Duty Free FAQs

“Duty Free” is the term commonly used to describe products that are exempt of excise duty & tax. As the UK will officially become a non-EU country, excise duty will no longer need to be paid on the products sold in our onboard shops when we sail to countries within the EU.

The last time we had Duty Free on our UK routes was 1999 when it was decided that Duty Free shopping for passengers travelling between two EU countries would come to an end. Now the UK will no longer be an EU country, Duty Free will once again be available onboard our routes from the UK to Europe.

Duty Free will be available on the following routes:

• Newcastle – Amsterdam
• Dover – Calais
• Dover – Dunkirk
• Newhaven - Dieppe

You can now browse and reserve great duty free deals in the comfort of your own home with our Reserve & Collect service.

Duty Free and tax free shopping will be available on products in our onboard shops including:

• Perfume
• Cosmetics
• Alcohol
• Tobacco
• Technology

Duty Free allowances per passenger aged 18 or over

Beers, wines and spirits

• 42 litres of beer
• 18 litres of still wine (24x75cl bottles)
• 4 litres of spirits or strong liquor over 22% abv or 9 litres of sparkling wine or fortified wine or other alcoholic dinks less than 22% abv)

Tobacco
200 cigarettes or
100 cigarillos or
50 cigars or
250g tobacco or
200 sticks of tobacco for heating or any proportional combination

Any other goods £390 worth of any other goods such as fragrance & cosmetics, gifts, souvenirs or electrical products

In order to declare any tax or duty owed before arrival in the UK please use this link: https://www.gov.uk/duty-free-goods/declaring-goods

Once per season we employ an independent company to survey the prices of wine & spirit products at selected high street retailers to create an average high street price. We then use this average high street price as a benchmark to show the savings available when buying in our duty free sea shops onboard. For all other categories the recommended retail price is used as the benchmark to show our savings.

A quick check of your driver manual will give you the maximum load allowance of your specific car.

Allow for 1.1 kgs per bottle of wine, 1.3kgs per bottle of champagne / sparkling wine and around 12kgs per case of beer. Meaning that your full allowance per person would weigh...

24 Bottles of Wine: 26kgs on average
4 Litres of Spirits: 6kgs on average
42 litres of beer: 42 kgs on average

= under 75 kgs ( approximately equivalent to one passenger )

We have hundreds of duty (and tax) free deals in-store and you can save up to 50% versus the UK high street.

Of course!

Our tasting area is designed to make choosing which wines to buy less stressful, help you discover new things and make sure that when you leave, you have made the right choices for your taste.

All our staff are bilingual, rest assured we are here to help.

We accept payment in Sterling or Euro Cash (we recommend that you pay sterling cash to guarantee the advertised sterling price). Please note that all cards are processed in Euros. Therefore you may pay a little more or a little less depending on the euro to sterling conversion rate used by your card provider on the day.

Absolutely. We've launched our our Reserve & Collect Service so you can select your shopping from the comfort of your home or you can email us on DunkerqueDutyFree@dfds.com or CalaisDutyFree@dfds.com to make sure we reserve the products that you need in advance of your visit.

We are open from 8.00 am to 10pm, 7 days a week in Calais and from 8.30 am to 7.30 pm in Dunkerque.

We change our offers every couple of months and benchmark our savings claims against the RRP in the UK.

We try hard to be as close as possible to the going exchange rates, so we set our rate monthly.

No problem at all. You have not paid for the order so just let us know and we can amend the collection date or cancel for you.

Regrettably, the rules that apply to Duty Free Sales prevent us from being able to deliver. All goods must cross the border with their owners.

Absolutely. Nothing is set in stone until you get to the in-store payment stage. If you change your mind and let us know up to 24hours before collection we will amend it. We can also amend in-store when you are here if you change your mind.

If you have any questions that aren’t covered here, send us an email on DunkerqueDutyFree@dfds.com or CalaisDutyFree@dfds.com and we will be in touch within 24hours to answer your query.