A typical cigarette contains about 11.9 to 14.5 mg of nicotine. But you only absorb around 1 to 1.5 mg of it. The rest burns away in the smoke and never reaches you.

That gap between what is in the cigarette and what actually gets into your body is the single most misunderstood thing about nicotine, and it is why so many people switching to vaping panic that their 20 mg e-liquid must be far stronger than the cigarettes they just gave up. It isn't. Here is the whole picture, in plain numbers.

How much nicotine is in a cigarette?

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Question	Answer
Nicotine contained in one cigarette	About 11.9 to 14.5 mg
Nicotine you actually absorb from one	About 1 to 1.5 mg
In grams	Roughly 0.012 g contained, about 0.001 g absorbed
As a percentage	Nicotine is roughly 1 to 2% of the weight of the tobacco
A pack of 20 cigarettes	Contains roughly 240 to 290 mg. You absorb roughly 20 to 30 mg

Why the difference is so big: most of the nicotine in a cigarette is destroyed by the burning, or drifts off in the smoke you do not inhale. What reaches your bloodstream is a small fraction. Exactly how much depends on the brand, the design of the cigarette, and how hard and how often you draw on it. Two people smoking the same cigarette can take in noticeably different amounts.

How much nicotine is in a vape?

Vape strength is measured in milligrams per millilitre (mg/ml), which tells you the concentration of the liquid, not the dose you get. In the UK, nicotine e-liquid is legally capped at 20 mg/ml, and that cap applies to every vape kit and bottle sold legally here.

To work out what is in the bottle or pod, multiply the strength by the size:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you have	Nicotine in it
2 ml pod at 20 mg/ml (a standard prefilled pod)	40 mg
10 ml bottle at 20 mg/ml	200 mg
10 ml bottle at 10 mg/ml	100 mg
10 ml bottle at 3 mg/ml	30 mg
100 ml shortfill at 3 mg/ml (after nic shots)	300 mg

If you see a percentage on the packaging instead, it is the same number in different clothes. Divide the mg/ml by 10: 20 mg/ml is 2%, 10 mg/ml is 1%, 3 mg/ml is 0.3%.

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The comparison everyone gets wrong

Here is where people tie themselves in knots. They read that a cigarette has about 12 mg of nicotine, look at their 20 mg/ml e-liquid, and conclude they have swapped to something far stronger. It is an understandable mistake and it is wrong twice over.

First, you are comparing a concentration with a quantity. The 20 mg/ml on your bottle is how much nicotine is in each millilitre of liquid. It is not the dose you take in a puff, or a day. It is closer to reading the alcohol percentage on a bottle of spirits and assuming that is how much you are about to drink.

Second, and more importantly, cigarettes waste most of their nicotine. Compare like with like and the picture flips:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

	Nicotine contained	Roughly what it delivers
A pack of 20 cigarettes	About 200 to 280 mg	A day's nicotine for a 20-a-day smoker
A 2 ml pod at 20 mg/ml	40 mg	Broadly similar in what it delivers

So the pack holds something like six times more nicotine than the pod, yet delivers roughly the same amount to the person using it. The cigarettes are simply far more wasteful. That is why a 2 ml, 20 mg pod is a reasonable rough stand-in for a pack of 20 cigarettes: not because the numbers on the label match, but because what you end up absorbing is in the same ballpark. To be clear, that is our reading of the published research, not an official NHS equivalence. Neither the NHS nor the NCSCT publishes one.

The figure that matters is not what a cigarette holds but what a smoker actually takes in. The standard research figure is 1 to 1.5 mg of nicotine absorbed per cigarette (Benowitz), and the National Institute on Drug Abuse gives 1 to 2 mg, while e-cigarettes have been measured anywhere from about 1 to 10.6 mg over the same 20 puffs, depending enormously on the device and the liquid. In other words, vapes can deliver less nicotine than a cigarette or more, and the honest answer to \"which is stronger\" is: it depends on what you are vaping and how you vape it.

Nicotine strength to cigarettes: a conversion table

People often ask what a given strength \"equals\" in cigarettes. Strictly, mg/ml is a concentration, so it only becomes a number of cigarettes once you say how much liquid you get through. Here it is for a standard 10 ml bottle, and for a single 2 ml pod:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Strength	As a %	In a 2 ml pod	In a 10 ml bottle	Cigarettes per 10 ml, roughly
20 mg/ml	2%	40 mg	200 mg	About 100, five packs
10 mg/ml	1%	20 mg	100 mg	About 50
6 mg/ml	0.6%	12 mg	60 mg	About 30
3 mg/ml	0.3%	6 mg	30 mg	About 15
0 mg/ml	0%	0 mg	0 mg	None

So \"3 mg equals how many cigarettes\" has no single answer. Three milligrams per millilitre in a 10 ml bottle is about 30 mg of nicotine, or roughly 15 cigarettes' worth, spread over however long that bottle lasts you.

You can compare your own kit against cigarettes by nicotine in our vape to cigarette calculator.

Does the type of cigarette change the nicotine?

A little, but less than people expect. Nicotine content varies by brand and blend, typically within that 11.9 to 14.5 mg range, and a few brands sit outside it. Menthol cigarettes are not a special case for nicotine: the menthol changes how the smoke feels and how deeply people tend to inhale, but it does not add nicotine to the tobacco. A menthol cigarette contains broadly what an equivalent non-menthol one does.

What matters far more than the brand is how you smoke it. Depth and frequency of puffs change how much you absorb more than the label ever will.

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What about patches, gum and nicotine pouches?

These are worth understanding because they are measured differently again. A nicotine patch is labelled by the dose it delivers over a day, not by what it contains, so a 21 mg patch is designed to deliver roughly what a 20-a-day smoker absorbs from cigarettes, and a 14 mg or 7 mg patch scales down from there. Nicotine pouches are labelled by the nicotine in each pouch, and only some of that is absorbed, so a 6 mg pouch does not deliver 6 mg to you.

The important point is that a milligram on a patch, a pouch, a bottle of e-liquid and a cigarette are not the same milligram, because each one delivers a different proportion of what it holds. Comparing the numbers on the labels is exactly the mistake this article started with.

How many cigarettes is a vape worth?

Because a cigarette delivers roughly 1 to 2 mg of nicotine, a rough rule of thumb is to divide the nicotine in your vape by about 2.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Your vape	Nicotine in it	Cigarettes, very roughly
2 ml pod at 20 mg/ml	40 mg	About 20 (a pack)
2 ml pod at 10 mg/ml	20 mg	About 10
10 ml bottle at 20 mg/ml	200 mg	About 100 (five packs)
10 ml bottle at 10 mg/ml	100 mg	About 50

Treat those as a guide, not a measurement. It assumes you get through the whole lot, and it takes no account of how you vape. Someone taking long, frequent draws will absorb far more from the same pod than someone having the odd puff. If you want to run your own figures, our vape to cigarette calculator does the arithmetic for you.

How much nicotine is in popular vapes?

Nearly all prefilled pods sold in the UK use a 2 ml pod at the 20 mg/ml legal maximum, so the answer is usually the same regardless of the badge on the front:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Vape	Pod	Nicotine	Cigarettes, roughly
Elf Bar	2 ml, 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20
Lost Mary	2 ml, 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20
Hayati	2 ml, 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20
IVG	2 ml, 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20

Big-puff kits work differently. The pod itself is still 2 ml, but it is topped up from a prefilled refill container, so the nicotine adds up across the refills you use rather than sitting in the device all at once. The puff count printed on the box tells you nothing about the nicotine, because the nicotine comes from the liquid, not the number of puffs.

