Duty free within the EU?

Under the Treaty of Maastricht and the Single Market, duty-free within the EU was abolished in 1992. So there are no longer any restrictions on how many cigarettes you can bring back as long as it's a "reasonable amount for personal use" (and Customs will start to question that if you bring back more than 3,000 or so), but you will pay the full local taxes on them. Try buying in the duty-free shop at the airport and they won't let you - they'll ask to see your boarding pass at the checkout, see that you aren't going outside of the EU, and refuse. Though what you DO see is that the shop will also sell cartons of cigarettes that are duty-paid, and you can buy those.

Because local taxes are included, the price isn't the same everywhere.

The same applies, of course, to alcohol, so here in the south east of England, it's popular to take your car to France just for the day and load it up with cheap wine. Especially just before Christmas to get your festive booze supplies in. It's well-known that French excise duty on it is much lower than ours. There's a shopping centre close to the other end of the Channel Tunnel with a huge Carrefour hypermarket catering to "booze cruisers" (not surprisingly it has the biggest wine section you've ever seen), and Tesco have opened up nearby to cater for this.

There is no duty-free within the EU. In order to buy duty-free items you must be leaving a EU airport on an international flight to a destination outside of the EU.

On page 2 of the link Gerry Attrick has provided you can read:

When you’re bringing in goods you must:

• transport them yourself

• make sure they’re for your own use or a gift

• have paid tax and duty in the EU country where you bought them