HMRC W1 and W5 returns: a plain-English guide for UK distilleries

If you run a distillery or bottle whisky in the UK, the W1 and W5 are two of the forms that shape your month. They are not complicated in principle. The difficulty is that the numbers come from many places: cask records, vattings, bottling runs, orders and warehouse moves. When those live in separate spreadsheets, month end becomes a reconciliation exercise.

This guide explains both forms in plain English, walks through an example with real-looking numbers, and covers the mistakes we see most often. It is general guidance, not tax advice, so always check your own approval and HMRC's current notes.

First, the unit everything is measured in: litres of pure alcohol

HMRC does not care how many litres of whisky you hold. It cares how much alcohol is in them. That is measured in litres of pure alcohol, usually shortened to LPA (you will also see LOA or L/alc, which mean the same thing).

To work it out, multiply the volume by the strength. A cask holding 250 litres at 63.5% ABV contains 250 × 0.635 = 158.75 LPA. A 70cl bottle at 46% ABV contains 0.7 × 0.46 = 0.322 LPA. Every line on the W1 for spirits, and every duty calculation on the W5, uses this figure.

What is the HMRC W1 return?

The W1 is the Excise Warehouse Return. If you hold spirit in bond (duty not yet paid), you do it in an HMRC-approved excise warehouse, and the warehousekeeper must send a W1 for each approved warehouse.

• How often: normally every calendar month. Non-standard periods of up to five weeks are possible if agreed with HMRC in advance.
• Deadline: HMRC must receive it within 14 days of the end of the period.
• How to file: online through the Alcohol and Tobacco Warehousing Declarations (ATWD) service, or on the paper form.
• Whisky and other spirits are separate. UK whisky is reported apart from other spirits such as gin, rum or vodka, so a distillery making both fills in both columns.

Think of the W1 as a bank statement for alcohol. You start with a balance, add what came in, subtract what went out and what was lost, and the closing balance has to match what is really in your warehouse.

What goes on the W1, line by line

Opening stock

The alcohol in the warehouse at the start of the first day of the period. It should equal last month's closing stock. If it doesn't, something was changed after last month's return was sent, and HMRC will expect an explanation in the adjustment box.

Receipts: what came in

• From importation: spirit received from outside the UK.
• From UK production sites and other warehouses: casks or cases transferred in from another bonded site, including your own.
• Increases resulting from operations: new stock created inside the warehouse. For a distillery, this is mostly new-make spirit filled into casks. It also covers what comes out of a vatting or a bottling run: the new casks, tanks or cases.

Removals: what went out

• To home use, duty-paid: stock released for UK sale with the duty paid. This is the line that links to the W5.
• To exportation: stock shipped outside the UK, which leaves without UK duty.
• To other UK warehouses: casks or cases sent in bond to another approved warehouse, for example a cask sold to a broker or moved to a bottler.

Losses

• Losses in storage:alcohol that disappears while the spirit sits in the warehouse. For whisky, this is mainly the angel's share, the evaporation during maturation.
• Losses resulting from operations: alcohol lost while you do something to the spirit: in the pipework during a vatting, in filtration, in samples taken, or in the bottling run.
• Authorised destructions:stock destroyed with HMRC's agreement.

Closing stock

Opening stock, plus everything received, minus everything removed and lost. HMRC's own notes are blunt about it: each column must balance. The closing figure becomes next month's opening stock.

A worked W1 example

Here is a simplified month for a distillery's whisky column. All figures are litres of pure alcohol.

• Opening stock: 120,000 LPA
• New-make spirit filled into casks: + 8,500 LPA
• Casks received from another UK warehouse: + 2,000 LPA
• Released duty-paid for UK sale: − 1,800 LPA
• Exported: − 3,200 LPA
• Casks sent to a bottler's bonded warehouse: − 1,500 LPA
• Losses in storage (angel's share on casks emptied this month): − 450 LPA
• Losses in operations (vatting and bottling): − 50 LPA

Closing stock = 120,000 + 8,500 + 2,000 − 1,800 − 3,200 − 1,500 − 450 − 50 = 123,500 LPA.

The arithmetic takes a minute. Collecting those eight numbers, and being able to show HMRC which casks and orders make up each one, is what takes days.

