For DtC shippers, the compliance rules that matter most are the familiar ones: licensing, age checks, remitting taxes, putting a warning on the package.
The issue of shipping to dry territories in states, however, doesn’t come up nearly as often. While all DtC rules are important and must be followed, the reason why shipping to dry regions is not as top of mind is because only a handful of states apply wet/dry restrictions to DtC shipments at all. However, that still leaves several places where DtC shippers do need to be concerned about dry regions.
Why Dry Territories?
Paramount in U.S. beverage alcohol law is the idea of local control of alcohol sales. Coming out of Prohibition, the greatest bogeyman was the “foreign” (i.e., out-of-state) supplier who, heedless of local virtues, would come in and promote overconsumption. This fear is the heart of the three-tier system, which was originally intended to force a separation between the big-bad suppliers and the poor, readily-influenced retailers.
Local option laws, which grant certain communities (counties, cities, townships, etc.) the power to vote on what kind of alcohol sales can occur within their jurisdictions, are a key part of this principle and, indeed, have been active even before Prohibition began.
These rules can vary in their severity, with many allowing on-premises sales but not off-premises sales (or vice versa) or prohibiting only sales of spirits. Indeed, while “dry” counties (which prohibit most all forms of alcohol sales) get most of the attention, by far most counties with local option rules in place are actually “moist,” meaning that there are lots of exceptions to the rules.
Currently, most of the states with local option rules are in either the South or the Northeast (wet counties with dry townships are particularly prevalent in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New England—most fully dry counties are found in the Bible Belt). However, to the benefit of DtC shippers, almost all of these states exclude DtC shipments from local option restrictions, giving them free access across the state.
The exceptions to this general rule are Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Vermont.
Of these, Florida, West Virginia, and Vermont are relatively painless to manage as only two counties (Lafayette and Liberty, Florida) and three towns (Baltimore and Athens, Vermont; and Brandonville, West Virginia) are implicated, which account for a total population of less than 20,000 people.
However, the other three states present more of a challenge for DtC shippers to manage.
The Three Problem States
Alaska as a state has a rough history with alcohol consumption, particularly among the native population. As such, there are roughly 75 dry communities where all sales and importation of alcohol are prohibited. In addition, there are many more communities that rely on USPS for last-mile delivery; but because USPS is prohibited under federal law from carrying packages with alcohol, those communities also cannot receive DtC shipments. To its credit, Alaska’s ABC publishes a regular list of communities with local option rules and lists of ZIP codes where common carriers are approved to deliver, which makes it at least possible to manage.
Arkansas is far more complicated than Alaska, as the state maintains both the largest list of dry counties in the country (29) but also another 24 “mixed” counties that contain both wet and dry communities. While it is easy enough for a DtC shipper to block shipments to all of the completely dry counties, the mixed counties present a special challenge as the lines between the wet and dry regions are based along “townships,” which are broadly based on voting precincts but not any other geographic or address-based boundary, such as city or ZIP. While Arkansas does maintain a wet/dry map through its GIS office, determining whether a given address falls inside or outside of the wet/dry borders often comes down to eyeballing it. DtC wine shippers (only wine can be shipped to Arkansas consumers) need to take extra care then when shipping to mixed counties in the state.
Kentucky, like Arkansas, has an odd mix of dry, wet, and “moist” counties, and also like Arkansas, its mixed county dry/wet lines are based on election precincts rather than city or ZIP boundaries, which are even harder to determine than in Arkansas. However, Kentucky does have two key tools for DtC shippers to rely on. For one, the state ABC maintains an online address search tool for DtC shippers to use (though it does declaim it’s accuracy somewhat). Further, Kentucky’s law puts the liability for a dry-area delivery on the consumer rather than the shipper or carrier, provided the shipper made a good-faith effort at the time of purchase by having the consumer affirm they don’t live in a dry area. This is more forgiving than in Arkansas or Alaska, but it still means building that attestation step into your checkout process rather than skipping it.
