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Alcohol - General Alcohol - Wine Alcohol - Beer Fuel Tobacco CCA application Business Excise

Licence your premises

If you’re making excisable items, you must licence your premises as a:

Once your premises are licensed, you can only make excisable items in that location. When you move the items from that area, you must pay excise duty. 

If the items you make are actually made by someone else, they must be licensed and will have to pay excise duty.

CCA licences

Alcohol

You must apply for a CCA licence if you’re:

  • making alcohol products in NZ
  • the first owner of alcohol products made in NZ, but not making them. 
    Note: The first owner is the owner of the alcohol label who is not the manufacturer of the alcohol e.g. they contract an independent facility to manufacturer and bottle wine from their grapes.

Alcohol products are:

If you make alcohol and need to store it in another location, you must apply for an off-site storage licence. The off-site storage area can be in a different geographical area.

Alcohol excise plans

We are replacing procedure statements with alcohol excise plans (AEPs). AEPs set out the terms, conditions or restrictions of your licence to manufacture alcohol products under the Customs and Excise Act.

New licensees will get an AEP immediately and we're moving current licensees from procedure statements to AEPs as quickly as possible.

For more information see the CCA Licence Holder Guide (PDF 743 MB) for a Licensed Manufacturing Area for Alcohol Products.

Tobacco

Tobacco products are any products made from tobacco. 

Your procedure statement sets out the terms, conditions and restrictions of your licence to manufacture tobacco products under the Customs and Excise Act 2018.

Curing of tobacco is now included as a process of manufacture. Curing of tobacco will be a Part A good (other than curing under the personal use exemption). This means it will be subject to the excise regime, including licensing, at a rate of ‘free’.

You may manufacture 5 kg or less of grow-your-own tobacco each year for your personal use without requiring a CCA licence and payment of excise duty, subject to conditions – see section 67 of the Act.

Fuel

Fuel products are:

Your procedure statement sets out the terms, conditions and restrictions of your licence to manufacture fuel products under the Customs and Excise Act 2018.

LMA licences

Once you’re licensed, we’ll send you an excise plan or procedure statement, containing:

  • the terms, conditions and restrictions of the licence
  • the operating procedures for your licence, including how often you must lodge excise returns.

Off-site storage licences

If you make alcohol, you can apply to have an off-site storage area – without paying excise duty on the products in it – in a different geographical location from your LMA. 

To apply for an off-site storage license for your alcohol, you must:

If you have an existing licensed off-site storage area and would like to expand the types of alcohol products you store there, contact your local excise Customs officer.

If you’re a manufacturer and want a licensed off-site storage area, you must be able to prove that:

  • your LMA doesn’t have enough space to store all your product
  • your record-keeping systems are able to track inventory between your LMA and your off-site storage site(s).

If you’re not a manufacturer, you can also apply for a licence for an off-site storage area.

Your AEP will cover where the licensed off-site storage area is.

If you’re the manufacturer, you’re responsible for paying excise duty on any product stored in a licensed off-site storage area when it’s removed from that area.

You must store tobacco and fuel products in your LMA.

For more information see the CCA Licence Holder guide for Off-Site Storage Area for Alcohol Products (PDF 886 KB) 

Records

You must keep records of all items:

  • entering your CCA
  • being made or consumed in your CCA
  • leaving your CCA.

This includes all manufacturing, purchase and sales records, as well as stocktake inventories.

You must keep all your records for at least seven years, and be able to show them to us on request.

Further information

You can read Customs operational policy for excise and CCA licensing.