A browser glitch ate my post, but this is really the point.
Nowadays it only makes sense to buy in a DF shop if you’re a resident of an unusually high-taxed area for those goods.
As a US-based person I’ve never seen duty free shops anywhere that had better prices than Costco. In many places prices are higher than my local ordinary corner liquor store.
Another factor: back in the Darke Tymes of the 1960s & such there was lots less international trade. As an example, rum.
An American in NYC *might *have been able to buy Jamaican rum at a specialty shop. Anybody else would have been buying US or Puerto Rican rum as the Jamaican just wasn’t imported to the US in any quantity. You simply could not buy it, period.
So the DF shop provided a way for travelers leaving Jamaica to import small quantities of de facto gray market goods for their own use. The attraction wasn’t the price so much as the fact you could buy it at all.
Nowadays every decent liquor store in the US has 3 kinds on the shelf.
Bottom line: IMO, at least for Americans returning from overseas, DF stores are a curious anachronism.
Tobacco stores on US Indian reservations are similar. Decades ago if a pack of taxed smokes in a regular store was a dollar, of which 50 cents was tax the Indians would A) be able to avoid the tax and B) would sell them retail for 30 cents. The customer would save 80 cents.
Since then they’ve gotten smarter. If the pack of taxed smokes in a regular store was a dollar, of which 50 cents was tax the Indians would A) be able to avoid the tax and B) would sell them retail for 95 cents.
Now the customer saves just a nickel and the Indians take in 65 cents more than they used to. Very clever.
Depends on the details - I was on a cruise that left from NYC in October, and cigarettes were about $3.50/pack in the duty-free shop while in NYC they are around $13. My savings would have been less if I lived anywhere else in the country- but even in Virginia the price is over $3.50. According to my husband, some not all) of the liquor was cheaper than we could get it at home, so that might depend on exactly what you are buying.
I wonder if these shops have reference material for checking how much booze you can bring into country X. I recall states having restrictions. Had to pay a Texas tax or duty bringing in beverages from Cd. Juárez.
Duty free stores are popular, partly since there is time to kill and little to do in many airports. Travellers save on tax, as you say, and markup is pretty high. If you are in Mexico (say), you could go to Costco and buy tequila and get it cheaper than at the duty free. But if you need a gift and did not go to Costco, it is sometimes slightly cheaper than an average shop. And since tequila in Canada is expensive with no selection, it is not a terrible deal. Once in a while, sales at duty free result in a genuine deal but this is surprisingly rare.
They tend to be better if buying items specific to the visiting country, things hard to find in your country (Brand X cigarettes) or last minute gifts. The more you travel, the more you avoid duty free.
You can generally still be allowed to purchase it sans international boarding pass except you would have the tax applied like any normal store.
Technically, you need to declare everything over the limit when you enter a country but you can always gamble with not declaring and hope you’ll be let through customs without an inspection. Generally, some small amount over the limit isn’t punished, customs is mainly looking for professional importers who are bringing large quantities of goods over.
I’ve certainly seen signs in duty free stores in larger international airports listing the duty free allowances for the major countries served by direct flights from there (or where they get a lot of travellers from).
One time, many years ago, my wife and I were travelling back from somewhere and I went to the duty free to get some alcohol while she went to get lunch sorted out for us.
Because the Australian duty free allowance is 2.2L per adult, I bought four bottles of spirits - two I wanted and two my wife had asked me to get.
The people in the Duty Free store (I want to say it was Singapore, but I can’t 100% recall) said “You are aware the allowance for Australia is only two of these bottles per person, right?” and I said “Oh yes, two of them are for my wife who is travelling with me” and they basically said “Oh, OK then” and put the sale through.
I’m told by other travelling friends who spend a bit of time jetting around Asia that basically the attitude in many places is that if you buy more than the allowance and have problems with customs in your home country, that’s your problem rather than theirs (the duty free store).
