Can your winery ship wine to District of Columbia?

District of Columbia DTC wine shipping requirementsCan a winery ship wine directly to consumers in District of Columbia?Yes — Capped channel — no licensed DTC programme; permitted only within the one-case-per-month carrier allowance. No ABCA licence or permit exists or is required for shipments within the one-case-per-resident-per-month allowance. Separately: an OTR sales-tax registration IS required once economic nexus is met. Volume limits apply; the exact cap is in the table below. Shipment reports: N/A — no shipment or shipper report is filed with ABCA. Last verified 2026-08-01 against primary sources; next review due 2026-10-30.

DTC shipping

Generally permitted

Permit required

No — no ABCA licence or permit exists or is required for shipments within the one-case-per-resident-per-month allowance. Separately: an OTR sales-tax registration IS required once economic nexus is met.

Licence

No ABCA alcohol licence or permit (none exists for out-of-state DTC). Tax registration only: OTR 'Certificate of Registration' obtained via Form FR-500 on MyTax.DC.gov.

Application fee

N/A — no ABCA licence exists, so no fee. OTR Certificate of Registration is issued without charge.

Bond required

No — no surety bond reaches an out-of-state DTC wine shipper. No ABCA licence or permit exists for the channel, so no bond condition can attach; and the District imposes no bond or security on the OTR sales-tax registration either.

Volume cap

1 case = up to 12 bottles or cans of wine, of any size and type, per DC resident per one-month period. Statutory form: no more than one case per location in any one calendar month for delivery to any one person. The 12-bottle allowance is shared between wine AND spirits (beer is 24 bottles/cans). No annual cap, no production-size tier, no state aggregate cap.

Sales tax

true — once the remote-seller economic nexus threshold is met (>$100,000 gross receipts from retail sales delivered into DC, or 200+ separate retail sales delivered into DC, in the previous or current calendar year)

State sales-tax rate

10.25% — the alcoholic-beverages-for-off-premises-consumption rate, not the 6% general rate

Excise tax

No — D.C. Code § 25-901 levies the alcoholic beverage excise tax only on beverages handled by DC licensees, a class that does not include an unlicensed out-of-state direct shipper

Excise rate

N/A for the out-of-state DTC shipper. DC's wine excise rates (borne by DC licensees) are, per gallon and NOT converted: $0.30 per wine-gallon on wine of 14% ABV or less; $0.40 per wine-gallon on wine over 14% ABV; $0.45 per wine-gallon on champagne, sparkling wine and artificially carbonated wine.

Shipment reports

N/A — no shipment or shipper report is filed with ABCA

Record retention

No DC statute or regulation prescribing a fixed retention period for an out-of-state DTC shipper was located. § 47-4311 requires 'sufficient books and records' with no stated period; § 47-4301 gives OTR 3 years from filing to assess a deficiency (6 years where >25% of tax is omitted, unlimited for fraud or non-filing).

Product registration

Not required — no product registration, no COLA submission, no label pre-approval, no price posting

Approved carriers

DC maintains no approved- or registered-carrier list for DTC. D.C. Code § 25-772(b) speaks generically of any 'public or common carrier', which may deliver up to one case per location per calendar month to any one person. No carrier permit, registration or ABCA filing is required for shipments within that allowance.

Regulator

Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration (ABCA)

Last verified

2026-08-01

Next review due

2026-10-30

Verified 2026-08-01 by primary-source audit against 25 primary sources; next review due 2026-10-30. How we verify.

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