Does a higher mg mean a stronger hit?

Not necessarily, and this trips people up too. A 20 mg/ml nic salt in a small pod kit and a 3 mg/ml freebase liquid in a big sub-ohm device can deliver a similar amount of nicotine, because the sub-ohm device vaporises far more liquid with every puff. The concentration and the device work together. It is the reason high-strength liquids are made for small, low-power kits and low-strength liquids for the powerful ones.

If you are trying to work out what strength is right for you rather than what is in it, we have a separate guide on choosing a nicotine strength when you switch from smoking, and a deeper look at whether 5 mg, 10 mg or 20 mg suits you. This page is about the numbers themselves.

The bit that actually matters

Nicotine is what makes smoking and vaping addictive, but it is not what makes smoking deadly. The serious harm from a cigarette comes from the tar and the thousands of chemicals produced by burning tobacco, not from the nicotine itself. That is the whole logic behind switching: you keep the nicotine, which is what your body is asking for, and you drop the burning, which is what does the damage.

The NHS position is that vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking, and that it is one of the most effective ways to stop. It is not risk free, and if you have never smoked you should not start. It is not risk-free, and it is not for people who do not already smoke. But if you are weighing up a 20 mg pod against a pack of 20, the nicotine is the least of the differences between them.

Choosing your strength

If you're switching from cigarettes, the strength that matters is the one that stops you reaching for a cigarette. Most people coming off 20 a day start on 20mg nic salts in a pod kit, then step down over time. Lighter smokers often do better on 10mg. If you're already comfortable and want to cut down, a refillable kit gives you the freedom to drop your strength a step at a time rather than all at once.

Our full range of e-liquids runs from 20mg down to 0mg, and if you're not sure where to start, ask us. We'd rather point you at the right bottle than sell you the wrong one twice.

One thing worth being clear about: nicotine is what makes smoking addictive, but it is not what makes it deadly. That comes from the tar and the carbon monoxide in the smoke. So a nicotine comparison is not a harm comparison. The NHS position is that vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking, that it is not risk free, and that if you have never smoked you should not start.

How much nicotine is in a Marlboro, or any other brand?

Broadly the same as any other cigarette. Brands vary a little in the nicotine held in the tobacco, but the amount a smoker actually absorbs is far more about how you smoke it, how deeply you inhale and how many puffs you take, than about which packet it came out of. The old \"light\" and \"low tar\" labels were banned precisely because they misled people into thinking they were taking in less. They weren't. Assume 1 to 2mg absorbed from any cigarette and you won't be far out.

How much nicotine is in a roll-up?

It depends entirely on how you roll it. A thin roll-up holds less tobacco than a factory cigarette and a fat one holds more, so there is no single figure. What is well established is that roll-up smokers are not taking in less nicotine as a rule, and hand-rolling tobacco carries the same health risks as any other tobacco.

Nicotine in a cigarette versus a vape: the short version

A cigarette contains 10 to 14mg of nicotine, but you only absorb 1 to 2mg of it. The rest burns away. A vape is far more efficient: very little of the nicotine in the liquid is wasted. That is why a 2ml pod at 20mg, which is 40mg of nicotine on paper, is not \"twenty times a cigarette\". Once you compare what is actually absorbed rather than what is in the product, it works out closer to a pack of 20.

\n","excerpt","A cigarette contains 10 to 14mg of nicotine. You absorb 1 to 2mg of it. That gap is why almost every vape-to-cigarette comparison you have read is wrong, and it is why a 20mg pod is not \"20 times stronger\" than anything.","how-much-nicotine-is-in-a-cigarette","tags",[37,33],"id","gid://shopify/Article/1003570266499","image",{"_314":326,"_327":328,"_329":330,"_331":332,"_333":334},"publishedAt","2026-07-14T06:37:58Z","How Much Nicotine Is in a Cigarette?","blog",{"_11":12},"popularArticlesReference","updatedAt","2026-07-22T19:14:21Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418035106179","altText","Diagram showing a cigarette contains 10 to 14mg of nicotine but a smoker absorbs only 1 to 2mg, with the rest burning away.","url","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/how-much-nicotine-is-in-a-cigarette_3980139c-32b4-4b59-8ddd-96ece61b4e48.webp?v=1784103924","width",1280,"height",720,"name","shane margereson",{"_335":336},"

On 1 October 2026, every 10ml of e-liquid sold in this country picks up £2.20 of duty. That's 22p a millilitre, and VAT goes on top of it. Flat rate. Same on 20mg, same on 0mg.

So here's a fair question. How many millilitres does a vaper actually get through in a day?

The government doesn't know. I've been through everything they published, the consultation, the response, the impact note, their own survey of vapers, and there is no answer in any of it. They never established it. They never measured it. They taxed it anyway.

I'll tell you what I get through, because somebody should. I'm a heavy vaper. Around 15ml a day on 5mg or 10mg nic salts, depending on what I'm doing, where I am and the situation I'm in. Back when I was sub-ohming on 3mg it was closer to 30ml. I've been vaping since 2012 and I founded a vape company, so I've watched a lot of people vape, and I have never once met the person this tax was designed around.

What follows is my opinion. Every fact underneath it is the government's own, and I've read the documents rather than the headlines about them.

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\nThe whole thing rests on one pod. And a tobacco company supplied the number.\n

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Now go and look at the footnote for where that puff count came from. It says: British American Tobacco, Vuse puff count.

Read that again, because I had to. The evidence base for taxing five million British vapers is a puff count published by a tobacco company, about a tobacco company's own product.

I'm not going to call that a conspiracy. I don't need to. It's just staggeringly thin. Nobody vapes a Vuse ePen and calls it representative of anything. I've got customers on rebuildables, customers on 25,000-puff pods, customers on sub-ohm tanks pushing serious wattage, customers on zero nicotine going through shortfills like water. They are not the same animal as a closed tobacco-industry pod, and they never were.

Setting the tax base for an entire industry off that one product is like setting fuel duty by measuring a moped.

And here's the kicker. By the time the government published its final response, the Vuse citation was gone. The 1ml equals 10 cigarettes line survived, but the working that produced it, the pod, the puff count, the tobacco company, quietly vanished from the document. The assumption carried on. The evidence for it didn't.

What their own maths says about me

Take their equivalence seriously for a second, because it's worth doing.

1ml equals 10 cigarettes. So a 10ml bottle is 100 cigarettes. I get through about 15ml a day.

By the government's own arithmetic, I smoke 150 cigarettes a day.

A hundred and fifty. Seven and a half packs, every day, for years. I'd be dead. That's not a rhetorical flourish, it's just what their number produces when you put a real vaper into it. And I'm not some freak outlier. I'm a bloke who vapes custard flavours at 5mg and 10mg and does a lot of hours.

Now here's the part that should really worry them. I'm on nic salts in a pod these days, because it's convenient. Before that I was a sub-ohm and rebuildables vaper on 3mg, and on that setup I was getting through more like 30ml a day.

Double the liquid. On a fraction of the nicotine. Their model has that version of me smoking 300 cigarettes a day.

When a model spits out an answer that absurd, the model is wrong. You don't get to keep the model and tax people on it anyway.

They never asked anyone how much they vape

This is the part I keep coming back to.

HMRC ran a survey. They did the work. And the question they asked vapers was how much they spend. The answer came back at around £8.60 a week. They did not ask how many millilitres people get through. They had a room full of actual vapers and they asked about the wallet, not the bottle.

You cannot build a per-millilitre tax on a survey that never mentions millilitres. That's not a technicality. That's the whole thing.

And the data was sitting there for the taking. Every legitimate retailer in this country knows to the bottle what their customers buy. We do. It's in our order history. They never asked us. They never asked any of us.

