Cost calculator
What a parcel of bottles
really costs, delivered
Shipping to your country, the excise duty it charges, insurance and VAT — worked out to the cent on real bottles from our recent auctions. Pick a few, say where they should go, and the whole sum follows.
This is a calculator to play with, not a checkout. Nothing you pick here is ordered, reserved or bid on — these bottles have already been sold. Use it to see what a parcel would cost; you buy by bidding in a live auction.
Your parcel
Put a few bottles
in the box
These bottles sold in our recent auctions. Tick the ones you want in the parcel — mix standard bottles with the larger ones that take up more room, and see what it does to the shipping. Each is priced at what it went for; type another figure to try your own.
The bottles
3 lots in the parcel
A standard bottle takes one slot in our boxes. Larger bottles, gift boxes and tubes take more, miniatures a fraction of one.
The destination sets the shipping rate, the excise duty rate and the VAT rate all three.
We ship to every country in this list. Rules per country
What the parcel would cost
An example, not an order. Nothing is bought or reserved here. Your real costs are on the invoice after you win a lot in a live auction.
Tap any line to see how it is worked out.
Hammer prices € 1.220,00
What the 3 lots went for, added up — or the price you typed in for any of them. This is what the bidding settles; everything below is worked out from it.
Buyer's commission (10%) € 122,00
Our commission on the hammer price. It is what the auction costs you; the seller pays us nothing.
Excise duty € 18,30
Duty on the alcohol itself, worked out per bottle from its volume and its strength at the rate Netherlands charges. It has nothing to do with what the bottle sells for: a cheap bottle and an expensive one of the same size and strength carry exactly the same duty.
Excise handling € 1,50
What it costs us to clear the duty and document it, at € 0,50 per bottle.
Shipping € 33,57
Our rate to Netherlands for the parcels these bottles fill, packed to travel. Everything travels together, so it is charged once for the shipment rather than once per lot.
Transit insurance Not charged
Not insured. A bottle lost or broken in transit would be covered only by the carrier's standard liability, which for a rare bottle is rarely enough to replace it.
VAT (21%) € 32,99
Not a charge of ours: it is the government's tax, which we are obliged to collect and hand over in full. It falls on our commission and services only — the hammer prices carry no VAT, because these bottles come from private sellers. That is the margin scheme, and it is why a private lot works out cheaper than a business one at the same price.
€ 1.428,36 is what you pay in total, with the parcel delivered to Netherlands. Nothing else follows afterwards.
What each lot adds
| Lot | Price | Fee | Duty | Together |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22349 | € 400,00 | € 40,00 | € 7,80 | € 447,80 |
| 23052 | € 740,00 | € 74,00 | € 6,00 | € 820,00 |
| 22461 | € 80,00 | € 8,00 | € 6,00 | € 94,00 |
Shipping, insurance and VAT are charged on the parcel as a whole, so they are not split over the lots.
The link opens on exactly these bottles, prices and destination.
Showing the working
How the shipping and the duty
come to these amounts
The two charges that depend most on what is in the parcel, worked out with the bottles you picked.
Slots and parcels
- Lot 22349 — Banff 1982 ~ 21-years-old 1
- Lot 23052 — Macallan Folio 5 3
- Lot 22461 — Macallan A Night on Earth in Scotland 1
- Together 5
That is 5 whole slots, which is what the shipping is charged for.
A box holds up to 12 slots, so this goes as one parcel:
- Parcel 1 — 5 slots € 33,57
The rate per parcel size to Netherlands
Excise duty, bottle by bottle
Volume × strength × the rate per litre of pure alcohol. No scale, no threshold, and no discount for buying several.
- Lot 22349 0.7 l × 57.1% × € 18,27 = € 7,30
- Lot 23052 0.7 l × 43% × € 18,27 = € 5,50
- Lot 22461 0.7 l × 43% × € 18,27 = € 5,50
On top of the duty itself comes a handling fee per bottle for filing it with the authorities. Duty rates for every country
Asked before a first bid
Buying from
Netherlands
The questions buyers from abroad send us most, answered with the rates for Netherlands. Pick another country in the calculator and the answers follow.
Do you ship to Netherlands?
Yes. We ship to every country in the calculator's list, Netherlands included, from our warehouse in the Netherlands straight to your door, tracked and properly packed for bottles.
