National statistics

Alcohol Bulletin

Quarterly statistics from the 4 different alcohol duty regimes administered by HM Revenue and Customs.

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Details

The Alcohol Bulletin National Statistics present statistics from the Alcohol Duty administered by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on 4 different alcohol categories: Wine (wine and other fermented products), Spirits, Beer and Cider.

The Alcohol Bulletin is updated quarterly and includes statistics on duty receipts up to the latest full month before its release, and statistics relating to clearances and production that are one month behind that of duty receipts.

Archive versions of the Alcohol Bulletin published on GOV.UK after August 2019 are no longer hosted on this page and are instead available via the UK Government Web Archive, from The National Archives.

Archive versions of the Alcohol Bulletin published between 2008 and August 2019 are found on the archived UK Trade Info website, accessed via the National Archives.

Error corrections and revisions in this edition

HMRC has identified two minor analytical errors affecting published statistics for Alcohol Duty clearances.

The first resulted in understated clearances for spirits based ready to drink goods in the period from February 2021 to June 2023. The majority of revisions resulted in an increase for spirit ready to drink goods clearances of between 3% and 9%. There were 4 revisions of between 15% and 50%, with one revision of around 200% in January 2022.

This error also resulted in a much smaller understatement of clearances of ex-ship and other spirits goods, with the largest revision resulting in an increase to ex-ship and other spirits clearances of around 0.1% in June 2022.

We have now reviewed the methodology used to produce these figures and have updated the series back to July 2010.

The second error affected clearance figures involving imported goods across all alcohol types in the period from June 2022 onwards, with the majority of these revisions resulting in changes of less than 10% to the affected fields. The largest two revisions resulted in decreases to made wine ex-ship clearances of around 40% and 50% in September and December 2022 respectively.

This methodology has also been reviewed, and the series affected have been updated in this edition.

Neither of these errors had any effect on published receipts figures for any alcohol type.

Quality report

Further details for this statistical release, including data suitability and coverage, are included within the Alcohol Bulletin quality report.

Published 26 February 2016
Last updated 29 February 2024 + show all updates
  1. Updated to include provisional receipts data from November 2023 to January 2024 and provisional clearances and production data from October to December 2023.

  2. Updated with provisional data from August to October 2023

  3. Update with provisional data from May 2023 to July 2023.

  4. Update with provisional data from February to April 2023

  5. Updated with provisional data from November 2022 to January 2023

  6. Update with provisional data from August 2022 to October 2022

  7. Update with provisional data from May to July 2022

  8. Update with provisional data from February to April 2022

  9. Update with provisional data from November 2021 to January 2022

  10. Update with provisional data from August to October 2021

  11. Update with provisional data from May 2021 to July 2021

  12. Update with provisional data from February 2021 to April 2021

  13. Update with provisional data from November 2020 to January 2021

  14. Update with provisional data from August 2020 to October 2020

  15. Updated with provisional data from May 2020 to July 2020

  16. Updated with provisional data from February 2020 to April 2020

  17. Update with provisional data from November 2019 to January 2020

  18. Update with provisional data from August 2019 to October 2019

  19. Update with provisional data from May 2019 to July 2019

  20. Update with provisional data from February 2019 to April 2019.

  21. Update with provisional data from November 2018 to January 2019.

  22. Update with provisional data from August 2018 to October 2018

  23. Update with provisional data from May 2018 to July 2018

  24. Update with provisional data from February 2017 to April 2018.

  25. Update with provisional data from November 2017 to January 2018.

  26. Update with provisional data from August 2017 to October 2017

  27. Update with provisional data from May 2017 to July 2017

  28. Update with provisional data from February 2017 to April 2017

  29. Update with provisional data from November 2016 to January 2017

  30. Update with provisional data from August 2016 to October 2016

  31. Update with provisional data from July 2016

  32. Update with provisional data from June 2016

  33. Update with provisional data from May 2016

  34. Update with provisional data from April 2016

  35. Update with provisional data from March 2016

  36. Update with provisional data from February 2016

  37. First published.