Carrying in wine

[Bob & Lisa]

Hello - my wife and I will soon be heading to Singapore. I understand that wine is expensive to purchase, and although we are not too picky we of course have some favorite wines. Any comments regarding carrying wine on your flight. It doesn't seem that the fees are too high but I did not see specifics on quantities allowed.

[Jeffa]

I believe the current duty free allowances in SG are:

1 litre spirits, 1 litre wine and 1 litre beer,
or 2 litres wine and and 1 litre beer,
or 1 litre wine and 2 litres of beer

[Cath C]

Hi Bob,

You can bring in 2l of wine duty free or the following combination of beer, wine and spirits-

Option Spirits Wine Beer
A 1-Litre 1-Litre 1-Litre
B - 2-Litre 1-Litre
C - 1-Litre 2-Litre

After that you are charged $70 per litre of alcohol (so around $7-9 for a bottle of wine. There's more info on the customs website here-

http://www.customs.gov.sg/leftNav/trav/ ... Relief.htm

[JR8]

You can bring in however much you like if you are willing to pay duty and GST on the excess over your duty free limit.

p.s. this can be worthwhile if the wine is something special, and you know you won't find it in Singapore.

[tonycur]

Even if it's not something special paying USD5 per bottle in duty will still work out cheaper than buying an equivalent bottle here. Hell depending on your airline and excess baggage fees (with Qantas I paid AUD50 for an extra 9kg or so) it still works out cheaper.

I brought over as much as I could fit within my luggage limit weight-wise.

The process coming in is VERY simple - you go to the machine (near the luggage carousels), key in the amounts that you are carrying, insert your credit card, show the receipt on the way out.

As with most things at Changi airport it couldn't be simpler.

[Cath C]

It is very easy at the airport, or alternatively, if you're having all your things shipped over, you can just put as much wine as you want in there. We did this, and moving company asked us to declare it, and we paid the duty through them. It was a pretty hassle-free process.

[zonemelt]

I didn't know there was an automated system for paying such duties .... very impressive

We imported our drinks cabinet (well, what was left after the going away party) which included maybe 16-18 bottles of wine

It was handled by the movers, and duties were as expected but for some reason we were charged for an import license which was somewhere around S$80 additional ....

[JR8]

The caveat on the above is not using sea freight. A month in a container at sea followed by a week roasting in the sun on the dock = premier cru vinegar!