Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Declarations

From 1 February 2025, you must hold an alcoholic products producer approval (APPA) to produce alcoholic products in the UK.

From 1 March 2025, you must submit Alcohol Duty returns and payments using the Manage your Alcohol Duty service.

Under the APPA, you can be authorised to produce, hold and move alcoholic products in duty suspension. You’ll no longer be required to operate an excise warehouse alongside your APPA, but you can do if you want.

If you continue to hold an excise warehouse alongside your APPA, you can use the Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Duty (ATWD) service or the W5 and W5D forms to submit your return. You’ll also need to submit a nil return through the Manage your Alcohol Duty service. If you do not, we may charge penalties to your account.

For returns up to and including February 2025, you should use ATWD or W5 and W5D forms to declare and pay duty. You will not be able to report and account for this Alcohol Duty using the Manage your Alcohol Duty service.

You can also check if there are any current problems with this service, or times it will not be available.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Declarations (ATWD) online service is available to excise warehousekeepers who are authorised to operate premises approved as excise warehouses.

You can use it to submit the following forms online:

You’ll get an immediate acknowledgement on-screen confirming HMRC has your return/warrant.

If you have XML software, ATWD can also work with it. This helps reduce administration further with very little manual intervention needed.