What is personal consumption?
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• In theory, you can bring an unlimited amount of drink or cigarettes back from another EU country, provided you can prove they are all for personal consumption. Given that there are only so many cigarettes one man can smoke, the EU has come up with some guidelines defining what it considers to be reasonable, and Customs have adopted these as the point at which they will start to take an interest.
A driver entering the UK from another EU country is permitted to bring in: 800 cigarettes, ikg of tobacco, 400 cigarillos, 200 cigars, 10 litres of spirit, 90 litres of wine and 110 litres of beer.
The fact that many drivers probably enter the UK once a week is taken into account and Customs officers finding less than this amount may still act if they believe the goods are being imported to be resold. It would be difficult for even the heaviest smoker to argue that he was getting through a kilo of rolling tobacco a week, and therefore the driver could become a target for further investigation.
A Customs spokesman says the burden of proof depends on the amount a driver is caught with. "More than the guidelines and the onus will be on the driver to show Et is for personal use, less and it is up to the (Customs) officer to prove it is not."