Why This Is Harder Than It Sounds
The common thread across all three states is that the boundaries regulators use for wet/dry determinations don’t always line up with the boundaries everyone else uses. Addresses are built around ZIP codes and city lines. Dry-area designations are built around townships, precincts, or county votes that can shift with a single local election. That mismatch is the real challenge, more than the restriction itself.
What to Do About It
The practical answer is fairly simple, even if the execution takes some care: don’t ship into a dry location. But to make sure that can happen reliably, you need a way to check whether an address falls in one. That might mean cross-referencing Arkansas’s GIS map, watching for updates to Alaska’s published ZIP list, or building a customer attestation step for Kentucky orders where no authoritative list exists at all. Sovos ShipCompliant keeps current dry-community guidance built into our DtC state rules pages for wine, beer, and spirits, which is a good starting point any time you’re setting up shipments to these three states or reviewing an existing program there.
It’s a narrow issue in the scope of DtC compliance overall, affecting only three states out of the many that now allow direct shipping. But narrow doesn’t mean low-stakes. A shipment that lands in a dry county can mean real legal exposure, and “the customer said it was alright” isn’t much of a defense (except in Kentucky). Knowing where these lines sit, and relying on available tools to check addresses, is a small effort that avoids a much bigger headache down the road.
FAQ
What is a dry county, and how does it affect DtC alcohol shipping?
A dry county (or dry township, precinct, or city, depending on the state) is a jurisdiction that has voted under local option laws to prohibit alcohol sales within its borders. While there are many states that have dry jurisdictions, most of them have carved out DtC shipments, allowing them to go to dry regions. But in Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Vermont, and West Virginia, dry-area restrictions do apply to DtC shipments, prohibiting shipments to those parts of those states.
Which states pose the biggest DtC shipping challenge because of dry areas?
Alaska, Arkansas, and Kentucky are the three states where dry-area restrictions create real day-to-day compliance work. Florida, Vermont, and West Virginia also restrict DtC shipments into a small number of dry counties or towns, but the affected population in each is under 20,000 people, making those far easier to manage.
Can wineries, breweries, or distilleries ship to a customer who lives in a dry county?
No. In these states, if a customer’s address falls within a jurisdiction that prohibits alcohol sales under local option law, a DtC shipment can’t legally be delivered there, even if the producer holds a valid shipping license for the rest of the state.
How does Arkansas define its dry and mixed counties?
Arkansas has 29 fully dry counties along with 24 “mixed” counties that contain both wet and dry areas. In the mixed counties, the wet/dry line is drawn by township rather than by city or ZIP code, so a shipper can’t determine an address’s status using ordinary geographic references. Arkansas maintains a wet/dry map through its GIS office, but matching a specific address to that map often takes manual review. Note also that only wine can currently be shipped DtC to Arkansas consumers.
Is there a tool to check if a Kentucky address is in a dry area?
Yes. Kentucky’s ABC maintains an online address lookup tool that DtC shippers can use to check a given address, though the state notes the tool’s results aren’t guaranteed to be fully accurate. Kentucky’s dry, wet, and “moist” boundaries follow election precincts, which don’t align with city or ZIP boundaries, so the lookup tool is a meaningfully useful resource here.
Who is liable if alcohol is shipped to a dry address in Kentucky?
In Kentucky, liability for a dry-area delivery falls on the consumer rather than the shipper or carrier, as long as the shipper made a good-faith effort at the time of sale by having the consumer affirm they don’t live in a dry area. That’s a more forgiving standard than Arkansas or Alaska apply, but it still depends on the shipper actually building that attestation step into checkout.
Do dry-area restrictions apply to beer and spirits, or just wine?
They apply across product types in the states where they exist. Alaska’s and Kentucky’s dry-community rules cover wine, beer, and spirits alike. Arkansas currently limits DtC shipping to wine only, so its dry-county restrictions are, for now, a wine-specific concern.