Yeah, there is definitely savings to be realized travelling into say Singapore, on booze anyway. Especially if you’re buying stuff like XO. (Which will make a lovely gift for your Chinese friends!)
Canada is remarkably stingy on its duty-free allowances. A quick trip down to the US for liquor or cigarettes will result in taxes that about double the cost, negating the savings. Sadly, Canada does its best to discourage cross-border shopping, and taxes anything brought back after a trip of 24 hours or less to the hilt.
It would seem that duty-free shopping would help, but it doesn’t. Yes, you can bring home 1.1 L of liquor duty free, but only after seven days away. Yes, you can bring home a carton of cigarettes, but CBSA can, at its option, hit you with a CAD $50 import tax, again after seven days away (they usually don’t, but they can; and they certainly will hit you with the tax if you’ve been away less than seven days). And the prices at the duty-free in the US are hardly anything to go for–on a recent visit, and taking into account the currency difference, a good (not great) bottle of Scotch was roughly the same as I’d pay at home, at the local liquor store.
There was a time when duty-free-shopping made economic sense, but I think those years are over.
Dubai, Singapore, Istanbul, Heathrow Terminal 3 have pretty excellent duty free places. In those its like being in a mall or an upmarket department store.
NY, JFK at least sucks.
As for customs, always look up and follow the rules as stated, but they are’nt usually interested in the stuff brought by a single person, how much can you bring in in 60 kg of luggage? In the US the “free” limit for foreigners is (IIRC) $100. I have never brought in less than $1000 worth of stuff and always declared it honestly. They don’t seem to mind.
Heathrow always seems to be a bit more alert wrt Customs.
I see. The mistake of listening to middle-school English teachers. Easily corrected with a search that includes the following terms: end sentence preposition myth.
As the others have said, you’re fine with the subject line. It’s some weird schoolteacher superstition that you can’t make sentences like “What do you want that for” rather than “For what do you want that?”
That I know. I consider that “superstition” that English grammar should follow Latin grammar. Just like splitting infinitives and all the other related grammatical garbage taught (although I have not encountered splitting infinitives being remarked upon in decades.)
Lots of good answers but I haven’t seen the “ten-year-old” answer yet.
A duty free shop is a place intended for foreigners (or travelers to foreign countries) to buy things before they depart without having to pay the domestic taxes. Sometimes these items are cheaper than what you would pay at your destination, and sometimes they offer goods that are not otherwise exported.
Because they are intended for travelers to take abroad, you must prove you are leaving the country by showing a boarding pass (maybe a passport too, I can’t remember). These shops are located inside the security perimeter to prevent people from simply buying goods and then leaving the airport with them (for many years now only ticketed passengers are allowed through security). They either give you the items in a sealed package, or they take them directly to your boarding gate so you can pick it up while boarding.
Once I bought items in a duty free shop and had a transit stop on the way home. At the intermediate stop, we had to exit the boarding area and clear security again (sometimes you stay in the secure area, but often you have to change terminals and go through security again). Normally you would not be allowed to take liquids through security, but they allowed these through because my liquids were in a sealed duty free package with the receipt visible to verify that the items were all purchased in a duty free shop.
The term “duty free” is confusing because it means local taxes, not Customs duty. If you are American, for example, and buy 10 liters of wine in France at a duty free shop, you are still liable to pay U.S. Customs duty on 9 liters (the Customs duty-free limit is 1 liter per person).
In Japan, foreign tourists can make purchases at many stores outside of airports without paying sales tax. The expectation is that you will be taking these goods out of the country with you, but it doesn’t seem to be vigorously enforced. Last time I was there I bought a new laptop computer in downtown Osaka for my mother-in-law, whom I was visiting in Japan. I got out of paying about $80 in sales tax on it by presenting my US passport at the time of sale. When I left the country, the Nagoya airport customs area had a box you were supposed to throw your tax-free receipts into, which I did - but no one ever checked those receipts while I was there, and no one asked me if I was carrying that laptop out of the country with me.
