What the duty does to every line
£2.20 duty per 10ml, plus VAT on top of it. Edit cost, shelf price or pack size and everything recalculates. Sorted by margin lost, worst first.
| SKU / name | Category | ml / pack | Cost ex VAT (now) | Shelf now (inc VAT) | Cash margin now | Duty | Cost ex VAT (after) | Margin if price held | Margin lost / week | Shelf to hold cash margin | Shelf to hold % margin ⚠ | Remove |
|---|
Kits, coils and hardware carry no duty — those rows stay exactly where they are. That's the rule, not a rounding error.
Bundle deals
Multibuys are where duty bites first, because the per-unit price is already cut to the bone.
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The rules, in full
Stock ledger — duty stamp evidence pack
Every delivery line, and whether you can prove it
One row per delivery, not per SKU — because Trading Standards asks about the delivery. Unstamped stock bought before 1 October can be sold until 31 March 2027, but only if you can show when it arrived.
This is what you hand Trading Standards. Keep it six years.
| SKU | Qty received | Qty remaining | Supplier | Invoice no. | Date received | Produced/imported pre-1 Oct? | Stamped? | Evidence attached? | Status | Notes / action | Remove |
|---|
What HMRC expects you to keep
Buy it now, or pay the duty on it later
Stock produced or imported before 1 October can be sold unstamped right through to 31 March 2027. Every bottle you buy before then is a bottle you don't pay duty on. Every bottle you over-buy is a bottle you can't legally sell on 1 April.
| SKU | Weekly sales | In stock | Need to 31 Mar | Case size | Buy (cases) | Buy (units) | Cash | Duty saved | Saved per £1 | If sales drop |
|---|
Before you spend a penny of this
- Get “produced or imported before 1 October 2026” stated on the invoice or delivery note. Without it you have no defence in the grace period, and the stock is worth nothing to you after 31 March.
- Your wholesaler has the same maths in front of them. Pre-duty stock will be allocated, not unlimited.
- Shelf life and flavour fashion are real. Twenty-nine weeks of a slow line is twenty-nine weeks of dead cash even before the duty question.
- Anything unsold and unstamped on 1 April 2027 is illegal to hold. You can't discount your way out of it — it gets destroyed or seized.