How much excise duty is there on a bottle of whisky?

On a 70 cl bottle of whisky with 40 percent alcohol there is 5.12 euro of excise duty. The calculation goes in three steps.

• 70 cl is 0.70 liter, and that is 0.007 hectoliter.
• 0.007 hectolitre times 40 percent by volume times 18.27 euros gives 5.1156 euros.
• Rounded, the excise duty thus comes out at 5.12 euro per bottle.

The Douane calculates along the same lines: the number of hectolitres times the alcohol percentage times the rate, with the number of hectolitres rounded to three decimals and the alcohol percentage to one decimal. If you prefer to calculate with pure alcohol, you arrive at the same amount: 0.70 litres times 40 percent is 0.28 litres of pure alcohol, and 0.0028 hectolitres times 1,827.00 euros is likewise 5.1156 euros.

The rate for other alcoholic products is 18.27 euros per hectolitre at 20 degrees Celsius, per percent by volume of alcohol. Converted, that is 1,827.00 euros per hectolitre of pure alcohol.

Whisky falls in the excise group of other alcoholic products, together with gin, rum, genever, vodka and liqueur. The rate has applied since 1 January 2024 and remains unchanged on the rate list for excise duty and consumption tax of 1 April 2026, the reference date of this page. The amount depends solely on the quantity of alcohol in the bottle. Age, origin, type of cask or retail price of the whisky play no role in it.

VAT of 21 percent is charged on the sum of product price and excise duty. The excise duty is part of the taxable amount, so a further 1.07 euros of VAT is levied on that 5.12 euros.

The European VAT directive states in Article 78 that taxes, duties and levies are included in the taxable amount, with the exception of VAT itself. Excise duty falls under this. For whisky the general VAT rate of 21 percent applies in the Netherlands. For a 70 cl bottle at 40 percent, the excise duty and the VAT on it therefore add up to 6.19 euros, even before the bottle itself and the work around it are counted.

The rate is per volume percent of alcohol, so a higher percentage means proportionally more excise duty. A 70 cl bottle at 60 percent costs 7.67 euro in excise duty instead of 5.12 euro.

• 70 cl at 40 percent: 5.12 euros excise duty.
• 70 cl at 46 percent: 5.88 euro excise duty.
• 70 cl at 60 percent: 7.67 euro excise duty.

In the whisky section at Brink 2 in Bathmen there are 822 whiskies of 70 cl with an alcohol percentage between 54.5 and 66.8 percent. Per bottle the excise duty weighs more heavily on those than on a 40 percent bottling, while the amount per litre of pure alcohol stays exactly the same.

Beer, wine and spirits each have their own excise base. Beer is taxed per volume percent, wine per hectolitre of product in two brackets, and spirits per hectolitre of pure alcohol.

• Beer: 8.12 euros per hectolitre per volume percent of alcohol at the normal rate, with a minimum of 26.13 euros per hectolitre. A 33 cl bottle at 5 percent therefore comes to about 0.13 euros.
• Wine: 47.95 euro per hectolitre up to and including 8.5 percent alcohol, and 95.69 euro per hectolitre above that. A 75 cl bottle at 13 percent comes to roughly 0.72 euro.
• Whisky and other spirits: 18.27 euro per hectolitre per percent by volume, so 5.12 euro on a 70 cl bottle at 40 percent.

The result is that the alcohol percentage of a wine within its band changes nothing about the excise duty, whereas with whisky every percentage point of volume counts.

Regulation (EU) 2019/787 prescribes that the alcohol by volume of whisky or whiskey is at least 40 percent. Below that limit a spirit drink may not bear the name whisky.

Dezelfde bijlage eist dat het einddistillaat ten minste drie jaar rijpt op houten fusten met een capaciteit van niet meer dan 700 liter. Voor de accijns betekent de ondergrens dat er op elke fles whisky van 70 cl minstens 5,12 euro accijns is afgedragen. In het whiskyschap in Bathmen staan 496 whisky’s van 70 cl met 40 tot 40,5 procent alcohol, van 203 merken en uit 21 landen, binnen een totaal van 3.882 whisky’s. NIX18: wij verkopen geen alcohol aan personen onder de 18 jaar.