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So we measured it ourselves

The government never asked a retailer how much liquid people actually get through. We are a retailer. We have the answer sitting in our order history. So we went and got it.

We looked at every e-liquid purchase made by almost 18,000 customers across four separate periods spread over nine months, from July 2025 to April 2026. That's 89 days of trading, sampled at four points across the year so nobody can accuse us of picking a good month.

Then we did the thing the Treasury didn't. For every customer who came back, we worked out how much liquid they bought and how long it lasted them before they needed more. That gives you a genuine consumption rate rather than a guess. We measured over 4,300 complete purchase cycles that way.

Here is what British vapers actually get through.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n What you vape with \n	\n Cycles measured \n	\n Typical vaper (median) \n	\n Average (mean) \n	\n Above 2ml \n	\n Duty a year \n
\n Prefilled pods, kits and refills \n	\n over 1,000 \n	\n 3.1 to 5.1 ml/day \n	\n 4.2 to 9.7 ml/day \n	\n 84% \n	\n £299 to £491 \n
\n 10ml nic salts in a pod kit \n	\n almost 2,000 \n	\n 5.0 to 8.0 ml/day \n	\n 6.0 to 16.2 ml/day \n	\n 90% \n	\n £482 to £771 \n
\n Open system, tank and shortfill \n	\n over 1,200 \n	\n 16.1 to 30.0 ml/day \n	\n 22.0 to 45.5 ml/day \n	\n 100% \n	\n £1,551 to £2,891 \n
\n Every vaper we measured \n	\n over 4,300 \n	\n 5.7 to 10.3 ml/day \n	\n 10.1 to 23.3 ml/day \n	\n 91% \n	\n £549 to £993 \n
\n The government's vaper \n	\n none \n	\n 2.0 ml/day \n	\n never measured \n	\n n/a \n	\n £193 \n

Every figure is a range because we measured it twice, using two different methods. One of them is generous to the government's number. The other isn't. Neither of them gets anywhere near 2ml.

Read the bottom two rows together, because that is the whole argument. The typical vaper we measured gets through somewhere between 5.7 and 10.3ml a day. The Treasury built a tax on 2ml. 91% of every purchase cycle we measured is above it.

Three reasons these numbers are too low

We'd rather tell you what's wrong with our own study than have somebody else do it.

These are our customers, not the country. Ecigone's customers lean towards refillables and open systems more than the average corner shop's do. That pushes our overall figure up, and we're saying so before anyone else does. It's exactly why the table is broken down by device: judge us on the row that matches you.

We threw away our most dramatic number. Open-system vapers came out at 16 to 30ml a day. We are not leading with that, because shortfill buyers can keep a stash on a shelf and we cannot see the shelf. It's in the table for completeness and we don't rely on it. The two rows we'd stake our name on are the pod rows, and they still come in at two to four times the Treasury's figure.

Nobody buys everything from one shop. This is the big one, and it runs entirely in one direction. We can only see what a customer bought from us. Every vaper in this country also picks up a bottle in a corner shop, grabs one at the garage, or shops around online. Whatever they bought elsewhere, we haven't counted it. Every single number in that table is a floor. The real figure is higher, and we have no way of knowing by how much.

Which brings us to the point.

We are one retailer, working from one order book, and we have measured almost 18,000 vapers and over 4,300 purchase cycles. HM Treasury had the entire industry to ask, and a legal power to demand the data, and they taxed five million people on the puff count of a single pod published by a tobacco company.

They could have done this. They just didn't.

The zero-nicotine problem nobody wants to talk about

The tax is flat. £2.20 per 10ml, whatever's in it. So 0mg pays exactly what 20mg pays.

Now, I've been a loud advocate for zero-nicotine vaping for years. My view has always been the same: start at 20, work your way down, and one day walk away from the whole thing. That's the journey. That's what it's for. I've got a lot of customers at 0mg and 3mg who are at the far end of quitting, doing exactly what every public health body in the country told them to do.

Those people are about to be taxed at the same rate as someone on 20mg nic salts.

And here's what makes it worse, and this is the part I'd put in front of a minister.

The original consultation had six objectives. Two of them were about nicotine: encouraging people onto lower-strength and nicotine-free liquid, and encouraging manufacturers to cut the nicotine in their products. The design followed from that. It was going to be a tiered tax, more duty on stronger liquid.

And the consultation said this, in terms, at paragraph 3.10:

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They wrote down that a flat rate would not meet the health objectives. They considered it and rejected it, on the record.

Then came the response. The six objectives became four. Both of the nicotine ones were gone. And the structure they'd said couldn't meet the objectives, the flat rate, is the one we're getting.

They didn't change the tax to fit the objectives. They changed the objectives to fit the tax.

If this was really about nicotine, it would be a tax on nicotine. It isn't. It's a tax on liquid. And that tells you exactly what it's for.

I'll be straight with you: the tiered version, more on the strong stuff, less on the weak, I could have lived with. When it was first floated I didn't think it was a bad job at all. I'd still rather my customers weren't taxed for getting off cigarettes. But at least it pointed people somewhere. This points nowhere.

\n\"The heaviest vapers.\" They think they mean ex-smokers.\n

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Fine. Now, who are the heaviest vapers?

The Treasury seems to picture a former smoker chuffing away on a pod. And 84% of the five million people this tax hits did come from smoking, 53% are ex-smokers, 31% still smoke as well. That's from the government's own numbers, and it's remarkable how little it comes up in their impact assessment. The section on the impact on individuals doesn't mention smoking status at all. Five million people, most of them ex-smokers, and the document that assesses the impact on them doesn't think that's worth a line.

But from where I sit, serving these people every day, the heaviest vapers aren't the pod crowd at all. They're the hobbyists. Sub-ohm tanks, rebuildables, big airflow, big clouds, and very often 3mg or below, because when you're moving that much liquid you physically cannot be on 20mg. It would floor you.

I know this because I was one of them. Rebuildables, sub-ohm, 3mg, and roughly double the liquid I get through today on a pod at 10mg.

Sit with that for a second. The lower my nicotine went, the more liquid I used. That is how vaping actually works, and it is the exact opposite of what a per-millilitre tax assumes.

So the tax lands hardest on the vapers who took the most nicotine out of their vaping. The ones furthest along. Read that back, because that's the actual design.

The thing I'm genuinely worried about

It isn't the price. It's what people do about the price.

Because the tax is per millilitre, the cheapest way to keep your nicotine and cut your bill is to use less liquid and put more nicotine in it. Go up from 10mg to 20mg and use half the juice. That's the rational response. That's what the tax is pushing.

I've tried it. It doesn't work like that. You go up in strength and for a bit you vape less, then you drift back to vaping the same amount anyway, only now you're on double the nicotine. And when you eventually try to come back down, you vape even more than you did to start with. I've watched it happen to me and I've watched it happen to customers.

A tax that nudges an ex-smoker's nicotine intake up is a strange thing for a health policy to do.

The government heard this sort of thing during the consultation. They wrote the objections down, which I'll give them credit for. Respondents pointed to the 70% drop in legal vape sales in Italy after their vaping duty came in. A vaping business submitted US research showing vape tax rises correlating with more people smoking. And the industry warned that compliance costs could make some small businesses unviable.

On the US evidence they did answer, after a fashion: they're putting tobacco duty up on the same day, to keep the gap. Fine, that's a response.

On Italy's 70% collapse, and on the small businesses going under, the response says nothing at all. The objections are printed in the document. The replies aren't.

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What it costs me. What it'll cost you.

