Check if you need approval to sell alcoholic products to another business
Check if you must register for the Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme (AWRS) to sell alcoholic products to another business.
Overview
If you sell alcoholic products to another business, you may need to apply for approval for the Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme (AWRS). HMRC introduced the scheme to tackle alcohol fraud.
When you must apply
If you’re going to start wholesaling in alcoholic products, you must apply for approval at least 45 days before you intend to start trading. You should make sure you have sufficient business planning in place before you apply, so we can check you meet the criteria for the AWRS.
You must wait until you get approval from HMRC before you start trading. You’ll face penalties if you trade without approval.
Who must apply
You’ll need to apply for the AWRS if all of the following apply:
- your business sells, or arranges the sale of alcoholic products, and has an establishment in the UK
- your sales are made at, or after, the point where excise duty is due
- any sales to other businesses are made for onward sale or supply
Selling alcoholic products for resale
All businesses that supply alcoholic products to other businesses for resale need to apply. This includes:
- breweries and microbreweries
- wine producers, including producers of other fermented products (previously known as ‘made-wine’)
- vineyards
- spirit producers
- cider producers, unless charged a nil rate of Alcohol Duty under the Small Producer Relief scheme
- wine importers
- general wholesalers selling alcoholic products, including cash and carry businesses
- specialist wine wholesalers
You’ll also have to apply if you’re supplying alcoholic products to other businesses for resale as:
- a broker
- a retailer who makes regular sales to other businesses
- an auctioneer
- a charity, non-profit organisation or educational establishment that either produces or supplies alcoholic products to other businesses for resale
Types of business
You can apply for approval as a:
- limited company
- sole trader or self-employed
- business partnership
- limited liability partnership
- limited partnership
- group
If you work for yourself, you must register for Self Assessment and enrol in the online service before you apply for the AWRS. Your agent or accountant will still be able to submit your Self Assessment tax return if you’ve authorised them to do so.
Who does not need to apply
You do not need to apply if you’re only involved in the following sales.
Incidental sales
You do not need approval if you’re a licensed retailer or trader who does not set out to sell alcoholic products to other businesses. This could be because you:
- only make unintentional wholesale sales in the course of your retail activity, like unplanned sales through a supermarket checkout
- knowingly make wholesale sales to a buyer who approaches you, but only on an exceptional basis — for example, sales from a shop to a local restaurant that has run out of a certain type of wine
In these cases you may not know the buyer. The only indication that they’re buying alcoholic products for commercial purposes may be if they ask for a tax invoice.
Corporate group sales
You will not need approval to make wholesale sales of alcoholic products between members of the same corporate group.
If you make any wholesale sales outside of the corporate group, the companies involved will need to apply for approval.
If more than one company from the same group makes wholesale sales, those companies can apply for group AWRS approval.
How to apply for approval
Find out how to apply for the Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme.
Buying alcoholic products to sell
If you buy alcoholic products to sell from a UK wholesaler, you’ll need to check that the wholesaler is approved by HMRC.
You’ll need to repeat this check regularly, to make sure that any wholesalers you buy from are still approved for the AWRS. Keep records of these checks as evidence of your due diligence activities.
Learn more about the AWRS
Read Excise Notice 2002 to learn more about:
- conditions for AWRS approval
- restrictions that we may need to apply to your business
- group approvals
- records you must keep
- sanctions and penalties
Updates to this page
Published 23 March 2015Last updated 6 March 2025 + show all updates
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Details of who needs to apply for approval have been updated. The sections 'Statistics', 'Making changes' and 'Penalties' have been removed. The sections 'Who must apply', 'Buying alcoholic products to sell' and 'Learn more about the AWRS' have been added.
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Statistics for Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme (AWRS) applications added to the guidance.
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Added a link to the new online service that lets users check if a wholesaler is approved.
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Page amended to make retailers aware of their obligations.
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As a result of feedback this guidance has been reformatted to make it easier to follow.
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This guidance has been updated to reflect changes to registration information.
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Details about how to apply for registration have been added to this page.
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Section 'When to apply for registration' has been updated to remind customers about registering for a Government Gateway ID for Self Assessment online.
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This guidance has been updated to include information about how to apply for AWRS from 1 January 2016
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This guide has been updated to reflect changes to the dates you should register for the Alcohol Wholsaler Registration Scheme (AWRS) and when penalties come in to effect.
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Launch of AWRS has been postponed until 1 January 2016
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First published.