What is the HMRC W5?

The W5 is the Alcohol Remittance Warrant. When spirit leaves bond for sale in the UK, duty becomes due, and an excise warehouse uses the W5 to declare and pay it. If you pay through a duty deferment account, you use the W5D instead.

The W5 and the W1 must agree. Every litre of pure alcohol you declare and pay duty on through the W5 should appear on the W1 as a removal to home use for the same period.

How the duty is worked out

Since August 2023, all UK alcohol duty is charged on litres of pure alcohol, with the rate set by strength. From 1 February 2026, spirits stronger than 22% ABV pay £33.99 per litre of pure alcohol. Rates usually change each February, so check HMRC's current rates page.

Example: releasing 1,000 bottles of 70cl whisky at 46% ABV for UK sale.

• Volume: 1,000 × 0.7 = 700 litres
• Pure alcohol: 700 × 0.46 = 322 LPA
• Duty: 322 × £33.99 = £10,944.78

What changed in 2025

From 1 March 2025, alcohol producers file Alcohol Duty returns through HMRC's Manage your Alcohol Duty service. If you also hold an excise warehouse, you can still declare and pay duty on goods released from the warehouse through ATWD or the W5 and W5D forms. HMRC also asks warehousekeepers in that position to send a nil return through the new service. Which route applies depends on your approvals, so confirm it with HMRC or your adviser.

Where W1 and W5 returns usually go wrong

In our experience the maths is rarely the problem. These are the things that make the closing stock refuse to balance:

1. Counting the same release twice. When stock moves from bond into a duty-paid store, it leaves the W1 as a duty-paid removal at that moment. If the later sale to a customer is also treated as a removal, the same alcohol is counted twice.
2. Reporting an operation in the wrong month. A vatting done on the 30th but only signed off on the 2nd needs a clear rule for which period it belongs to, applied the same way every month.
3. Mixing up the two kinds of loss. When a cask is emptied, the gap between its book figure and what you actually measure is a storage loss. The gap between what you measured and what ended up in bottles is an operational loss. Lumping them together hides where alcohol actually went.
4. Cases versus bottles. A pallet of 120 bottles is 20 cases of six. Record bottles where cases are expected and the numbers look six times bigger.
5. Repacks.Turning six-bottle cases into three-bottle gift packs creates new cases and consumes old ones. The alcohol doesn't change, so the net effect on the W1 should be zero.
6. Mixed shipments. One transfer that carries both whisky and gin has to be split between the whisky and other-spirits columns.
7. Samples. Every sample drawn from a cask removes alcohol and belongs in your losses.
8. Unclear origin of receipts.If a warehouse record doesn't say where a cask came from, it is easy to put it on the wrong receipts line.

How Provenate builds your W1 and W5

Provenate is distillery management software that records production, cask stock, vattings, bottling and orders in one place. Because every movement is already recorded, the returns build themselves from that data instead of from a spreadsheet:

• W1 built from your stock records. Opening stock, transfers, new fills, vatting and bottling outputs, removals and losses are filled in automatically for the period, split into whisky and other spirits, and the closing stock is calculated for you.
• Losses split the way HMRC asks. When a vatting is finalised, Provenate separates the loss in storage (book against measured) from the loss in the operation (measured against what was produced).
• W5 built from duty-paid releases. Each release into duty-paid stock is listed with bottles, cases, litres and LPA, and the duty is totalled for you.
• No double counting.Stock that was already released duty-paid isn't counted again when the customer order ships, and repacks and mixed shipments are handled automatically.
• Every number traceable. Each line can be traced back to individual casks and orders, and the W1 includes a schedule of the casks in the report. If a record is corrected, you regenerate the return instead of editing figures by hand.
• Ready to file. Export the W1 to PDF or CSV and the W5 to PDF, then submit through ATWD or on paper as you do today.

Want to see your own month end built this way? Book a demoand we'll walk through it with your data.

Official HMRC sources

• Submit an excise warehouse return for alcohol and tobacco goods (W1)
• Excise Warehousing: Excise Warehouse Return (W1) form and notes
• Excise Warehousing: remittance advice for alcohol goods (W5)
• Alcohol Duty rates