard and sparkling) is 90 litres per person, so that's 120 bottles. You can make a weekend of the trip from Rosslare to either Roscoff or Cherbourg and including the ferry costs for the trip, and the price of the wine, it's still hugely less expensive than paying to import it from the States. We've just brought back very decent Sauvignon Blanc from France, costing €2.55 per bottle.

Eithneangela said:

+1. You can get details of allowance limits on duty paid wine, spirits, beer, port etc. on the Irish Government Revenue site. At the moment, the limit on wine (standard and sparkling) is 90 litres per person, so that's 120 bottles. You can make a weekend of the trip from Rosslare to either Roscoff or Cherbourg and including the ferry costs for the trip, and the price of the wine, it's still hugely less expensive than paying to import it from the States. We've just brought back very decent Sauvignon Blanc from France, costing €2.55 per bottle.

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That limit is only a guideline over which Revenue will start asking questions, there is no actual enforceable limit as duty has already been paid in another member state. It's the same with tobacco.

Your friend would not even have to go to the trouble of sending somebody over to pick up some wine. I am after receiving a lot of champagne that I have ordered from a French wine website for my upcoming wedding. Even taking into account the corkage, it works out at around 500 euro cheaper than getting the champagne from our venue. I was even thinking of asking my family members to bring it over but I don't think this was fair, especially when the shipping was 14 euro. Just make sure a reputable company is used.

Mongola said:

especially when the shipping was 14 euro.

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For anyone else considering this, Vinatis.com do free shipping for deliveries of 18 or more bottles. They also sort out duty, so unfortunately, you will have to pay the Irish rates. Prices will be updated to include that late in the order process when you choose destination.

Leo said:

For anyone else considering this, Vinatis.com do free shipping for deliveries of 18 or more bottles. They also sort out duty, so unfortunately, you will have to pay the Irish rates. Prices will be updated to include that late in the order process when you choose destination.

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This is the website I went through: vinatis.fr....shipping was 14.01 euro. I have just checked my order and no mention of duty....I did order a lot more than 18 bottles and at 14 euro delivery: it was a bargain in my books!

Ah, interesting. So they no longer do the free delivery. Just confirmed on the site too. They say €14 for up to 18 bottles, +€1 per bottle after that, so sounds like you did well to get shipping for €14.

eeks2006 said:

Thanks for all advice, I want to try to explore and look at how to get wine in, and possibly how much it will cost and if a restaurant owner friend can accept on my friends behalf and what tax implications etc could that mean for him.

After i have all this info I can advise friend about another present etc. but I want to exhaust every avenue prior to that.

Thanks, Conor.

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As mentioned bear in mind that most venues will charge a corkage fee which can be extortionate.