Guide summary

In England and Wales, the maximum penalty for selling to under-18s is 6 months in prison, an unlimited fine, or both
Never sell weapons banned under the 1988 Offensive Weapons Order, such as zombie knives and push daggers
Flick knives and gravity knives are banned separately and cannot be sold at all
Write an age-check policy and train every member of staff who sells, keeping dated training records
Set your till to prompt for an age check whenever a knife or bladed article is scanned
Keep a refusals log with the date, time, product and reason for every refusal
Online or phone sales in England and Wales: run an age-check system and mark packages for delivery to over-18s only
Do not deliver bladed products to a locker; delivery to a home is an offence when buyer and seller are not present

The rules here are for England and Wales.

Know what you cannot sell to under-18s

The offence applies however you sell, and whatever the buyer says they want the article for. Blade length makes no difference to a sale. The law has no exception for a parent's permission or presence.

Selling knives to under-18s (England and Wales)

The offence of selling a knife, blade, axe or other sharp-pointed article to anyone under 18 in England and Wales under section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and the defence.

Section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 makes it an offence in England and Wales to sell any of the following to a person under 18:

any knife, knife blade or razor blade
any axe
any other article that has a blade or is sharply pointed and is made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person

Articles described in section 1 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 are outside this offence because they cannot be sold at all.

The offence is tried in the magistrates' court. The maximum penalty is 6 months' imprisonment, a fine, or both. The fine has no upper limit.

It is a defence to prove that you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the offence. The Act does not set an age-checking method or a list of accepted documents for sales in England and Wales. If you are not in the buyer's presence when you sell, section 141B sets minimum conditions for the defence.

Minimum age: 18 years
Offence: Selling to a person under 18 (section 141A)
Maximum sentence: 6 months
Maximum fine: Unlimited
Defence: All reasonable precautions and all due diligence
Excluded articles: Those in section 1 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 will raise the maximum sentence once that section is brought into force.

Do not sell prohibited weapons at all

If you find prohibited items in your stock, do not sell them.

Prohibited offensive weapons (Section 141)

The weapons that section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988 make it an offence to manufacture, sell, hire, lend or give away in England and Wales, and to possess in private.

Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 makes it an offence to manufacture, sell, hire, offer for sale or hire, lend or give to another person a weapon described in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988, or to have one for the purpose of sale or hire. Importing these weapons is prohibited. Since 14 July 2021 it is also an offence in England and Wales to possess one in private.

The Order covers, among others:

a knuckleduster, a swordstick, a handclaw, a footclaw and a hollow kubotan
a belt buckle knife, a push dagger, a disguised knife and a stealth knife
a shuriken (throwing star), a balisong (butterfly knife) and a telescopic truncheon, and a straight, side-handled or friction-lock truncheon
a blowpipe or blow gun, a kusari gama, a kyoketsu shoge and a manrikigusari
a cyclone or spiral knife
a sword with a curved blade of 50cm or more
a zombie knife, which has a cutting edge, a serrated edge and images or words suggesting it is to be used for violence
a zombie-style knife or machete, which has a plain cutting edge, a sharp pointed end and a blade of over 8 inches, and at least one of: a serrated cutting edge (other than up to 2 inches next to the handle), more than one hole in the blade, spikes, or more than two sharp points in the blade
a ninja sword, which has a blade of 14 to 24 inches, a primary and a secondary straight cutting edge, a blunt spine and a tanto or reversed tanto style point (added on 1 August 2025)

Flick knives and gravity knives are banned separately under the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959.

Antiques and defences

A weapon is an antique, and outside the Order, if it was manufactured more than 100 years before the date of the alleged offence. There are also defences, including for a curved sword that was made before 1954 or by traditional methods of making swords by hand, for curved swords, zombie-style knives and machetes connected with a Sikh religious ceremony or ceremonial event, and for weapons made available to museums or galleries or for theatre, film and television production.

Offence: Manufacture, sale, hire, lending or giving away
Private possession offence from: 14 July 2021
Latest addition: Ninja swords (1 August 2025)
Antique exemption: Made more than 100 years before the offence
Curved sword: Blade of 50cm or more
Zombie-style knife: Blade over 8 inches plus a listed feature
Maximum sentence, sale: 6 months
Maximum sentence, private possession: 6 months
Maximum fine: Unlimited

Be able to show you took all reasonable precautions

The burden is on you, and the law does not say which age-checking method to use. A policy such as Challenge 25, where staff ask for proof of age from anyone who looks under 25, leaves a margin for error. Records are your evidence.