A few countries have rules of their own about receiving alcohol by post. Check the rules per country
What does shipping one bottle cost, and three?
A standard 70cl bottle takes one slot in our boxes, and the rate is per parcel rather than per bottle. To Netherlands, a parcel of one slot costs € 13,04 and a parcel of three slots € 23,51 before VAT. A box holds up to 12 slots, so bottles that share one get cheaper each.
Larger bottles, gift boxes and tubes take more than one slot, miniatures a fraction of one. The slots of the whole parcel are added up and rounded up once.
Is the buyer's commission 10% of the hammer price?
Yes, 10% of the hammer price, and nothing is charged to bid. VAT is added to the commission at the Netherlands rate of 21%, so on a bottle at € 50,00 the commission comes to € 5,00 plus € 1,05 VAT.
What else is charged on a delivery to Netherlands?
VAT — 21%, the Netherlands rate, over our commission, the shipping and the excise handling fee. Not over the hammer price: the bottles from private sellers carry none. A lot from a business seller says so on its page, and carries VAT on the hammer price as well.
Excise duty — Netherlands charges € 18,27 per litre of pure alcohol. On a 70cl bottle at 40% that is 0.7 × 40% × € 18,27 = € 5,12. It depends on the volume and strength on the label only, never on the price. Duty rates for every country
Excise handling — € 0,50 per bottle, for clearing the duty with the authorities and documenting it.
Insurance — Optional: 3,5% of the value of the order, with a minimum of € 5,00. On the example below it comes to € 5,78.
Administration fees — None. Paying by iDEAL, bank transfer or a European consumer card costs nothing extra. Only cards issued outside the EU and business cards carry a surcharge of 3,5%, and a late payment fee of 3,5% follows only if an invoice is left unpaid past its 5-day term.
Can I combine bottles from different auctions in one shipment?
Yes, that is what the free storage is for. Every lot stays in our bonded warehouse free of charge for 10 weeks after its own auction closes, so you can gather up wins from two or three auctions and have them shipped together as one parcel.
You pay for the bottles after each auction. When you ask us to send them, the shipping, the excise duty and any insurance come on one invoice, at the same rates as above and for the combined slots — so three bottles from three auctions ship for the three-slot rate, not three times the one-slot rate.
The weeks run per lot, so the bottle from the earliest auction sets the pace. After its free weeks a storage fee of 3,5% applies, with a minimum of € 5,00.
What do 3 bottles at € 50,00 each cost, delivered to Netherlands?
3 standard 70cl bottles from our recent auctions, each knocked down at € 50,00 and shipped together:
- Hammer prices
- € 150,00
- Buyer's commission (10%)
- € 15,00
- Excise duty
- € 19,69
- Excise handling
- € 1,50
- Shipping
- € 23,51
- VAT (21%)
- € 8,41
- Total it would come to
- € 218,11
With the shipment insured it comes to € 223,89. It is an example to show how the sum works, not an offer: these bottles have already been sold. The bottles in the example are real, so their own volume and strength set the duty. Put the example in the calculator to see it bottle by bottle, or change the prices to your own.
The small print
What these figures
take for granted
The sum above runs on exactly the same rates and the same calculations as an invoice does. These are the few things that can still move it.
Bottles from several auctions
Each lot stays with us free of charge for 10 weeks after its own auction, so wins from different auctions can be shipped together as one parcel, priced exactly as above. After those weeks a storage fee applies, and it is not part of the figures above.
Private sellers only
The bottles here were all sold by private collectors, so there is no VAT on their hammer price. A lot from a business seller carries VAT on the hammer price as well; its own lot page says so, and its costs page includes it.
Paid on time, by an ordinary card
There are no administration fees. The sum assumes you pay within the 5-day term and not with a card issued outside the EU or a business card; those carry a surcharge of 3,5%, and paying late adds 3,5%.
Duty follows the bottle, not the price
Excise duty is worked out from the volume and the strength printed on the label. Changing the price of a bottle above changes its fee and its VAT, never its duty.
Rates as they stand today
Duty rates, VAT rates and carrier rates are the ones in force right now. If one changes between an auction closing and your invoice, the invoice follows the new rate.
Outside the EU
We charge neither European VAT nor European excise duty on a parcel leaving the EU. Your own customs will charge import duties and taxes on arrival, at rates we have no sight of.