Let's do the actual money, because the \"44p a day\" line that got repeated everywhere is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

The duty is £2.20 per 10ml. Add VAT on top of the duty and you're at £2.64 per 10ml before anyone's made a penny of margin.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n How much you vape \n	\n Extra per day (inc VAT) \n	\n Extra per year \n
\n 2ml, the government's figure \n	\n 53p \n	\n £193 \n
\n 10ml, one bottle a day \n	\n £2.64 \n	\n £964 \n
\n 15ml, what I actually vape \n	\n £3.96 \n	\n £1,445 \n
\n 30ml, me back on sub-ohm at 3mg \n	\n £7.92 \n	\n £2,891 \n

Fourteen hundred and forty-five pounds a year, for me, in duty alone. And if I'd stayed on sub-ohm at 3mg, where I was for years, it'd be nearly three grand. On a fraction of the nicotine.

That's before you count what the tax does to the price, which is a different and bigger question.

Because the duty isn't the only cost arriving. Manufacturers have to buy machinery to apply duty stamps. They need bonded warehousing. There's extra logistics, extra compliance, extra admin, and on top of all that there are import cost increases coming out of China. All of that has to land somewhere, and it lands on the shelf.

Anyone telling you they know exactly where prices settle in October is guessing. I run a vape company and I don't know. What I do know is it won't just be £2.20 plus VAT.

Shortfills are the ones that really get hurt. A 100ml shortfill picks up £22 of duty before VAT. That format, as we know it, largely doesn't survive that. Some brands will hang on. Most won't.

The bit that should worry the Treasury

If you're going to tax five million people, you'd want your homework to be solid. Theirs isn't, and you don't have to take my word for it.

Start with the bill for collecting it. HMRC's own impact note says delivering this duty will cost them £140m: £20m to build the IT system, £120m in staffing through to 2030. In its first year, the duty is forecast to raise £135m.

I'll be fair, because I want this to stand up: that first year is only half a year, the duty starts in October, and by 2027 to 2028 it's forecast to bring in £400m. So it isn't true that it costs more than it raises forever. But it is true, from their own document, that the machine costs more to build than the tax collects in its first year. That's the price of the plumbing.

Then there's the forecast itself, and this one is worth your time.

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Not because new evidence arrived. Because the answer the evidence gave them looked too big. So they shaved a quarter off it and moved on.

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That was July 2025. As of today they haven't published an update.

And when the OBR first certified this duty, back at Spring Budget 2024, they gave the costing their highest uncertainty rating: very high. The single biggest source of that uncertainty, in their own scoring, was the data.

The data. The pod. The tobacco company's puff count. Even the forecasters flagged it.

The grey market, and the black one. They are not the same thing.

People are going to react to this. Let's be honest about how.

Start with what's already true. The UK caps nicotine in e-liquid at 20mg. Right now, today, you can go online and buy nicotine at 72mg. The cap has been there for years and it has not stopped that. Bear that in mind when anyone tells you a rule will hold the line.

So here's what I think happens. There'll be a grey market: not criminals, just ordinary vapers working round the edges of a tax they think is unfair. Stockpiling before October and storing it properly. A big move to longfills. And people buying PG, VG and flavour concentrates from other industries, where they're just chemicals and food ingredients rather than vaping products, and mixing their own.

I don't condone any of that. But I understand exactly why people will do it.

And here is where I have to stop and warn you about something, because I don't think one vaper in a hundred knows it.

Mixing your own becomes a criminal offence on 1 October 2026

Not taxed. Not frowned upon. Against the law.

[shotcode_3_highlighted_section_5]

Read that last clause again. Even if not produced for commercial sale. Your kitchen table counts. And the same guidance opens by telling you who has to read it: manufacturers of vaping products, \"including products made at home\".

To do it lawfully you would need HMRC approval. That means passing a fit and proper person test, having a fixed place of business, submitting a premises plan with the fire exits marked in red, submitting a business plan, and providing a financial guarantee from a bank. For your spare room.

I went looking for a hobbyist exemption. There isn't one. HMRC's line is that there will be no exemptions at all \"except in circumstances required by law, such as supplies to diplomatic missions\". Unless you're an embassy, you're not getting a pass.

[shotcode_3_highlighted_section_6]

So shortfill plus nic shot, both bought duty-paid from a legitimate shop, stays completely legal. That's the survival route, and it's why longfills and shortfills will matter more after October than they do now, not less. Germany taxed vaping and their longfill market didn't die, it grew.

But the DIY route, mixing from raw PG, VG, concentrate and nicotine you bought as ingredients? Come October that isn't a grey area. It's an offence, carrying civil and criminal sanctions and, in HMRC's own words, \"potentially leading to prison sentences\".

I'm telling you this precisely because I don't want anyone reading this to sleepwalk into it thinking it's a clever bit of tax planning. It isn't. Nobody is talking about this, and they should be.

Then there's the actual black market

That's a different animal entirely, and it's the one that keeps me up.

Unregulated vapes sold on street corners and out of shops that just want to make a quick buck. No testing, no safety, no idea what's in the bottle. You can already buy illegal disposables in corner shops the length of this country. Everybody can see it. Now give people a financial reason to go looking, and watch what grows.

TPD gets a kicking, and some of it is fair, but the honest truth is it cleaned this industry up. It weeded that rubbish out. My genuine fear is that this tax reopens the door, and that the harm from one bad bottle of unregulated liquid dwarfs anything the duty was ever meant to prevent.

I honestly don't know how all this plays out. Anyone who tells you they do is guessing. But I know this much: the vast majority of vape companies in this country are responsible retailers. They'll follow the rules, they'll pay the duty, and they'll do everything they can to keep the cost down for the person at the end of it. We will, at Ecigone. That's not a marketing line, it's just the job.

And most vapers will stay with us, for one simple reason. They want to know what they're putting in their body.

What I'd have told them, if anyone had asked

I want to be clear about something first, because it would be easy to read all this as a bloke moaning about a tax on his own business.

I'm not against regulation. Regulation has been good for vaping. It drove out a lot of cowboys and it made this a safer thing to do, and there are still bad actors in this industry I'd happily see gone. And I'm not going to pretend I don't understand the concern about kids, because I do. I smoked as a kid. Kids do kid things. I don't condone it for a second.

But let's be honest about what this is. It's a sin tax. Same as alcohol, same as tobacco, same as sugar. The vaping industry got big and the Treasury noticed. That's the whole story, and the kids are the cover.

If I'd been in that room, here's the only thing I'd have said:

Ask the retailers. Go to the legitimate shops, the ones with tills and order histories and years of data on what real customers actually buy, and ask them how much people genuinely get through. Run a proper consumption survey. Then set the tax on the answer.

It would have cost them nothing. We'd have handed it over. Every serious retailer in the country would have handed it over.

They didn't ask. So we're doing it ourselves. We're going through our own order data to work out what UK vapers genuinely consume, and we'll publish it. It's the study the Treasury should have run before they wrote the number down.

Where this leaves us

I'll pay it. Most people will. It's still miles cheaper than smoking, and I would hate to put a cigarette back in my mouth. My mum died of lung cancer in 2018. That's the reason I do this at all.

Some people will stockpile, which is entirely legal before October and something I'll be doing myself. Some will move to longfills. Some, I'm afraid, will go looking for a cheaper bottle from someone who shouldn't be selling it.

And a few will go back to cigarettes. I don't know how many. Neither does anybody else, and that is precisely the problem. But every single one of them is a person this government said it wanted to help.

The maddening thing is that none of this had to be a fight. Tax it if you must. But tax it on something real.

Because right now, the number underneath all of this came from a tobacco company, and nobody ever checked it against a single British vaper.