Write an age-check policy

Say which products need an age check, who must ask, what proof of age you accept and what staff do when they refuse a sale.
Train every member of staff who sells

Cover the policy and how to refuse a sale, and keep dated training records.
Set up till prompts

Make your till prompt for an age check whenever a knife or bladed article is scanned.
Keep a refusals log

Record the date, time, product and reason for every refusal.
Display notices

Put up signs at the point of sale and near the displays saying you do not sell knives to anyone under 18.

Sell knives online or by phone

Selling knives online or by phone (England and Wales)

The conditions for the section 141A defence when you are not in the buyer's presence, and the offence of delivering a bladed product to residential premises or a locker, in England and Wales.

Defence when you are not in the buyer's presence

If you sell without you or your representative being in the buyer's presence, section 141B of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 limits your defence to a charge of selling to a person under 18. You cannot prove you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence unless, as a minimum, you prove that:

you operated a system for checking that people buying by the same or a similar method were not under 18, and the system was likely to prevent under-18s buying that way
when you dispatched the package it was clearly marked to show that it contained an article with a blade or sharp point, and that it should only be delivered into the hands of a person aged 18 or over
you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to make sure it would be delivered into the hands of a person aged 18 or over
you did not deliver the package, or arrange for its delivery, to a locker

Where the buyer collects the article from a place you sent it to, the delivery conditions apply to the handover to the buyer from that place.

Delivery to homes and lockers

Under section 38 of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 it is an offence to deliver a bladed product, or arrange its delivery, to residential premises or to a locker when you and the buyer are not in each other's presence at the time of sale. A bladed product is an article that is or has a blade and could cause a serious injury that involves cutting the skin. Residential premises are premises used solely for residential purposes, so premises from which someone runs a business are not covered. Checking the buyer's age at the door does not make a delivery to residential premises lawful.

Defences include proving that the product was made or adapted for the buyer to their specification, that you reasonably believed the buyer wanted it for relevant sporting purposes or historical re-enactment, or that you had procedures in place and took all reasonable precautions and due diligence to make sure it reached someone aged 18 or over.

Couriers and sellers outside the UK

Where a seller in the UK has an arrangement with a courier company to deliver bladed products and the courier delivers one to residential premises, the courier commits an offence if it does not hand the product into the hands of a person aged 18 or over (section 39). A courier delivering a bladed article for a seller outside the UK commits the same offence (section 42). In England and Wales the defence for the courier is that it took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence.

In force from: 6 April 2022
Residential delivery: Offence where seller and buyer are not in each other's presence
Locker delivery: Offence where seller and buyer are not in each other's presence
Age-check system: Required for the section 141A defence
Package marking: Blade or sharp point, deliver to a person aged 18 or over
Delivery to a locker: Not permitted if you rely on the defence
Maximum prison term for the delivery offence: 6 months (51 weeks once section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is in force)

Selling knives to under-18s (Scotland)

How section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies in Scotland: the age limits, the exception for domestic knives sold to 16 and 17 year olds, and the defence.

Section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 has its own version for Scotland. It makes it an offence to sell, or let on hire, to a person under 18 any knife, knife blade or razor blade, any axe, any sword, and any other article that has a blade or is sharply pointed and is made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person.

Domestic knives and 16 and 17 year olds

It is not an offence to sell or let on hire a knife or knife blade designed for domestic use to someone aged 16 or over. This exception does not apply where you are not in the buyer's presence when you sell, so a remote sale of a domestic knife to a 16 or 17 year old is still an offence. Every other article the offence covers needs a buyer aged 18 or over.

Defence

You have a defence if you show that you believed the buyer was old enough (16 for a domestic knife, 18 for anything else) and either took reasonable steps to establish their age, or no reasonable person could have suspected from their appearance that they were too young. You are treated as having taken reasonable steps only if you were shown a passport, a UK driving licence, a European Union photocard driving licence or another document prescribed by the Scottish Ministers, and it would have convinced a reasonable person. Remote sales have a separate defence under section 141C.

