US wine import price calculator
Model your ex-cellar price all the way to a US retail shelf — landed cost, federal and state excise, three-tier margins or DTC, CBMA credit, city taxes, and sales tax. Currency- and wine-type aware.
Your shipment
Inputsper 750 ml bottle
Cost breakdown — per 750ml bottle
How the shelf price builds from your ex-cellar quote.
Cash-flow timing
When each cost element is typically paid, per shipment.
Using the calculator — a 7-step walkthrough
The calculator turns your ex-cellar price into an indicative US shelf price. Every US state has its own tax model, so the number you see at the end depends on where the wine lands. This guide walks through each input, explains what it does, and shows what to check on the results.
Before you start
Have four things on hand:
- Your ex-cellar price — per bottle or per 12-bottle case, in whichever currency you invoice.
- Alcohol by volume — from your tech sheet or label.
- Destination state — the US state where the bottle will be sold at retail.
- Expected volume — number of 12-bottle cases in the shipment.
Everything else uses sensible defaults — freight rates, importer/distributor/retailer margins, tariff. You can leave them alone for a first estimate and refine later.
Pick the wine type
Still is the default. Switch to sparkling for champagne, prosecco, cava, or moscato spumante — the US federal excise tax jumps from about $1.07 to $3.40 per gallon for those. Artificially carbonated and hard cider have their own flat rates too.
Enter alcohol by volume (ABV)
Type the ABV as a percentage — 13 for a 13% wine, 14.5 for a fortified rosé, and so on. For still wine, the federal tax has three brackets: up to 14% ABV, above 14% and up to 21%, and above 21% up to 24%. State excise brackets vary but follow the same logic.
Choose the destination state
The calculator handles all 50 states plus DC. Two models are in play:
- Open (license) states — importers, distributors, and retailers each add a margin. Most of the country works this way.
- Control states — a state agency controls wholesale distribution and applies a single fixed markup (Utah, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and others). No separate distributor margin.
You will see a badge in the results panel telling you which model applies.
Optional — pick a city or county
Some cities layer their own wine excise or a higher sales tax on top of the state rate. If your buyer is in Chicago, New York City, Anchorage, San Francisco, or Los Angeles County, choosing the locality gives a more accurate estimate. Leave blank for a state-average number.
Enter your ex-cellar price and currency
Type the price you invoice at, then pick the currency you invoice in. If it is not USD, a second field appears for the FX rate — enter how many US dollars one unit of your currency buys today (for example 1.08 if 1 EUR = 1.08 USD).
Use the toggle to indicate whether the price is per bottle or per 12-bottle case. All the internal math is done per case, but you can enter whichever number is on your invoice.
Enter the quantity of cases
How many 12-bottle cases will ship. This drives the total gallon count, which determines two things: (1) freight and handling costs, and (2) whether you qualify for the highest CBMA federal-tax credit tier — importers of 30,000 gallons or less per year qualify for $1.00/gal in credit; between 30,001 and 130,000 gallons is $0.90; larger volumes are $0.535.
Optional — refine logistics, margins, and route
Click the "Logistics, margins, distribution route" panel to open the advanced controls. What lives there:
- Distribution route — default is 3-tier. Switch to "self-distributed" if the importer sells straight to retail (no distributor), or "DTC" if the winery ships direct to the consumer (no distributor and no retailer).
- Landed cost per case — ocean freight, inland freight, insurance, receiving-and-handling, storage. Defaults are 2026 mid-range Europe-to-US reefer container averages. Ask your forwarder for exact numbers if quoting a real deal.
- Promotional allowance — per-case dollars you give back to the trade (samples, POS, incentives). Deducted from your effective FOB.
- Trade margins — importer, distributor, and retailer margins as a percent. 30/30/50 is a standard baseline; premium wines often use lower retail margins.
- Tariff — ad-valorem duty on FOB (Section 232 / 301 tariffs). Set to 0 for now if unsure; check current US Trade Representative rulings for your country of origin.
- Bottle deposit — tick if the destination state has a bottle-bill program (CA, CT, HI, IA, ME, MA, MI, NY, OR, VT). Adds the container deposit to the per-bottle price.
Reading your results
1. The headline number
Estimated US retail price per 750ml bottle. Beneath it: the same figure per 9-litre case and per litre. And the multiple — how many times your ex-cellar the shelf price is (a "4× multiple" means the bottle sells for 4× what you invoiced).
Typical multiples for European wine into the US: 3.5–5× for imported table wine, 5–7× for premium/estate wine including three-tier margins.
2. Cost breakdown
Every line that builds up to the shelf price, per bottle. Colours group them: burgundy for the product itself, amber for freight and logistics, pink for duties and taxes, green for trade margins. Rows that would be zero are hidden automatically.
The horizontal bar at the top visualises which category dominates the final price — usually margins in open states, state markup in control states.
3. Cash-flow timing
Not all costs are paid at once. This panel groups the total shipment cost by when it typically comes due:
- T0 — at import: freight, duty, federal excise.
- T30 — about a month later: importer margin, inland freight, state excise.
- T60 — distributor sale: distributor margin, wholesale sales tax.
- T90 — retail sale: retailer margin, sales tax, bottle deposit.
Useful when planning working capital — the T0 bucket is what your importer needs on hand before the wine even hits the shelf.
Good to know
CBMA is a refund, not an automatic discount
The Craft Beverage Modernization Act credit lowers federal excise tax by up to $1.00/gal for smaller shipments. The importer of record has to register with TTB and file the claim quarterly. If your importer does not file, the credit does not materialise — check before you factor it into a quote.
The result is indicative, not a customs quote
Real landed cost depends on the HTS code, actual freight rates on your booking date, current tariff schedules, and any state-specific fees not in the model. Use this for planning and comparison; get a customs broker to price the actual shipment.
Watch the yellow warning banners
If your ABV is above 24%, a margin is above 100%, an FX rate looks unusual, or you are pairing DTC shipping with a control state, the calculator flags it. Warnings do not stop the calculation — they exist to catch typos and impossible scenarios.
Sales tax is on the shelf price, not landed cost
Every dollar of cost or margin gets multiplied by the state (and sometimes city) sales tax at the final step. This is why locality matters: a Chicago retailer at 10.25% keeps 400 basis points less margin than one in a 6.25% suburb.
Two quick worked examples
A: European estate wine to California, 3-tier
Wine type: still. ABV: 13.5%. State: California. Ex-cellar: 48 EUR/case at FX 1.08. Cases: 100. Route: 3-tier. Margins 30/30/50. Default freight.
Expect a shelf price around $17-19/bottle. That is a ~4× multiple on your ex-cellar (48 EUR × 1.08 ÷ 12 = ~$4.32/bottle).
B: Same wine, DTC to New York
Change the route to DTC and the destination to New York. No distributor or retailer margin.
Expect a shelf price around $8-10/bottle — the same wine at roughly half the 3-tier price, because the two middle-tier margins fall away. This is why direct-shipping laws matter so much to producers.