Gatwick duty free: what it actually saves

World Duty Free runs the duty-free shopping at Gatwick, with one large store in each terminal, both after security. You will not need directions: in both terminals the route out of security is laid through the store, so every departing passenger walks the aisles whether they intend to shop or not. The range is the standard duty-free spread of spirits, wine, fragrance, cosmetics, confectionery and gifts, with tobacco at the counter, and the airport's own directory adds toys and luxury accessories to the list. Whisky gets the special treatment: the South Terminal has a standalone World of Whiskies shop airside, open 04:00 to 21:00, and the North Terminal carries a whisky section with collector bottles and travel exclusives inside the main store.

Hours follow the flight schedule rather than the high street. World Duty Free stays open until the last departure of the day, and its printed opening times (02:00 at North, 03:00 at South) start before security itself does, so in practice it is trading whenever you can be airside. Every purchase starts with a boarding pass scan at the till, which is how the pricing works: fly anywhere outside the UK and alcohol and tobacco ring up duty-free, fly domestic and the same bottles ring up at normal duty-paid prices. The full retail line-up beyond duty free is in the Gatwick shops directory, and the places to eat once the shopping is done are in the restaurants guide.

Since January 2021, anyone flying from the UK to any international destination, the EU included, can buy alcohol and tobacco free of UK excise duty and VAT. That tax is not small. Duty alone on spirits runs at £33.99 per litre of pure alcohol, which works out at about £9.50 on a standard 70cl bottle of 40% gin or whisky before VAT is even counted, and tax makes up the bulk of a UK cigarette price. This is where duty free earns its name: the saving on spirits and tobacco is structural, not a marketing offer, and it is the reason a litre of branded gin airside routinely undercuts the supermarket shelf.

Everything else in the store works differently. Airside tax-free shopping on goods other than alcohol and tobacco ended in January 2021, so perfume, cosmetics, electronics and sunglasses all carry VAT now, and any saving is World Duty Free's own pricing against the high street rather than a tax break. That can still be a real discount: price checks by Which? have found spirits and fragrances substantially cheaper at World Duty Free than at supermarkets and Boots, with double-digit percentage savings on well-known perfumes. But it is a discount against full high-street prices, and a January sale or an online retailer can close the gap, so the honest rule is: spirits and tobacco, yes; fragrance, usually worth it but check; electronics and fashion, compare on your phone before you pay. Prices are listed on World Duty Free's Gatwick site, so the comparison takes two minutes from your sofa.

The one discount every Gatwick passenger can bank is Reserve & Collect. You browse World Duty Free's range online, reserve between 30 days and 24 hours before your flight, and collect at the store after security on the day, paying on collection. Reserving takes 10% off the order (a few product lines are excluded in the small print), and ordering well ahead opens up a wider range than the shelves carry, including bottles the store does not stock. World Duty Free confirms the designated collection point before you travel; at Gatwick that is within the airside store in your departure terminal.

The mechanics are unusually forgiving. Nothing is paid until you collect, so if the trip changes or you change your mind, you simply do not pick the order up; there is no charge and nothing to cancel. The order is held from store opening to closing on your departure date, so a delayed or rebooked flight later the same day does not lose it. Bring the boarding pass and photo ID, a passport or national identity card, in the same name as the order, because only the person who ordered can collect. For anything you were going to buy anyway, reserving ahead is the same shopping with 10% removed, which makes it the rare airport trick with no catch worth flagging.

Gatwick will happily sell you more than your destination lets you land with, so the real limit on a duty-free haul is set at the other end. Arriving in the EU from the UK, the alcohol allowance is 1 litre of spirits or 2 litres of fortified or sparkling wine, plus 4 litres of still wine and 16 litres of beer per adult. Tobacco is 200 cigarettes, 100 cigarillos, 50 cigars or 250g of tobacco in most EU countries, though some apply lower limits, and everything else, perfume and gifts included, is capped at €430 in value for air travellers. Cross those lines and you are supposed to declare and pay import charges on arrival. The EU's own allowance page has the per-country detail, and destinations beyond Europe set their own rules, some far stricter, so a one-minute check beats a conversation with customs in a second language.

Coming home, the allowances are far wider: into Great Britain you can bring 4 litres of spirits or 9 litres of sparkling or fortified wine, plus 18 litres of still wine, 42 litres of beer, 200 cigarettes and £390 of other goods, all covered properly in the UK customs guide. Notice the asymmetry: the UK lets you bring back four times the spirits the EU lets you take in. That is the fact that should shape where you shop, and it is the point of the next section.

There is no duty-free shopping when you land. The UK does not have arrivals duty-free stores, so Gatwick's shops sell to departing passengers only, and nothing airside is open to you once you are walking to baggage reclaim. A buy-on-departure, collect-on-return desk service has operated at Gatwick in the past, and older guides still describe leaving purchases behind and picking them up in arrivals; that service is not advertised on the airport's current shopping pages or World Duty Free's own site, so do not build a plan around it. If it matters to you, ask at the till before you buy.

The good news is that the allowance asymmetry mostly removes the need for it. Buying bottles at Gatwick on the way out means carrying them through your holiday and squeezing them under the EU's 1-litre spirits cap on arrival. Buying at the foreign airport on the way home means carrying them for a couple of hours, into a UK allowance of 4 litres of spirits and 18 of wine that a normal holiday haul will never trouble. So the working rule: shop at Gatwick for the destination (gifts, and anything you will use on the trip) and shop abroad for home. If you do carry bottles out and onward, the sealed-bag rules for connecting flights are covered in the liquids guide, along with the hold-luggage caps for anything stronger than 24%.

• Decide by category, not by the word duty-free. Spirits and tobacco carry a genuine tax saving. Fragrance is usually a fair discount against the high street. Electronics, sunglasses and fashion deserve a two-minute price check online before you pay.
• Reserve ahead whenever you know you will buy. Reserve & Collect takes 10% off for ordering between 30 days and 24 hours before the flight, with nothing paid until collection and no penalty for not turning up. It is the same shopping, cheaper.
• Check the arrival allowance before stacking bottles. The EU lets you land with 1 litre of spirits and €430 of other goods from the UK; further-flung destinations can be stricter. Gatwick's tills will not stop you buying more than you can legally land with.
• Connecting? Get the sealed bag. A duty-free liquid only survives a second security screening sealed in its security bag with the receipt inside and visible, unopened to the final destination. Ask at the till; the routine is in the liquids guide.
• Buying for home? Buy on the way back. There is no arrivals duty free at Gatwick, but the return allowances into Great Britain are generous, 4 litres of spirits among them, so the airport at the other end is the better cellar; the customs guide has the full list.