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No holiday is complete without first running the perfume-scented gauntlet of airport duty-free.
With the anxiety of transit, check-in and customs behind you, you emerge into an assault course of the senses: gaudy whiskey displays, exotic fragrances and novelty-sized chocolate bars siren-calling you to reach into your pocket.
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But is duty-free really the Aladdin’s cave of cut-price wonder it claims to be? Or is that, in fact, just a well-marketed myth?
We wanted to know so we looked into the cost of eight popular duty-free mainstays spanning a range of categories and cross-referenced them against 12 major airports to see which offered the best value, but first…
Duty is the tax you pay on taking a product across international borders. This includes value-added tax and customs tax, which vary by country.
The story of duty-free begins on the windswept coast of western Ireland in 1947. It was the brainchild of Brendan O’Regan, a comptroller at the minuscule Shannon Airport, a popular re-fuelling spot for flights ferrying celebrities (the only people who could afford transatlantic air travel back then) between the U.S. and Europe.
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O’Regan realised these super-rich passers-by were an untapped source of great wealth for Shannon. So he persuaded the Irish government to create a tax loophole that allowed him to sell farm foods and Irish whiskey to transiting passengers, with the usual customs taxes knocked off. They never left the airport, he argued, so why should they have to pay local duties on products they wouldn’t be consuming locally?
The idea took off. Inspired by Shannon’s success, Amsterdam opened its own micro free-trade zone in 1957, before the concept went to the U.S. in 1962.
In 2021, according to Fortune Business Insights, international travellers spent $35.87 billion (£33.45 billion) in duty-free stores, a figure that is expected to more than double by 2029.
The world of retail has changed hugely since the 1940s. In today’s age of online discounts, year-round sales and growing competition for consumer attention, does duty-free actually still save you money? And if so, where can you get the best deals?
We chose a handful of the most iconic products from the best-known brands that you would expect to see in any duty-free store across the world.
It is important to note that it is illegal in some countries, such as Turkey, to advertise alcohol or tobacco products, meaning the prices of some items were not readily available online, and could not be provided remotely. In other cases — such as Madrid, Rome, Prague and Warsaw — our requests for further information regarding some products (cigarettes in particular) received no response from the airports and duty-free retailers we reached out to at the time of writing.
Related: How to travel to Madrid on a budget and still have a great time
We then looked for the best high-street and online prices we could find for each product. In the interests of parity, we excluded limited-time offers or seasonal sales from our searches.
In short, VAT varies from country to country so there’s no hard rule as to what you can save in duty-free. In the U.K. the standard rate for most goods and services is 20%. In Italy it is 22%, in Luxembourg, it’s 17%. The U.S. on the other hand levies no VAT. Though, like most countries, it does require consumers to pay some customs tax upon taking certain goods out of the country.
In addition to this, duty-free prices vary between airports depending on local costs like employing staff, rents and rates, and other taxes. In other words, they can pretty much set their pricing as they see fit. Duty-free prices in one airport, therefore, may not be consistent with those in another airport in the same country.
With that in mind, here are a few things we learned:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, millionaire’s playground Dubai — whose duty-free emporium turned over US$976 million (£863 million) in 2021 — is on average the most expensive airport when it comes to alcohol and beauty products.
Interestingly, though, JFK is the most expensive airport in our list to specifically buy champagne — 50% more expensive than if you were to buy it in a British supermarket, and more than £15 dearer than the average across all the airports we researched.
Sunglasses are most expensive in sunspots Mexico City and Dubai — the two places on our list where you’re most likely to need them.
When it comes to booze, Swedish capital Stockholm, on average, offered the best value of all the airports we surveyed. There, a bottle of brut champagne costs just £28, compared to £31.99 at Heathrow and £41 in the supermarket. Meanwhile a bottle of premium Tallisker scotch costs £49 there, and £61.29 at Heathrow.
However, if American whiskey’s your tipple, the best price is in Warsaw, where a 1L bottle of Jack Daniels costs just £17.61, almost £10 cheaper than at Heathrow and half the price at British supermarkets.
Warsaw is also where you can buy the cheapest beauty products, consistently cheaper than both the average across airports and on the U.K. high street when looking at product-by-product comparisons.
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As for tobacco products, committed smokers will be happiest in Dubai, where 200 Marlboro Gold cigarettes cost £22.56 — a third the price of the same carton at Heathrow, and 500% cheaper than in a British supermarket.
The truth is, for a lot of products, there isn’t always much difference between duty-free and the prices you can get at home — especially if you’re prepared to hunt online.
The key differentials are tobacco and alcohol, which are both taxed heavily in the U.K. and therefore can be bought for a lot less at the airport.
Related: 11 ways to save money on your next holiday
But it’s a more complicated picture when it comes to beauty products. A stick of YSL Rouge Pur Couture, for instance, is £30 in British shops — exactly the same price you’d pay at Heathrow. And the only two airports where you’d pay less than that are Rome and Warsaw, for a saving of just £3.
The same goes for accessories such as sunglasses and watches. We found that, while airport prices may compete with what you’d pay in Ray Ban’s central London shop, a quick search online will often yield a far better deal.
*All prices have been converted from the local currency and rounded to the nearest pound
**Not Available
You can’t just fill up a suitcase of whiskey and perfume on a trip home from Greece. But the U.K. does have fairly generous allowances for what you can bring back.
According to the U.K. government website, you can bring in other goods worth up to £390 (or up to £270 if you arrive by private plane or boat).
However, if you go over your allowance then you must pay tax and duty on the total value of the goods, not just the value above the allowance. You may also have to pay import VAT and customs duty if you exceed your allowance.
To get a duty-free bargain on anything that’s not alcohol or cigarettes, you should always do some research before you travel. Because duty-free isn’t always the great deal it is marketed as.
An online sale or in-store offer can often make lower-taxed items cheaper at home than in a duty-free shop, especially if you’re buying makeup, where you might find that the duty-free discount is not better than a gift set offered at your local pharmacy or beauty store.
If you’re in the market for a pair of designer sunglasses or big brand perfume, know ahead of time what it costs both at home and on the web so you’ll recognise a good deal if and when you see it during your holiday.
Featured image by BSIP/UIG VIA GETTY.
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