EU purchasing/import regulations?

[PhilW]

I used to travel regularly to Europe and transatlantic, but have done so very little in the last few years. As I'm currently considering purchase of some Brandy from Germany as a present for my wife, I find I have no idea on the current rules regarding import (quantities, costs etc) - anyone know off-hand of any likely pertinent restrictions?

Thanks,

Phil.

[JacobH]

I think the basic principle is if you are buying retail, with taxes, in Germany, and importing it into the UK for personal purposes, you don’t have to pay duty / tax. If it’s a small-ish quantity then you probably won’t have any problems; larger quantities might result in hassle as to whether you really buying for ‟personal consumption”: http://ukingermany.fco.gov.uk/en/visiti ... al-imports

[PhilW]

Thanks Jacob; On this occaison it's only a small quantity so limits should not be an issue. I was also thinking ahead regarding future Douro visit options - options could be visiting by motorbike (very limited options for carrying bottle home, but great journey), car with friend (greater carrying capacity), low-cost flight (simpler, but again limited carrying capacity, probably...) - and just considering whether current limits might influence my likely travel preferences. It's not an imminent plan anyway, just thinking ahead; For those who have been before (I expect many people on here) I wonder whether people's plans have usually been to transport purchases home, or maybe more frequently to ship them separately?

[ edit: eek - apostrophe nightmare... is it "people's plans", or "peoples' plans" - I would has assumed the former for plans of multiple people, and the latter for plans of multiple groups of people, or maybe multiple collective groups of people such as populations ("the people's leader" for the leader of a single country vs "the peoples' leader" for the elected leader of multiple nations)... I fear I may have a "jdaw sword of Damocles"... ]