Tax and dealsData study

How much of this bottle is tax? Whisky duty calculator

Name: How much of this bottle is tax? Whisky duty calculator
Creator: Uisge Beatha

Tax is about 64% of the price of a £20 bottle of whisky, and about 26% of a £100 one.

Prices checked 14 October 2026Updated 23 October 2026

64% of the price of a £20 bottle of whisky is duty and VAT, against about 26% of a £100 one

64% of the price of a £20, 70cl bottle at 40% ABV is tax.

Duty £9.51 · 48%
VAT £3.33 · 17%
Everything else £7.16 · 36%

Duty is £33.99 a litre of pure alcohol (HMRC, from 1 February 2026); VAT is one sixth of the price.

Every bottle we found in stock, at its lowest UK shelf price on 14 October 2026

Pick a bottle we found in the shops, or enter any size, strength and price. Duty depends only on the alcohol in the bottle; VAT rises with the price. So the cheaper the whisky, the more of what you pay is tax.

Duty and VAT as a share of the lowest shelf price, 435 bottles
Shelf price	Bottles	Median tax share	Range
Under £20	4	44.6%	28.7% to 66.8%
£20 to £30	18	54.3%	28.6% to 70%
£30 to £50	113	41%	25.6% to 53.3%
£50 to £100	161	33.3%	26.7% to 42.4%
£100 and over	139	21.8%	16.8% to 29.9%

Ready reckoner: tax in a 70cl bottle

ABV	Duty	At £20	At £30	At £50	At £100
40%	£9.51	64%	48%	36%	26%
43%	£10.23	68%	51%	37%	27%
46%	£10.94	71%	53%	39%	28%
50%	£11.89	76%	56%	40%	29%
57%	£13.56	84%	62%	44%	30%

Proof History and Conversion Math

Before precision hydrometers became standard in commercial distilling, spirit strength was determined by the gunpowder test. Purveyors mixed spirits with gunpowder and applied a flame. If the powder failed to burn, the spirit was declared “under proof” (too much water diluted the potassium nitrate). If the powder flashed or burned steadily with a blue flame, the spirit was deemed “100 degrees proof”.

When analytical science standardised this test in the nineteenth century, it was determined that a gunpowder-ignitable ethanol-water solution corresponded to exactly 57.1429% alcohol by volume (ABV) at 51°F (10.6°C).

UK Sikes Proof vs US Proof Systems

Two distinct national legal systems evolved from this heritage:

British (Sikes) Proof: Standardised under the Hydrometer Act 1818 (58 Geo. III c. 28) using Bartholomew Sikes’ hydrometer. The conversion ratio between Sikes proof degrees and percentage ABV was: $$\text{Degrees Proof (UK)} = \text{% ABV} \times 1.7512$$
- 100° Proof (UK) = 57.14% ABV (traditional British Navy strength).
- 70° Proof (UK) = 39.97% ABV (standard historic UK bottling strength, rounded to 40% ABV).
- 175.12° Proof (UK) = 100.0% pure ethanol.
American Proof: Defined under United States federal regulations (27 CFR § 5.37) as twice the percentage of alcohol by volume at 60°F (15.56°C): $$\text{Degrees Proof (US)} = \text{% ABV} \times 2.0$$
- 100 Proof (US) = 50.0% ABV (the statutory threshold for Bottled in Bond bourbon).
- 80 Proof (US) = 40.0% ABV (the minimum statutory bottling strength for whiskey).
- 200 Proof (US) = 100.0% pure ethanol.

The 1980 Metrication Transition

On 1 January 1980, the United Kingdom formally retired the Sikes proof system under the provisions of the Finance Act 1979 and European Council Directive 76/766/EEC on alcoholometry. All spirits taxation, commercial labelling, and customs declarations were converted to percentage alcohol by volume (% ABV) measured at 20°C. While the word “proof” survives informally in American marketing (e.g. 100-proof bourbon), in the UK and European Union, alcohol strength must by law appear in metric % vol.

£9.51 of duty is in every 70cl bottle at 40% ABV, whatever it costs: duty is charged on alcohol, at £33.99 a litre since 1 February 2026.
VAT is always one sixth of the price, so even the dearest bottle is at least 16.7% tax.
The cheaper the bottle, the bigger the tax share. Of the bottles we found in stock, those under £30 were roughly half tax; those over £100, about a fifth.

Source: HMRC, Alcohol Duty rates (from 1 February 2026), retrieved 23 October 2026. Updated 23 October 2026. Free to reuse with a link to this page.

About this data: method, downloads and sources

How we did it

For each bottle in stock at the UK retailers we check, we take its lowest shelf price on the collection date.

Alcohol Duty = size in litres × ABV × HMRC’s rate for that strength, rounded down to the penny, as HMRC instructs. ABV appears only because the law taxes alcohol by strength. VAT is 20% of the price including duty, which is one sixth of a VAT-inclusive shelf price.

Assumptions. Standard rates throughout. Small Producer Relief exists but only for products under 8.5% ABV, so no whisky qualifies. Shelf prices exclude delivery, which carries its own VAT. Gift sets, multi-bottle packs and bottles without a stated ABV are left out. Loch Fyne Whiskies and The Whisky Shop share an owner and count as one retailer. “Everything else” is the whisky, packaging, distribution and the margins of producer and shop; we can’t split it further. This is an illustration, not a tax calculation for a business. We update it on Budget day.

How the rate has changed (spirits, per litre of pure alcohol; HMRC Alcohol Bulletin):

On smaller screens, scroll sideways to see every column.

From	Rate	Duty on 70cl at 40%
17 March 2008	£21.35	£5.97
26 March 2012	£26.81	£7.50
25 March 2013	£28.22	£7.90
23 March 2015 (2% cut)	£27.66	£7.74
13 March 2017, then frozen	£28.74	£8.04
1 August 2023, new strength-based system	£31.64	£8.85
1 February 2025	£32.79	£9.18
1 February 2026 (RPI, 3.66%)	£33.99	£9.51

HMRC’s table goes back to 1982, and the CSV download lists every bottle.

Download the data

Duty and VAT for every bottle (CSV)

Free to reuse with a link to this page.

Sources

Prices are the shelf prices we recorded at UK retailers on the dates shown and change daily. Uisge Beatha compares prices; it does not sell whisky or give investment advice. Please enjoy whisky responsibly: drinkaware.co.uk.

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