Not crystal clear yet, but looks like they want to cover non-nicotine containing shortfills, and probably by extension flavorings?
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Canada does this garbage. We call it an excise tax.
Some provinces started July 2024, and more joined January 2025
Federal excise tax Started 2022. THEN the feds invited the Provinces to do the same.
$1 per 2mL on the first 10mL of e-liquid (or pod, or disposable) (effectively, $5 on the first 10mL of a bottle)
$1 per 10mL above the first 10mL
It’s a pure money grab, enticing vapers to use the highest nic concentration as there is no incentive to drop lower. The tax is strictly based on volume regardless of nic content.
Sample purchase
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I’ll say! They might as well just come out and say…we’d rather you go back to Cigarettes.
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Well, @cloudycaptain, it was murky when you posted this. It isn’t murky anymore.
HMRC has now confirmed that the Vaping Products Duty starts on 1 October 2026 at £2.20 for every 10ml, whether the liquid contains nicotine or not.
Lovely words have been wrapped around it—youth vaping, public health and a smoke-free generation. Shame about the arithmetic.
If the full duty reaches the customer:
- 10ml carries £2.20 in duty.
- 100ml carries £22 in duty.
- One 10ml bottle a week means £114.40 a year in duty alone.
That is before shops and manufacturers deal with the extra administration, stamps, storage rules and compliance costs.
Now explain to me how hammering a 100ml bottle of nicotine-free shortfill with £22 in duty specifically tackles youth vaping.
Take your time. I’ll put the kettle on.
Taxing volume, not dependency
A flat charge per millilitre makes no distinction between a high-strength liquid designed for a small pod and a large bottle containing no nicotine at all.
It taxes volume.
Who commonly buys larger volumes? Adults using refillable devices. Hobbyists. DIY mixers. People who have moved away from cigarettes and found a system that works for them.
Meanwhile, the tiny prefilled pod does not attract the same total duty because there is less liquid in it.
That does not prove everyone will suddenly abandon refillables, but it certainly changes the incentives. The cleaner, reusable system is hit according to how much liquid passes through it, while the small convenience product carries a much smaller total charge.
Brilliant. Tax the bottle and hope the battery-powered rubbish heap sorts itself out.
The stampede begins
Duty stamps will begin appearing from 1 October. Existing eligible unstamped stock can still be sold during the six-month transition ending on 31 March 2027, but liquids manufactured or imported from 1 October onward must enter the new system.
From 1 April 2027, all vaping products offered for sale in the UK will need the appropriate valid stamp.
I understand the argument for traceability. A proper supply chain should make it harder for mystery-liquid merchants and back-alley sellers to peddle whatever colourful rubbish they dragged in through the nearest loophole.
But traceability and taxation are not the same thing.
You can require proper ingredients, batch records, responsible packaging and verified adult sales without pretending every extra millilitre is a public-health threat.
If this is about children, deal with the adults selling to them
Children should not vape. Non-smokers should not start. I do not want cartoon packaging, schoolyard dealers or shops selling high-strength products to anyone with lunch money and a pulse.
Enforce the age laws. Fine the shops that ignore them. Go after importers bringing in illegal products. Stop companies designing products and advertising campaigns aimed at teenagers.
Those are targeted measures.
Charging an adult ex-smoker another £22 on a 100ml bottle is not targeted. It is a toll booth placed on the road away from cigarettes.
Governments keep telling smokers to quit. Then, when some of them find a less harmful alternative that works, the accountants arrive carrying stamps, calculators and a fresh definition of “help.”
Protect children properly. Regulate the cowboys properly. Keep vaping for adult smokers who need it.
But stop treating every bottle on an adult vaper’s desk as though it has been found behind the bicycle shed.
HMRC confirmation:
— Old Goat
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1 October update: the duty is now live.
£2.20 per 10ml, with or without nicotine. Eligible old unstamped stock has a grace period until 31 March 2027, so shelf prices may take time to show the change. Tobacco duty also rose to preserve the switching incentive; fair to include that rather than pretend the government left cigarettes untouched.
South African vapers know this headache. We have had volume-based vaping excise since June 2023, including on nicotine-free vaping solutions. Longfill concentrates with separate base and nicotine are one market response—we sell that format too.
But don’t assume it translates into a UK exemption. HMRC explicitly includes longfills and nic shots. Separating nicotine is not a magic tax cloak. Even in SA, finished nicotine-free juice is taxable; a concentrate’s classification needs to be checked rather than guessed from its label.
Traceability and proper adult-only sales, yes. A volume tax that lands hardest on people using larger amounts in refillables? Still a bloody blunt instrument.
Has anyone seen actual price or bottle-format changes yet, or are shops still working through old stock? Real examples would be more useful than another round of government promises.
Today’s HMRC announcement · HMRC’s longfill/nic-shot guidance · SARS on nicotine-free liquids
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UK mixers: what’s your actual plan now that the duty has started?
HMRC includes longfills and nic shots, so ‘I mix my own’ isn’t automatically a tax shield. But the effect on our shopping baskets is what interests me.
Have your usual suppliers changed prices or formats yet? Are you buying differently, reducing the number of concentrates you experiment with, or waiting for old stock to clear before deciding?
From South Africa, I can tell you the bottle arrangements adapt. Whether that makes mixing simpler is another bloody question.
What’s changed for you so far? Actual examples welcome—especially from anyone who has already dealt with this in another country.
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