BRINGING ALCOHOL HOME

Does anyone know how much alcohol you are allowed to bring into the USA from St Martin? Is it by bottle or liter, by family or by person?

I believe it is one liter per person BUT, I have brought back more than that on several occasions and have never been questioned. Will be on the island in three days and counting the hours.

Agreed, I think it is one liter per person, unless it is locally made stuff, like Ma Dou Dou. Regardless, you can bring back as much as you like (for personal use) and just declare it and the worst that can happen is that you will have to pay duty, which is something like 10%. Just declare it regardless and usually they don't charge you duty. If you DON'T declare it, could be big legal problems though.

You are right Carol. I forgot to add in my post that I always declare what I bring back. Big mistake if they see what you did not declare.

We have brought back 10 bottles, five per person, and had no trouble clearing customs. They asked if we had any alcohol, and we said ten bottles, and they just waved us through. The biggest problem we had was getting ten bottles in the suitcases and still staying under the airlines 50 pound weight limit per person per suitcase. Paying the extra baggage fee defeats the purpose of buying the alcohol there.

Ah the days(pre 9-11) when I would bring onto the plane in my soft sided cooler about 6 bottles of Ma Dou Dou. As Carol said it was not considered to be alcohol, but souvenirs ...ya right! But who was I to question it. Nowadays, I only bring home one bottle of Ma Dou Dou and figure that since I am Canadian and travel across the border (from Detroit to Windsor) it is much easier to pick it up at Duty Free at virtually the same cost. Not the case with Americans who do not have this option.

You can bring as much liquor as you want back to the USA but technically only 1 liter per person is Duty Free. You have to declare the rest and it is subject to duty.

Now, for all practical purposes if you are bringing back a "reasonable amount" over the 1 liter Duty Free allowance the Customs agents will usually not assess duty and just "wave you past".

If you are bringing in large amounts (say several cases) you have to obtain an importer's license and comply with the laws governing the importation & transportation laws of the state in which you live.

If you really want to know the law, you can look at:

https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/...or-personal-use

http://www.ttb.gov/importers/personal_importation.shtml

Different states have different rules. Here is Virginia's

Returning from vacation outside of Virginia?
The Code of Virginia prohibits the transportation or importation of more than one gallon of alcohol into the Commonwealth per individual per occasion. You do not need any paperwork to bring back one gallon or less.

Many states have a one gallon rule.

sorry for the length. 5 years ago a sweet lady at the Rum Jumbie booth gave us free shots in the airport-before baggage claim I think- and got me hooked. I've never tried the RJ liqueur .. is it still made? Does anyone like it, or can describe it? I managed to find the flavored rums on line... but might consider a bottle or two of the liqueur. thanks for the opinions

You know, I never thought those rules applied to when you were outside of the country. Could be I was wrong though...

Well, who would expect you to know the law . . . oh, wait....

Each adult 21 years old or older can bring back one liter of alcohol, and if it is made in the Islands, one additional liter.

Yeah, yesh. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" />

Talking federal rules, by law, you can bring back one liter per person duty free -- more under rules specific to a particular location such as VI, Puerto Rico, etc. - as most know, you can bring back more than one liter per person and the agents are very unlikely to make you pay duty if you have few bottles of wine instead of one. Most states restrict you to one gallon (and theoretically state law is enforced by feds) to bring in -- but one gallon per person is more than most people would be bringing in - one gallon is almost exactly five bottles of wine of 750ml size. If you have more than one gallon of alcohol per person you might cause a customs agent to take interest in you, but I have known people off cruise ships to be bringing in a case of wine without being asked to pay any duty - luck of draw on that. Main thing, as said before, is to declare what you have - don't risk getting caught with undeclared stuff just to save a few bucks duty.

I can add that we were returning from a Baltic cruise last Saturday, June 6, coming home through Dulles, and we declared a necklace that we got for about $3,000 - the agent thanked us "for being honest" - told us that he was not going to make us deal with paying any duty - which wasn't much anyway - and let us go. There probably are people on here that have brought back jewelry worth more that have not had to actually pay any duty when bringing it into the US.

Thanks everyone for all your help. Cheers!