We present the CFD based non-dimensional characterization of violent slosh induced energy dissipation due a tank under vertical excitation. Experimentally validated CFD is used for this purpose as an ideally suited and versatile tool. It is thus first demonstrated that a weakly compressible VoF based CFD scheme is capable of computing violent slosh induced energy dissipation with high accuracy. The resulting CFD based energy analysis further informs that the main source of energy dissipation during violent slosh is due liquid impact. Next, a functional relationship characterising slosh induced energy dissipation is formulated in terms of fluid physics based non-dimensional numbers. These comprised contact angle and liquid–gas density ratio as well as Reynolds, Weber and Froude numbers. The Froude number is found the most significant in characterising verticle violent slosh induced energy dissipation (in the absence of significant phase change). The validated CFD is consequently employed to develop scaling laws (curve fits) which quantify energy dissipation as a function of the most important fluid physics non-dimensional numbers. These newly developed scaling laws show for the first time that slosh induced energy dissipation may be expressed as a quadratic function of Froude number and as a linear function of liquid–gas density ratio. Based on the aforementioned it is postulated that violent slosh induced energy dissipation may be expressed as a linear function of tank kinetic energy. The article is concluded by demonstrating the practical use of the novel CFD derived non-dimensional scaling laws to infer slosh induced energy dissipation for ideal experiments (with exact fluid physics similarity to the full scale Aircraft) from (non-ideal) slosh experiments.