Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Declarations
Source: gov.uk (2025-02-01)

Use Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Declarations to send your excise warehousing returns and payment warrants to HMRC.

From 1 February 2025, you must hold an alcoholic products producer approval (APPA) (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-you-need-an-alcoholic-products-producer-approval-appa) to produce alcoholic products in the UK.

From 1 March 2025, you must submit Alcohol Duty returns and payments using the Manage your Alcohol Duty service (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/get-access-to-the-alcohol-duty-online-service).

Under the APPA, you can be authorised to produce, hold and move alcoholic products in duty suspension. You’ll no longer be required to operate an excise warehouse alongside your APPA, but you can do if you want.

If you continue to hold an excise warehouse alongside your APPA, you can use the Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Duty (ATWD) service or the W5 and W5D forms to submit your return. You’ll also need to submit a nil return through the Manage your Alcohol Duty service. If you do not, we may charge penalties to your account.

For returns up to and including February 2025, you should use ATWD or W5 and W5D forms to declare and pay duty. You will not be able to report and account for this Alcohol Duty using the Manage your Alcohol Duty service.

For more information, read the alcoholic products technical guide (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcoholic-products-technical-guide).

Log in and file your return or warrant (https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/gg/sign-in?continue=/business-account/&origin=ATWD-frontend) if you’ve already registered.

You can also check if there are any current problems with this service (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alcohol-and-tobacco-warehousing-declarations-service-availability-and-issues), or times it will not be available.

Overview

The Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Declarations (ATWD) online service is available to excise warehousekeepers who are authorised to operate premises approved as excise warehouses (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excise-notice-196-excise-goods-registration-and-approval-of-warehousekeepers-warehouse-premises-owners-of-goods-and-registered-consignors/excise-notice-196-excise-goods-registration-and-approval-of-warehousekeepers-warehouse-premises-owners-of-goods-and-registered-consignors#approvals-authorisations-and-registrations).

You can use it to submit the following forms online:
- W1 Excise Warehouse Return
- W5 Alcohol Remittance Warrant
- W5D Alcohol Deferment Warrant
- W6 Tobacco Remittance Warrant
- W6D Tobacco Deferment Warrant
Benefits

ATWD can help you:
- save time — with prepopulated fields and calculations made for you and providing authorisation/rejections online so you do not have to wait 2 days for a paper copy
- provide more accurate returns — with automatic validation before submission
- keep records — by storing previously submitted returns and warrants
You’ll get an immediate acknowledgement on-screen confirming HMRC has your return/warrant.

If you have XML software, ATWD can also work with it. This helps reduce administration further with very little manual intervention needed.

Enrol and activate

To sign in, you need a Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you register. You’ll need to sign up as an organisation (https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/government-gateway-registration-frontend?accountType=organisation&continue=/business-account/&origin=ATWD-frontend) then select the ATWD service and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the registration process.

You’ll need to enter your excise warehouse ID (found on your warehouse approval letter) and the warehouse postcode. If you operate more than one excise warehouse, you’ll need to separately enrol each warehouse for ATWD.

Provided you’ve entered the correct details, you should receive an Activation Code from HMRC within 7 days. You’ll need to use this to activate the service.

If you do not activate your account within 28 days, you’ll need to enrol again.

If you have not received your code within 2 weeks, please contact the ATWD Online Services Helpdesk (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/alcohol-and-tobacco-warehousing-declaration-atwd-online-services-helpdesk).