Bringing cash into the UK: the £10,000 declaration rule
Anyone carrying £10,000 or more between Great Britain and a country outside the UK must declare it to customs. A family counts its cash together, so splitting it between bags does not help. Failing to declare can mean the whole amount is seized and a penalty of up to £5,000.
Most visitors never get near this rule. But families on a long stay, people paying a deposit or school fees in cash, and travellers from economies where cash is normal do reach it, and the consequences of getting it wrong are out of proportion to the mistake.
The rule
You must declare cash of £10,000 or more to UK customs if you carry it between Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and any country outside the UK. That applies in both directions: arriving and leaving.
The threshold is a trigger for declaring, not a limit. GOV.UK sets no maximum amount you may bring. What it requires is that customs knows about it.
Your family counts as one
This is the part people get wrong. GOV.UK says that if you are travelling as a family or group with £10,000 or more in total, you must declare it, even if each person is carrying less than that. Dividing £14,000 between two parents and a teenager does not take it under the threshold.
What counts as cash
For Great Britain, cash means:
- banknotes and coins, in any currency
- bearer bonds
- travellers' cheques
- cheques that are signed but not made out to a named person or organisation
Gold, jewellery and precious stones are not cash under the Great Britain rule. A bank card is not cash either, so money in your account at home is not part of the count.
Northern Ireland is different. Travelling between Northern Ireland and a non-EU country, the threshold is €10,000, and the list is longer: it adds money orders, gold coins, bullion and nuggets, and prepaid cards.
How to declare
You can declare online through the GOV.UK service, by phone on 0300 322 9434, which runs 24 hours a day, or in person when you arrive.
- Arriving: declare before you travel, or at customs on arrival by following the red channel or "goods to declare" signs. The officer may give you a form or take the details themselves.
- Leaving: you must declare before you go.
- Timing: the earliest you can declare is 72 hours before you travel.
You will be asked who is carrying the cash, who owns it and who will receive it, with passport numbers; your route; the amount; where the money came from; and what it is for. Have bank withdrawal slips or a sale agreement with you if the amount is large, because "where did this come from" is the question that follows.
If you do not declare
A Border Force officer can seize all the cash you are carrying, not only the amount over the threshold. To get it back you may have to pay a penalty of up to £5,000, which can be taken out of the cash before the rest is returned. You can appeal within 30 days.
Separately, customs can seize any amount of cash, declared or not, if they have reasonable grounds to suspect a crime. They can hold it for 48 hours; after that they need a court order.
Do you need that much cash at all?
For a visit, almost never. Card payment is accepted nearly everywhere in the UK, and a great many places no longer take cash. A visitor usually cannot open a UK bank account to pay cash into either, which we cover in can a visitor open a UK bank account. If you need to move a large sum for a property deposit or tuition, a bank transfer leaves a paper trail that a suitcase of notes does not.
Checked against the official sources below on 8 October 2026.