Penalty

The offence carries up to 6 months' imprisonment, a fine of up to level 5 on the standard scale (£5,000), or both.

Minimum age, domestic knives sold in person: 16 years
Minimum age, all other articles: 18 years
Minimum age, domestic knives sold remotely: 18 years
Maximum sentence: 6 months
Maximum fine: £5,000
Accepted proof of age: Passport, UK driving licence, EU photocard driving licence or a prescribed document

Selling knives online or by phone (Scotland)

The conditions for the section 141A defence when you are not in the buyer's presence, and the offence of delivering a bladed product to residential premises or a locker, in Scotland.

Defence when you are not in the buyer's presence

If you sell or let on hire without you or your representative being in the buyer's presence, section 141C of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 sets the defence to a charge under section 141A. It is a defence to show that all of these conditions were met:

you operated a system for checking that people buying or hiring by the same or a similar method were not under 18, and the system was likely to prevent under-18s buying or hiring that way
when you dispatched the package it was clearly marked to show that it contained an article with a blade or sharp point, and that it should only be delivered into the hands of a person aged 18 or over
you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to make sure it would be delivered into the hands of a person aged 18 or over
you did not deliver the package, or arrange for its delivery, to a locker

You show a condition was met if you adduce enough evidence to raise the issue and the prosecution does not disprove it beyond reasonable doubt. The exception for selling domestic knives to 16 and 17 year olds does not apply to remote sales.

Delivery to homes and lockers

Couriers and sellers outside the UK

Where a seller in the UK has an arrangement with a courier company to deliver bladed products and the courier delivers one to residential premises, the courier commits an offence if it does not hand the product into the hands of a person aged 18 or over (section 39). A courier delivering a bladed article for a seller outside the UK commits the same offence (section 42). In Scotland the courier has a defence if it believed the recipient was 18 or over and either took reasonable steps to establish their age or no reasonable person could have suspected they were under 18.

Defence for remote sales in force from: 1 January 2021
Delivery offences in force from: 28 June 2022
Residential delivery: Offence where seller and buyer are not in each other's presence
Locker delivery: Offence where seller and buyer are not in each other's presence
Age-check system: Required for the section 141C defence
Package marking: Blade or sharp point, deliver to a person aged 18 or over
Maximum sentence for the delivery offence: 6 months

Selling knives to under-18s (Northern Ireland)

The offence of selling a knife, blade, axe or other sharp-pointed article to anyone under 18 in Northern Ireland under Article 54 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1996.

Article 54 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 makes it an offence in Northern Ireland to sell any of the following to a person under 18:

any knife, knife blade or razor blade
any axe
any other article that has a blade or is sharply pointed and is made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person

Articles described in Article 53 of the Order, and in orders made under section 141(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 or under Article 54, are outside this offence.

On summary conviction the maximum penalty is 12 months' imprisonment, a fine up to the statutory maximum, or both. On conviction on indictment it is 4 years' imprisonment, a fine, or both.

It is a defence to prove that you took all reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to avoid the offence.

Minimum age: 18 years
Offence: Selling to a person under 18 (Article 54)
Maximum sentence, summary: 12 months
Maximum sentence, indictment: 4 years
Maximum fine, summary: £5,000
Defence: All reasonable precautions and due diligence

Legal basis

Primary legislation and key regulations

Offensive Weapons Act 2019 Primary 2019 · UK-wide The Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 Primary 1996 · UK-wide Criminal Justice Act 1988 Primary 1988 · UK-wide The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988 SI 1988 · UK-wide The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) (England and Wales) Order 2025 SI 2025 · England & Wales

Browse UK legislation legislation.gov.uk

Official guidance

Offensive Weapons Act 2019: statutory guidance (opens in a new tab)

Publication · GOV.UK · Great Britain

Buying and carrying knives: the law (opens in a new tab)

Home Office

Sell knives and bladed articles lawfully

Know what you cannot sell to under-18s

Do not sell prohibited weapons at all

Be able to show you took all reasonable precautions

Write an age-check policy

Train every member of staff who sells

Set up till prompts

Keep a refusals log

Display notices

Sell knives online or by phone

Legal basis

Official guidance

Related guides in HMRC Compliance

Prevent underage sales in your shop

Responsible alcohol retailing