Duty free allowances Dubai

[shawarma]

Duty free limits Dubai - DubaiFAQs info. The table on that page is a summary of duty free allowances from several official sources. The unofficial sources, such as travel agents, hotels, etc, probably all get their information from either the official sources, or random secondary sources. A decent search reveals conflicting information for duty free allowances for alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Even between the official looking government sources.

So how do you know what's up to date and correct?

Check the DubaiFAQs table, at least you can see the conflicts.

Some of the more obvious ones, and explanations:

Cigarettes - duty free limit used to be 10 cartons / 2000 cigarettes (!) but was changed to 400 or 2 cartons in about 2003/2004? It may have changed to 1 carton / 200 cigarettes initially but 2 cartons seems to be fine. I haven't heard of anyone getting into trouble for bringing in 2 cartons.

Alcohol - 4 x 1 liter bottles of spirits seems quite generous. Is this correct? Generally, the customs people seem fairly tolerant of most visitors' duty free bags, as long as it's not outrageously too much, and as long as you're not trying to cause problems.

Tobacco - 2 kg is equivalent to 40 packets of 50g each. Seems a lot, perhaps the limit was changed along with the cigarette limit but the government websites have not been updated? Duty free shops usually sell boxes of 5 packets. Has anyone brought in 8 of those boxes in one go?

Anyway, cigarettes are available in supermarkets in Dubai - cost about 25%-30% more than duty free prices.

Alcohol prices in Dubai / UAE are not much different from duty free, especially if you buy it on the blackmarket - see Alcohol in Dubai. Wine is much cheaper at the bootleg shops - acceptable quality for 15-30 dhs per bottle, versus at least 40-60 dhs per bottle at Dubai duty free. Bear in mind though, it may not be worth the time and trouble to find the black market alcohol shops for the average visitor on a short stay.