Shane Margereson is the founder of Ecigone. He's vaped since 2012 and gets through around 15ml a day. By the government's own cigarette equivalence, that makes him a 150-a-day smoker.

\n","HM Treasury built a per-millilitre tax on vaping without ever establishing how many millilitres a vaper actually gets through. There is no published figure. So we measured it ourselves, across almost 18,000 customers and over 4,300 purchase cycles. The typical vaper is on 5.7 to 10.3ml a day. The number the tax implies is 2ml.","how-much-e-liquid-do-vapers-actually-use",[25,37,47],"gid://shopify/Article/1003570299267",{"_314":348,"_327":349,"_329":350,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-14T06:38:01Z","They Taxed Every Millilitre I Vape. They Never Worked Out How Many I Use.",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T07:29:11Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418154611075","Bar chart headed They taxed every millilitre I vape, they never worked out how many I use, comparing the 2ml a day implied by the UK vape tax against the 5.7 to 10.3ml a day Ecigone measured across almost 18,000 customers.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/how-much-e-liquid-do-vapers-actually-use123_e9ea7718-86d1-4e92-b622-51b029034451.webp?v=1784273351",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: leave it at home. Mexican customs list e-cigarettes as goods you cannot bring into the country, on the same list as weapons and ammunition. They will take it off you at the airport.

But almost every article you will read about this is out of date, and several of them are quoting a fine that does not exist. Mexican law changed on 16 January 2026. The position now is more precise, and in one important respect less frightening, than the internet is telling you.

Here is what the law actually says, taken from the Mexican statute rather than from other people writing about it.

Is vaping illegal in Mexico?

It depends entirely on what you mean, and this is where nearly everyone goes wrong. Mexican law draws a hard line between the supply chain and the end user.

The law in force is the reformed Ley General de Salud, published on 15 January 2026 and effective from the 16th. Its Article 282 Quater bans the production, importation, storage, distribution, sale and supply of vapes across the whole country. Then it adds a second paragraph, which is the part nobody quotes:

\"Se exceptúa de la prohibición, su consumo y posesión cuando no se destine a las actividades o fines señalados en el párrafo anterior.\"

In plain English: possession and personal consumption are exempt from the ban, as long as they are not for one of the commercial purposes listed above. That is written into the statute.

So the honest breakdown looks like this.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What that means for you
Selling, importing, distributing or storing vapes commercially	A crime	One to eight years in prison, plus a fine. This is aimed at the trade, not at you.
Bringing a vape into the country in your luggage	Prohibited at the border	Mexican customs list it as goods you cannot import. Expect it to be confiscated.
Simply having a vape on you, already in Mexico	Expressly exempt	The statute says possession is excepted from the prohibition.
Vaping in private	Expressly exempt	Personal consumption is excepted from the prohibition.
Vaping in a public place	Banned separately	Caught by the tobacco law, not the vape ban. Fines apply. See below.

That distinction matters, and you will not find it on any other British vape site, because they are all describing the law as it stood before January 2026.

Can you take a vape to Mexico?

No, and this part is not ambiguous.

Mexico's customs agency, ANAM, publishes a list titled Mercancía que no puedes ingresar a México, meaning goods you cannot bring in. Electronic cigarettes and personal vaporising devices are on it, listed under tariff code 8543.40.01, in the same section as firearms and ammunition.

Zero-nicotine devices are named explicitly. The list covers nicotine-free systems as well as nicotine ones, so a 0mg disposable is caught in exactly the same way. There is no personal-use allowance and no duty-free exception.

The Foreign Office says the same thing. Its Mexico travel advice, updated on 4 June 2026, reads:

\"It is illegal to bring e-cigarettes, vaping devices and solutions into Mexico or to buy and sell them. Customs officials will confiscate these items; and they could fine or detain you.\"

Two governments, saying the same thing, on the record. If you take a vape to Mexico, the realistic outcome is that you lose it.

What we do not know, and will not pretend to

Whether a tourist carrying one device across the border legally counts as \"importing\" it, and therefore falls under the criminal penalties, is untested. The statute lists importation without qualifying it as commercial, but the same article expressly excepts possession, and the whole provision is built around the supply chain. There is no official guidance resolving it and we could not find a single prosecution of a traveller.

We are not going to guess. What we can tell you with confidence is that the device gets taken off you, and that the prison sentences in the law are aimed at people selling and importing commercially.

The $400 airport fine that does not exist

If you have been researching this, you have probably read that a hidden vape triggers an on-the-spot customs fine of around $400 to $500, payable at the terminal. It appears on vape blog after vape blog, always stated as fact.

We went looking for the source of that figure. There isn't one.

It is not in the Ley General de Salud. It is not in the Ley Aduanera, the customs law. It is not in anything ANAM or the Mexican tax authority publishes. Mexican customs deal with prohibited goods by seizing them, not by charging a discretionary cash penalty at the desk.

And here is the tell. The same claim circulates elsewhere as $200. Two incompatible \"official\" figures, neither of which can be traced to a Mexican government source. That is not reporting. Somebody made a number up, and everybody else copied it.

And the $12,500 fine is real, but it is not yours

You will also see fines \"of up to $12,500\" quoted at tourists. That number is derived from something real: the maximum criminal fine under the Mexican health law is 2,000 UMA, which works out at roughly £10,000.

But that is the maximum penalty a judge imposes on someone convicted of trafficking, alongside a prison sentence of up to eight years. It is not a charge you pay at an airport for one disposable. Every site that quotes it at holidaymakers has misunderstood what they are reading.

We are telling you this because we would rather you knew the truth than were scared by a made-up number. The real risk is losing your device. That is bad enough without inventing anything.

Can you vape in public in Mexico?

No. And this ban is separate from the vape ban, which is why it still bites even though possession is exempt.

Mexico's tobacco control law, the Ley General para el Control del Tabaco, made the entire country 100% smoke-free from January 2023. Article 26 prohibits consuming any tobacco or nicotine product, and any emissions from one, in a smoke-free space. Vaping is caught by that wording even though the law never uses the word \"vape\".

The definition of a smoke-free space is deliberately broad. It covers enclosed spaces, workplaces, public transport, schools and what the law calls spaces of collective gathering, and it explicitly says these count whether or not they have a roof or walls. Outdoors is included.

In practice that means no vaping in: beaches, hotels, hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, parks, stadiums, shopping centres and public transport.

Can you vape in Mexican resorts?

Legally, no. In practice, it varies, and we are going to be straight with you about the gap.

The statute is absolute and applies to resort grounds like anywhere else. What actually happens is that enforcement inside a private resort is largely left to the property, and plenty of resorts run designated open-air smoking areas. The tobacco law does permit exclusively-for-smoking zones, but only in open-air spaces.

The thing to understand is that a hotel tolerating it is not the same as it being legal. Under the same law, the liability for enforcing the ban falls on the owner or administrator of the premises, which is exactly why hotel staff have an incentive to stop you.

What are the actual penalties?

Here is what the law states, with what it applies to. Note how little of it is aimed at a tourist.

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Conduct	Penalty	Who it is aimed at
Selling, importing, distributing or storing commercially	1 to 8 years in prison, plus a fine of roughly £500 to £10,000	The trade
Possessing a vape (not for commercial purposes)	No penalty. Expressly excepted by the statute.	Nobody
Personal consumption (not for commercial purposes)	No penalty. Expressly excepted by the statute.	Nobody
Smoking or vaping in a smoke-free public space	A fine. The Foreign Office says up to 3,000 pesos, about £150.	Anyone, including you
Bringing a vape through customs	Confiscation. We found no on-the-spot fine in any Mexican source.	Anyone, including you

One honest note on that £150 figure. It is the Foreign Office's number, and we are quoting it because it is the official British advice. We could not reconcile it with the Mexican tobacco statute, which sets a higher maximum. Treat £150 as the FCDO's guidance rather than as the ceiling under Mexican law.

