UK customs at Gatwick: allowances, channels and what to declare

Customs is the last checkpoint before the exit, after passport control and baggage reclaim, and at Gatwick both terminals run the same two channels. The green channel is for passengers with nothing to declare, meaning you are within all your allowances and carrying nothing restricted. The red channel, or a red-point phone where there is no staffed desk, is for anyone over an allowance, carrying goods to declare, or carrying £10,000 or more in cash. There is no blue channel any more, so passengers arriving from the EU choose green or red like everyone else.

For most holidaymakers the honest answer is that the green channel is theirs: the duty-free allowances into Great Britain are wide, and a normal holiday's shopping and a bottle or two sits comfortably inside them. The point of this page is to let you walk through green knowing you are entitled to, and to flag the handful of situations, a lot of alcohol, a big-ticket purchase, serious cash, where the red channel is the right and cheaper call. The exact figures follow.

The alcohol allowance into Great Britain is more generous than most people expect, and it stacks. You can bring all of the following, free of duty:

• 42 litres of beer. A standing allowance in its own right, on top of the wine and spirits below.
• 18 litres of still wine. Also separate, roughly 24 standard bottles.
• Either 4 litres of spirits over 22%, or 9 litres of fortified or sparkling wine and cider up to 22%. This is the one category you choose within, and you can split it: 2 litres of spirits and 4.5 litres of fortified wine, for instance.

Because beer and still wine are separate standing allowances, a couple returning from a wine region can bring back a serious amount of wine and still be within the green channel. The split only bites on the spirits-versus-fortified line, so the practical trap is spirits: four one-litre bottles is the ceiling, and a fifth tips you into the red channel for the whole lot. Most travellers never come close, which is why the green channel is the norm.

These are HMRC's Great Britain personal allowances, published at gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use. Northern Ireland has separate rules.

Tobacco works the other way: you pick one category rather than stacking them. The duty-free tobacco allowance is one of 200 cigarettes, 100 cigarillos, 50 cigars, 250g of tobacco, or 200 sticks for a heated-tobacco device, and you can split it proportionally, such as 100 cigarettes and 25 cigars. Vape e-liquids are not listed in the tobacco category on gov.uk, so on a plain reading they are not tobacco, so they do not use this allowance; they count towards the goods allowance below.

Everything else you bring, souvenirs, gifts, clothes, electronics, perfume, jewellery, falls under a single goods allowance of £390, or £270 if you arrive by private plane or boat. That is the total value of the goods, not each item, so one expensive purchase can use it up on its own. If your shopping crosses it, you declare and pay, and the airside duty free you bought on the way out counts too; the allowance is about what you bring into the country, not where you bought it.

The tobacco categories and the £390 and £270 goods caps are HMRC's Great Britain figures, published at gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use. There is no personal alcohol or tobacco allowance if you are under 17.

Cash has its own rule, separate from goods. If you carry £10,000 or more in cash between Great Britain and a country outside the UK, in either direction, you must declare it: on the way in at arrival, and before you leave if you are departing. The £10,000 figure is the Great Britain threshold. The €10,000 one that also circulates is not out of date: it is the Northern Ireland threshold, which applies between Northern Ireland and any non-EU country, and arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain. Use whichever matches your route. It applies to cash in any currency, converted to sterling.

The declaration is quick, online from 72 hours before you travel or at the red channel, and the penalty for skipping it is not: Border Force can seize all the cash you are carrying and charge a penalty of up to £5,000 to get it back. If a large currency exchange for a trip is part of the plan, the currency guide covers the airport desks, and the declaration threshold is worth keeping in mind before you build up that much cash in the first place.

The £10,000 threshold, the 72-hour window and the penalty are at gov.uk/bringing-cash-into-uk. The threshold applies to the total a family or group is carrying, even where no one person is over it.

Going over an allowance is not a problem in itself; not declaring it is. The rule that surprises people is that if you exceed an allowance, you pay tax and duty on all the goods in that category, not just the portion above the limit. Bring in £500 of goods and the duty is calculated on the full £500, not the £110 over the £390 line, so there is no advantage in nudging just over. Declaring is always cheaper than being caught: undeclared goods can be seized outright, with a penalty on top.

Declaring is easy. You can do it online through gov.uk up to five days before you arrive, which is the smooth option if you already know you are over, or at the red channel on the day. Restricted and banned goods are a separate matter from allowances: meat and dairy from many countries, certain plants and foods, weapons and other controlled items have their own rules, and the reliable source is gov.uk rather than any summary here, because they are detailed and change. When you are genuinely unsure which channel you belong in, the red channel is the safe one. Once you are through, the arrivals board and the pick-up guide cover meeting whoever is waiting.

Declare online at gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use, up to 5 days (120 hours) before you arrive. The banned and restricted list is at gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use.

• Know that beer and wine stack. 42 litres of beer and 18 of still wine are separate standing allowances, so the green channel covers far more drink than most people assume.
• Watch the spirits line. The one alcohol category you choose within is spirits versus fortified wine; four litres of spirits is the ceiling, and a fifth bottle turns the whole lot into a red-channel declaration.
• Count duty-free towards the £390. Goods you bought airside on the way out still count towards what you bring into the country, and the £390 is total value, not per item.
• Declare £10,000 or more in cash. In either direction, online from 72 hours ahead or at the red channel. The penalty for not doing it reaches £5,000 plus seizure.
• Red channel when in doubt. Over an allowance, carrying something restricted, or just unsure, the red channel or a red-point phone is the safe and cheaper choice. The rest of the arrival, from the border to the exit, is covered across passport control and the services guide.