Alcohol duty frozen in the UK until 2025

Alcohol duty had been due to rise by 3% in August, but will now rest frozen until February 2025. While alcohol bodies had campaigned for a cut to alcohol duty, they have welcomed the freeze against the wider challenges facing the industry. The UK’s wine and spirit industry is ‘breathing a sign of relief’ following the announcement, says Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) – particularly given the introduction of a new alcohol duty system just six months ago.​ However, he points out that the freeze is only a reprieve and that wine and spirits business still have to steel themselves for complex rules: one of those being the end of wine easement. “The benefits of a freeze will be short lived for wine businesses who are fuming after confirmation that costly and fiendishly complex new taxation rules will come into force from 1 February 2025," he said. "The changes to taxing wine have been described as “un-administrable” and “sheer lunacy” by our ...