What actually happens in practice

This is the part where we separate what the law says from what we could actually find evidence of.

Confiscation is real and documented. Mexican customs classify vapes as non-importable, the Foreign Office says customs \"will confiscate these items\", and there are consistent traveller reports of exactly that. Cruise lines have started formally advising passengers to leave vapes on the ship at Mexican ports.

Enforcement against sellers is real and active. Mexican health regulators have been running verification operations, including at airports, seizing stock and closing premises.

But we could not find a single documented case of a tourist being fined or jailed for one personal device. We looked. The consistent, evidenced outcome for a traveller is that the vape gets taken away. We are not going to tell you people are being locked up when we cannot show you one who was.

Why is vaping banned in Mexico?

It is worth understanding, because it explains why this is not going to be reversed.

Mexico banned the import of vapes in 2021, then banned their circulation and sale inside the country by presidential decree in May 2022. The Supreme Court then struck both down, ruling in 2023 and 2024 that they were unconstitutional.

So the government changed the constitution instead. An amendment to Articles 4 and 5, published on 17 January 2025, wrote the prohibition into the constitution itself. And in October 2024, a separate reform removed the ability to challenge constitutional amendments in the courts at all.

The result: the ban is now entrenched at constitutional level and effectively immune from legal challenge. The secondary legislation that gives it teeth arrived on 16 January 2026. Do not expect this to be overturned.

So what should you actually do?

Leave it at home. That is the whole answer, and every source, Mexican statute, Mexican customs and the Foreign Office, points the same way.

If you are going to Mexico and you vape, plan for it in advance rather than at the airport:

Do not pack it, in hand luggage or hold. It is prohibited goods either way, and there is no personal allowance to fall back on.

Think about nicotine replacement instead. Patches, gum and nicotine pouches are not caught by any of this, and pouches are the easy one to travel with. If you are a heavy vaper, a fortnight without nicotine is a genuinely miserable holiday, and worse, it is how people end up going back to cigarettes. Sort it before you fly, not in the departure lounge.

Sort your kit out before you fly and again when you land back. If you are stocking up before a trip, our e-liquids and nic salts are here, and a spare pod kit at home is a lot cheaper than replacing a vape kit you lost at customs.

And if Mexico is one stop on a longer trip, check the rest of it. The rules change completely from one border to the next, and several countries near Mexico have no restrictions at all.

\n\n","Mexican customs list vapes as goods you cannot bring in, alongside weapons and ammunition, and they will take yours off you. But the law changed on 16 January 2026, and almost every article you will read about it is out of date. Possession is now expressly exempt, and the $400 airport fine that half the internet quotes cannot be traced to any Mexican source at all.","can-you-vape-in-mexico",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003580948867",{"_314":362,"_327":363,"_329":364,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-14T12:13:25Z","Can You Vape in Mexico?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-16T18:25:11Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/417997062531","A UK passport shown next to a vape device with a prohibition mark through it, illustrating that e-cigarettes cannot be brought into Mexico and will be confiscated by customs.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-mexico.webp?v=1784031207",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Japan. Bring everything you need, because you will not be able to buy any of it there.

That second half is the part almost every guide misses, and it is the one that will actually ruin your trip. Nicotine e-liquid cannot legally be sold anywhere in Japan. Not in a vape shop, not in a convenience store, nowhere. If you run out in Osaka, you are stuck.

The rest of what you have read is mostly right, but wrongly explained. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Japanese government's own pages rather than from other people writing about them.

Is vaping legal in Japan?

Yes, with one very large asterisk.

Under Japan's Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Act, nicotine e-liquid is classed as a medicine, not as tobacco. And no nicotine e-liquid has ever been approved as a medicine in Japan. So selling it is unlawful, and because nothing is approved, nothing is sold.

That means Japanese vape shops stock zero-nicotine liquid only. This is not a shortage or a grey area. The product does not legally exist in Japanese retail.

But possessing it, and vaping it, is a different question. There is no Japanese law that prohibits a tourist from having nicotine e-liquid or using it. The Ministry of Health expressly allows you to bring in a personal supply, which would make no sense if having it were illegal.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own nicotine e-liquid in	Allowed, up to a limit	120ml, or 60 cartridges, or 12,000 puffs. See below.
Vaping it in Japan	Not prohibited	No national law bans use. Where you vape is a separate question.
Buying nicotine e-liquid in Japan	Impossible	It is an unapproved medicine. Nobody sells it. Bring your own.
Buying zero-nicotine liquid	Fine	Completely unregulated. Widely available.
Selling or giving away your liquid	An offence	Personal import is for your own use only. Do not share it.

The 120ml rule, and what it actually means

You will have read that you can bring 120ml of nicotine e-liquid into Japan. That figure is real. We checked it against the source, because we expected it to be another number the vape industry invented, and it isn't.

It comes from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Their guidance, updated in February 2026, says the quantity you can clear through customs on the customs officer's check alone is:

\"The equivalent of 1,200 cigarettes, or 12,000 puffs, or in the case of cartridges 60 units, or in the case of liquid, 120ml. Where both a puff count and a liquid volume are stated, whichever gives the smaller clearable quantity applies.\"

So there are four ways of expressing the same allowance, and if your product states both puffs and millilitres, they use whichever is more restrictive. That last clause matters and nobody quotes it.

What happens if you go over

This is where every other article gets it wrong, usually by implying you will be arrested.

Going over 120ml is not a crime. It is a paperwork problem. You would need an import confirmation certificate, and here is the sting in the tail, straight from the same government page: getting that certificate requires a prescription or written instruction from a doctor.

In practice, for anything over the limit, you either abandon the excess and customs destroys it, or the parcel goes back to the sender. That is the documented mechanism. We could not find a single recorded case of a tourist being fined or prosecuted over e-liquid in their bag, and we are not going to imply there is one.

The bit about your device that nobody mentions

Under the same rules, the vape itself is legally a medical device if it is intended for nicotine liquid. The quantity you can clear on the customs officer's check is one unit, plus one spare.

Practical translation: take your vape and a backup. Do not travel to Japan with a hardware collection.

A tip that will actually save you

The limit is on volume, not on nicotine. So the higher the strength, the further your 120ml goes.

120ml of 3mg shortfill is not much nicotine at all. 120ml of 20mg nic salts is a serious supply, and for most people it comfortably covers a two-week trip. If you are a sub-ohm vaper who normally gets through 20ml a day, do the maths before you fly, because 120ml is six days.

Can you vape in public in Japan?

Here is the genuinely surprising bit, and we want to be careful, because getting this wrong in either direction is unhelpful.

Japan's indoor smoking law does not cover liquid vapes. The Health Promotion Act, fully in force since April 2020, defines smoking as burning or heating tobacco. A liquid vape contains no tobacco leaf, so it falls outside the Act. Heated tobacco like IQOS and glo is caught. Your vape is not.

The same goes for the famous street-smoking bans. Chiyoda ward in Tokyo bans street smoking across almost the whole ward, with a fine, and it says in terms that the tobacco it regulates is cigarettes and heated tobacco. From November 2024 it added heated tobacco. It does not cover liquid vapes.

So why should you still be careful?

Because Chiyoda itself explained the problem, in writing. When it extended the ban to heated tobacco, it said the reason it had not fined heated tobacco users before was that they are visually indistinguishable from electronic cigarettes, which are not classified as tobacco, and it risked fining the wrong people.

