How Much Alcohol and Tobacco Can You Bring Into Belize Duty-Free?
On this page 3 sections
Verified on 14 November 2026 on the Belize Customs and Excise Department’s Conditional Exemptions from Duties and Taxes and its Taxes and Exemptions page, and on the Customs and Excise Duties (Inwards Duty-Free Shops) Regulations as printed in the Revised Edition 2020 of the Subsidiary Laws of Belize (Attorney General’s Ministry).
The Belize Customs and Excise Department lists, for a passenger eighteen years old and over, an exemption from duties and taxes for “Wines or spirits not exceeding one litre in all” and for tobacco not exceeding 250 grams, or cigars not exceeding fifty in number, or cigarettes not exceeding Two Hundred in number. The exemption covers these items carried as the passenger’s accompanied baggage. Read 14 November 2026 on the department’s website.
| Item | Duty-free limit as the department prints it | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Wines or spirits | Not exceeding one litre in all | Passenger eighteen years old and over |
| Tobacco | Not exceeding 250 grams, or | Passenger eighteen years old and over |
| Cigars | Not exceeding fifty, in number, or | Passenger eighteen years old and over |
| Cigarettes | Not exceeding Two Hundred in number | Passenger eighteen years old and over |
| Wearing apparel, jewelry, toilet requisites, portable articles | Those reasonably expected to be carried for the passenger’s own private and personal use | Any passenger |
| Other goods acquired abroad | BZ$200.00 per person up to a maximum of BZ$600.00 per family through an international airport; BZ$50.00 per person up to a maximum of BZ$150.00 per family through other ports of entry | A Belizean passenger only (including one under eighteen); the goods must accompany the passenger, have been acquired abroad “for his personal use or as souvenirs or gifts” and be “admitted as such by the Comptroller of Customs” |
The department joins the wine-or-spirits line to the tobacco lines with and, and the three tobacco lines to each other with or: one litre of wines or spirits, plus one of the three tobacco amounts.
The conditions the department attaches
- No more than the listed quantities. A passenger is not entitled to the exemption for alcoholic beverages or tobacco products in excess of the quantities shown.
- Border-town visits. “A passenger returning from a visit to a neighboring border town or city shall not be entitled to the exemption granted above in respect of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products.”
- How often. “A passenger may claim an allowance through an International Airport twice a year and once a month through other points of entry.”
- Arms. The exemptions do not apply to arms and ammunition.
The goods allowance in the last row of the table belongs to Belizean passengers. The department defines a Belizean family as one where the husband or the wife or partner is a citizen of Belize, and a family as the household of the couple and minor children under the age of 18. On its Taxes and Exemptions page the department also states that “General Sales Tax is charged at a rate of 12.5% based on the aggregate of the customs value and any other relative duty”.
Arrivals duty-free shops: the regulations
The Customs and Excise Duties (Inwards Duty-Free Shops) Regulations, in the Revised Edition 2020, allow inwards duty-free shops to be established at any international airport in Belize and set these limits on what they sell:
| Rule | As the regulations print it |
|---|---|
| Who may buy, regulation 7(1) | Passengers of or above the age of sixteen years who have arrived on an international flight, before they clear the customs area |
| Liquor and tobacco, regulation 7(2) | No liquor, tobacco, cigars and cigarettes sold to a person under the age of eighteen years |
| Per year, regulation 8(1) | No purchases of more than “a total value of three thousand dollars in the currency of the United States of America” in any period of twelve months |
| Per arrival, regulation 8(3) | No more than three units of any of the categories (a), (b) or (c) of regulation 6 on any one occasion or day of arrival |
| Counted together, regulation 8(4) | The three units of liquors, cigars, cigarettes and tobacco include any of those items imported duty free under the normal tariff duty exemptions |
| Currency, regulation 10 | Only United States currency, unless the Minister of Finance prescribes another; a resident of Belize may not pay by credit card |
Regulation 6(1) lists those three categories as (a) “liquors such as whisky, rum, vodka, wine, gin, cognac, liqueur”, (b) “tobacco, cigarettes, cigars” and (c) “perfumery and cosmetics”. Regulation 2 defines a unit as 1,500 ml of liquors, 250 grams of tobacco, 50 cigars, 200 cigarettes or 7 fluid ounces of perfumery. Under regulation 8(2) the shop enters the total value bought, in United States currency, and the date in the purchaser’s passport or travel document.
The Customs and Excise Department is the authority on these allowances; this page only reports what its published texts say. The arrival paperwork and passport rules are on our entry requirements page, and the Belize dollar and its fixed rate on our currency page. The age rules for buying liquor in Belize are on our drinking age page, and live animals have their own rules on our pets page.
What the department doesn’t publish
The Conditional Exemptions document we read on 14 November 2026 carries no date and cites no Act, regulation or section number for the allowances; it says only that “The laws of Belize provides for exemptions”. The duty-free shop regulations show the law as at 31 December 2020, and we could not check later amendments on the National Assembly’s website, which could not be read that day.
How we researched this
On 14 November 2026 we read the Customs and Excise Department’s Taxes and Exemptions page and downloaded the Conditional Exemptions from Duties and Taxes document it links for passengers, and extracted the Inwards Duty-Free Shops Regulations from the Attorney General’s Ministry’s Revised Edition 2020 of the subsidiary laws under the Customs and Excise Duties Act (Chapter 48). Nothing on this page is calculated.
Sources
- Belize Customs and Excise Department — Conditional Exemptions from Duties and Taxes (PDF) — the alcohol and tobacco limits, the eighteen-and-over condition, the Belizean goods allowance, the border-town, frequency and arms provisos, the family definitions
- Belize Customs and Excise Department — Taxes and Exemptions — the 12.5% General Sales Tax line and the link to the passengers’ conditional exemptions
- Attorney General’s Ministry — Customs and Excise Duties Act, Chapter 48, Subsidiary Laws Revised Edition 2020 (PDF) — the Inwards Duty-Free Shops Regulations: regulations 2, 3, 7, 8 and 10
Last verified: 2026-11-14
Researched and written by Estuardo Enriquez for belizetravelblog.com, an independent site with no connection to any airport, airline, tour operator or government body.