Buying a knife in the UK now requires showing photo ID twice
Key Points
- The Crime and Policing Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 29 April, requires UK online knife buyers to submit photo ID at checkout and again at delivery.
- Delivery drivers can only hand bladed items to the buyer named on the order; leaving packages on doorsteps, in lockers or with neighbours is now a criminal offence.
- Online platforms must report bulk or suspicious knife purchases to police, and tech executives face personal liability with fines up to £70,000 per offence.
- The maximum sentence for selling a knife to someone under 18 doubles from six months to two years; a new offence of possession with intent to cause unlawful violence carries up to seven years.
- Provisions come into force through secondary legislation; no commencement date yet for the knife sale measures, giving retailers a transition window before enforcement.
Anyone buying a knife online in the UK will soon need to show photo ID at checkout and again on the doorstep, under measures that became law on Wednesday (29 April).
The two-step verification requirement, contained in the Crime and Policing Act 2026, forces every retailer selling bladed articles online to obtain a copy of the buyer’s passport or driving licence at the point of sale, alongside a photograph of the buyer, and to check ID again when the package is handed over.
Delivery drivers can hand the package only to the person who placed the order, with the long-standing practice of leaving knives in safe places, lockers, or with neighbours becoming a criminal offence.
The measures were introduced by the Home Office in January 2025 following an end-to-end review of online knife sales led by Commander Stephen Clayman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
The provisions come into force through secondary legislation rather than from Royal Assent, meaning retailers will have a transition period before enforcement begins.
The Home Office has not yet published a commencement date for Part 2 of the Act, which contains the knife sale measures.
For UK shoppers, the practical change will be that knives bought from Amazon, eBay, John Lewis, specialist outdoor retailers and any other online seller will require ID to be uploaded at checkout and presented again at the door.
Same-day or next-day delivery will become harder for bladed items because no one can sign on the buyer’s behalf, and parcels cannot be left if the buyer is out.
Click-and-collect to lockers is prohibited for any product covered by the rules.
The legislation closes loopholes exposed by the killing of 16-year-old Ronan Kanda, who was murdered in Wolverhampton in 2022 with a ninja sword bought online.
One of his teenage killers had purchased more than 20 knives online, including by using his mother’s ID, with deliveries collected from a Post Office that performed no verification.
The Crime and Policing Act measures are collectively referred to as Ronan’s Law.
Online retailers also face new reporting duties. Platforms must report any bulk or suspicious knife purchases to police, a measure aimed at disrupting resale networks operating across social media.
The maximum sentence for selling a knife to someone under 18 rises from six months to two years in prison, and the offence can apply to the chief executive or any individual who processed the sale.
A new offence of possessing a bladed article with intent to cause unlawful violence carries a prison sentence of up to seven years.
Tech executives at platforms hosting third-party knife listings face personal criminal liability for failing to act on illegal knife and weapons content, with fines of up to £70,000 per offence.
The government has also committed to launch a consultation on a registration scheme for all online retailers selling knives.
A headache for some shops
Legitimate buyers of kitchen knives, gardening tools, fishing equipment or outdoor gear will face a more onerous purchase process, with the photo ID requirement adding friction at checkout and the doorstep ID check ruling out unattended delivery.
The Home Office’s position, set out in its knife crime factsheet, is that previous legislation did not prescribe what age checks should look like, leaving sellers to design their own systems with predictable inconsistency.
The compliance cost for online retailers will be significant.
Smaller specialist sellers without integrated identity verification platforms will need to procure them, and delivery providers including Royal Mail, Evri, DPD and Amazon Logistics will need to adapt their handover procedures to require ID inspection rather than a signature.
Whether the same standards will be applied to international sellers shipping into the UK remains a recognised gap, with Commander Clayman’s review flagging that overseas platforms operate outside UK jurisdiction.
The Home Office is also funding a new dedicated police unit to investigate online unlawful knife and weapons sales, expand data collection, and target enforcement.
The unit will sit alongside the existing National Centre for Tackling Knife Crime.