That is the whole practical situation in one sentence. Legally you are outside the rule. Visually, a ward officer cannot tell your pod kit from an IQOS at ten paces.

So our advice is simple and it costs you nothing: use the designated smoking areas. Chiyoda alone has 82 of them. You avoid an argument you would technically win, and Japan takes public courtesy seriously in a way that is worth respecting whether or not a law compels it.

One important limit on what we are telling you: Japan has over 1,700 municipalities and each sets its own street rules. We verified Chiyoda, Shinjuku and Shinagawa. We have not checked Osaka or Kyoto. Do not treat \"vapes are exempt\" as a national rule, because we cannot show you that it is.

What if you run out?

You cannot buy nicotine e-liquid. But you are not stuck with nothing, and Japan is unusually well set up here.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Option	Available in Japan?	Worth knowing
Nicotine e-liquid	No	Unapproved medicine. Not sold anywhere. This is the one to plan around.
Zero-nicotine e-liquid	Yes	Completely unregulated and widely sold.
Heated tobacco (IQOS, glo, Ploom)	Yes, everywhere	Legal, taxed, sold in every convenience store. It is not vaping, but it is nicotine.
Nicotine pouches	Yes, since April 2026	Japan Tobacco's Nordic Spirit is now sold in 7-Eleven, Lawson and NewDays. VELO too. Age 20+.
Nicotine gum and patches	Yes	Over the counter in any Japanese pharmacy.

Why we are not telling you to pack our own nicotine pouches

We sell nicotine pouches. We are not going to tell you to take them to Japan, and we want to explain why, because the honest answer reflects badly on our own sales.

The pouches sold in the UK are tobacco-free. Japanese law catches nicotine that is not in tobacco leaf by treating it as a medicine, which is exactly why e-liquid is banned from sale. On the best reading, that same logic catches a tobacco-free pouch. But no Japanese government body has ever published a rule about nicotine pouches at all, and the pouches Japan itself sells are taxed as tobacco products.

So the true position is: we do not know, and neither does anyone else writing about this. We are not going to send you through Narita carrying something we told you was fine on the strength of a guess.

Buy them when you land. Japan sells its own, in every convenience store, and then you have nothing to explain to anybody.

So what should you actually do?

Take enough liquid, and take it in the right strength. 120ml is your ceiling. Higher-strength nic salts make that go a great deal further than shortfills will.

Take your device and one spare, and nothing more. Your vape is a medical device in Japanese law, and the allowance is one plus a backup.

Do not plan to buy anything nicotine-related for your vape out there, because you cannot. Sort your e-liquid and your pod kit before you fly.

Use the smoking areas. You are probably outside the rules, but nobody can tell that by looking at you.

And know your fallback. If you do run short, Japan sells heated tobacco, nicotine pouches and nicotine gum on practically every corner. You will not be without nicotine. You will just be without vaping.

If Japan is one stop on a longer trip, check the rest of it before you go. The rules change completely from one border to the next, and some of your neighbours on the itinerary are far less relaxed than this.

\n\n","Japan lets you bring your vape and a personal supply of nicotine e-liquid, but you cannot buy any nicotine e-liquid once you land. Here is the real 120ml import limit, the street rules, and exactly what to pack, taken from the Japanese government's own pages.","can-you-vape-in-japan",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003927699843",{"_314":376,"_327":377,"_329":378,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-16T17:23:15Z","Can You Vape in Japan?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-16T18:25:10Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418128626051","Chart headed Can you vape in Japan, showing yes but you cannot buy any nicotine e-liquid there, with a bar illustrating the real 120ml import limit verified against the Japanese statute.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-japan.webp?v=1784222597",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Morocco. There is no law against it, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and nobody at the airport is going to stop you.

The part that actually matters is different, and almost every guide gets it wrong. Vape shops are thin on the ground, so you need to bring enough juice for the whole trip. And the one thing that will genuinely land you in trouble is not your nicotine vape at all. It is cannabis. Morocco is one of the biggest hash producers on earth, but a THC or CBD vape in your bag is treated as a drug at the border, and the penalties are real.

Here is the whole picture, checked against Morocco's own tobacco law and the harm-reduction data rather than copied from the next vape shop's blog.

Is vaping legal in Morocco?

Yes. There is no specific law regulating e-cigarettes in Morocco. Nicotine vaping is not banned, not restricted to prescription, and not treated as a controlled drug. The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction database, which tracks the legal status of vaping country by country, records Morocco as having no dedicated e-cigarette law and personal use as generally allowed.

That puts Morocco in a very different bracket to somewhere like Thailand or Singapore, where a vape in your luggage is a criminal matter. In Morocco it simply is not. What you do have to plan around is supply, not legality.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal quantities, carry-on. No documented problem for tourists.
Vaping nicotine in Morocco	Legal	No law bans it. Where you vape is a courtesy question, not a legal one.
Buying nicotine e-liquid in Morocco	Possible but hard	Shops are rare and stock is patchy. Do not rely on it.
Bringing a THC or cannabis vape in	Illegal	Treated as a drug. This is the one that carries a real penalty.
Bringing a CBD vape in	Risky	No clear legal route. Border officers may treat it as cannabis. Leave it home.

Can you bring your vape into Morocco?

Yes. Bring your device and your e-liquid in your carry-on, the same as any flight, because lithium batteries are not allowed in checked luggage. Keep it to a personal amount. A device or two, a spare, and enough liquid for the trip is fine. What you want to avoid is turning up with a sealed box of fifty disposables, which starts to look like you are importing stock to sell rather than to use.

There is no published tourist allowance for e-liquid volume the way Japan has one, because Morocco has never written a vape-specific rule. The sensible read is to pack what one person would realistically get through, and no more.

One honest note on sourcing. A lot of the traveller advice you will find online, including the entry on the main harm-reduction database, actually traces back to a UK vape retailer's blog rather than to any Moroccan government notice. There is no official Moroccan customs statement aimed at tourists carrying a personal vape. The absence of a rule is the rule here.

The 2026 rule everyone is quoting, and why it does not apply to you

In February 2026, Morocco brought in its first mandatory national standard for e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches and muassel (the tobacco used in shisha). You will see newer guides mention this and imply the rules have tightened for visitors. They have not, and here is the distinction that matters.

The standard, developed by the Moroccan Institute of Standardization (IMANOR), is a product and retail standard, not a traveller rule. It sets out what a vape has to carry to be sold on the Moroccan market: eleven mandatory labelling elements covering the manufacturer, the ingredients, the country of origin and the production date, plus traceability and safety requirements. Because Morocco makes none of these products itself, the standard applies to what importers and shops put on shelves.

In plain terms, it changes what a Moroccan shop is allowed to sell you. It does not change anything about the device already in your pocket. The consumer federation that pushed for it described the aim as transparency rather than prohibition. So if a guide tells you Morocco has \"cracked down on vaping\" as of 2026, that is a retail-shelf rule being misread as a border rule.

Can you buy vapes or e-liquid in Morocco?

Sometimes, in the bigger cities, but do not count on it. Casablanca, Marrakech, Rabat and Tangier have a handful of vape shops and you will occasionally find disposables in a tabac or a corner store. Outside the cities, and in the coastal resorts and the south, there is very little. Stock is inconsistent, brands are unfamiliar, and there is no guarantee the strength or flavour you use will be there.

The safe approach is the same one experienced travellers use for any patchy market: take everything you need with you. If you run a pod kit or a refillable device, bring plenty of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid, and pack a spare pod kit or refillable kit so a lost or broken device does not leave you stuck. Two weeks in Morocco with no way to top up is a miserable way to end up back on cigarettes.

The real risk: cannabis and CBD vapes

This is the section every other guide buries, and it is the one that can actually cost you. Morocco grows an enormous amount of cannabis, and hash is openly part of the culture in places like the Rif. None of that makes it legal. Recreational cannabis is illegal for tourists, there is no personal-use exemption, and drug offences carry serious penalties.

A THC vape cartridge in your luggage is not a nicotine vape as far as Moroccan customs is concerned. It is a cannabis product, and it is treated as one. Do not bring one, and do not buy one there to bring home either.

CBD sits in a grey area, and the safe answer is to leave it at home. Morocco only legalised cannabis for tightly licensed medical and industrial use, with no clear consumer route for CBD, and a border officer is not going to lab-test your vape to check whether it contains THC. If it looks like a cannabis product, it can be treated as one. A CBD vape you bought perfectly legally in the UK is not worth the risk at a Moroccan airport.

Where you can and cannot vape

Morocco's public smoking law restricts smoking in enclosed public places such as mosques, hospitals, schools and public transport, and in practice you should treat vaping the same way. The law does not name vaping specifically, but blowing a cloud where cigarettes are banned is asking for a word from staff or worse.

Be especially discreet in mosques and religious sites, busy souks, and anywhere clearly signed no-smoking. Riads and hotels vary, so ask rather than assume, and step out to a terrace or courtyard if you are unsure. Outdoors, on a rooftop, or in a designated smoking area, nobody will mind. As everywhere, vaping is about reading the room, and Morocco rewards a bit of cultural respect.

Can you buy nicotine pouches in Morocco?

There is no specific law on nicotine pouches, so they are not banned, but like vapes they are hard to find reliably outside the big cities. If pouches are your backup for flights and no-vape situations, bring your own supply rather than expecting to buy them there. They are compact, they travel well, and they cover you for the long-haul legs and the moments when getting the vape out is not an option.

What to pack for Morocco

Keep it simple. Your device and a spare in your carry-on, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the whole trip plus a little slack, a charger and cable, and pouches if you use them. Leave anything cannabis or CBD related at home without exception. Do that and Morocco is one of the easiest countries in the region to vape in, precisely because it has never made a rule about it.

\n","Vaping nicotine is legal in Morocco and you can bring your own device in, but vape shops are rare so pack enough for the trip. The one real risk is cannabis: THC and CBD vapes are treated as drugs at the border.","can-you-vape-in-morocco",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003928617347",{"_314":389,"_327":390,"_329":391,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-16T17:36:36Z","Can You Vape in Morocco?",{"_11":12},"gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418132558211","Checklist headed Can you vape in Morocco, showing nicotine vapes and your own e-liquid are allowed at the border while THC and CBD vapes are not.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-morocco.webp?v=1784223398",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Bali. It is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and most people walk through the airport with theirs untouched.

But there is one rule that matters more than all the others, and it is the opposite of what you would expect. Do not buy vape juice in Bali. Indonesia's own drug agency has found e-liquids for sale locally that were laced with synthetic drugs, and Indonesia has some of the harshest drug laws on earth. Your nicotine vape is fine. A bottle of mystery juice from a Kuta shop is the thing that can turn a holiday into a nightmare.

Here is the full picture, checked against Indonesia's own regulations and its national news agencies rather than copied from another vape blog.

Is vaping legal in Bali?

Yes. This is the question everyone asks, usually phrased as \"is vaping illegal in Bali\", and the answer is no, it is not. Indonesia has taken a positive regulatory stance on vaping. E-cigarettes are legal to buy, sell and use, they are taxed as consumer goods, and you do not need a prescription for anything. The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction database records Indonesia as a legal, regulated market with roughly six million vapers.

Bali is part of Indonesia, so the national rules apply. There is no Bali-specific ban on vaping and no tourist ban. The confusion comes from older guides that never updated, and from the fact that Indonesia is genuinely strict about drugs, which is a completely separate issue we will come to.

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What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal quantities, cabin bag. Usually waved straight through.
Vaping nicotine in Bali	Legal	No law bans use. Where you vape is restricted, see below.
Buying a vape from a licensed shop	Legal but pricey	Heavily taxed. You must be 21 or over.
Buying cheap local vape juice	Dangerous	Some local liquid has been found laced with narcotics. Do not.
Anything involving drugs	Severe	Indonesia's drug penalties are among the toughest anywhere.

Can you bring your vape to Bali?

Yes. Pack your device and your e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device plus a spare and enough liquid for the trip, and you will almost certainly be waved through Ngurah Rai airport with no questions. Occasionally customs will pull a vape aside, but confiscation is the worst that typically happens to an ordinary traveller with a normal personal supply.

What you want to avoid is looking like an importer. A sealed carton of disposables to resell is a different matter to a device and a few bottles for your own use. Keep it personal and keep it in your hand luggage.

The one rule that matters: never buy local vape juice

This is the part no other guide leads with, and it is the single most important thing in this article. In 2026, Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency and its food and drug authority went public with a serious problem: vape liquids on sale locally were being laced with narcotics. In one round of testing, samples were found containing synthetic cannabinoids, a sedative called etomidate, and in one case methamphetamine. Police in Bali raided a villa being used as a factory to produce drug-laced vape liquid, run by an international network.

This is not a one-off scare. The villa operation was described as an international network turning over hundreds of billions of rupiah, and the problem was widespread enough that the head of the narcotics agency publicly called for a total ban on vaping to stop it. Officials described dealers injecting drugs into new, unopened bottles of vape liquid, which means a sealed local bottle is no guarantee of anything.

Now put that next to the other fact about Indonesia: it enforces some of the strictest drug laws in the world, and drug trafficking can carry the death penalty. You do not want to be the tourist holding a bottle of spiked liquid you bought in good faith from a shop or a market stall. The risk is not theoretical, and the consequences are not a fine.

The fix is simple. Bring your own sealed, labelled e-liquid from home and do not buy juice in Bali at all. Pack enough of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid for the whole trip, plus a bit of slack, and carry a spare pod kit or refillable kit so a broken device never forces you into a local shop. Sealed and labelled from a UK retailer is the whole point.

Can you buy vapes in Bali legally?

Yes, licensed vape shops exist across Seminyak, Canggu, Kuta and Denpasar, and they sell legitimate devices and liquids. But two things make buying there a poor plan. First, Indonesian excise tax makes vaping products relatively expensive, so you rarely save money. Second, and far more important, the drug-lacing problem above means you cannot always be sure what an unfamiliar local bottle actually contains. A sealed device from a reputable shop is one thing. Loose, cheap or unlabelled juice is a risk not worth taking when you could simply have brought your own.

The July 2026 rules, and whether they affect you

From late July 2026, Indonesia is bringing Government Regulation No. 28 of 2024 fully into force. You may see this described as a crackdown, so here is what it actually does. It sets a minimum age of 21, restricts vape advertising, limits nicotine content, requires pictorial health warnings, creates designated smoke-free areas, and limits open-system e-liquid to 10ml and 20ml bottles for retail sale.

Every one of those is a rule for Indonesian shops and manufacturers, not a rule for your suitcase. It changes what a Bali retailer can legally stock and sell. It does not change your right to bring in and use your own device and liquid. As with most of these national tobacco reforms, a retail-shelf rule tends to get reported as if it were a border rule. It is not.

Where you can and cannot vape in Bali

Vaping is banned in enclosed public places, and in Bali that list matters more than usual. Do not vape in or near temples and religious sites, and treat healthcare facilities, schools, government buildings, public transport and most indoor public spaces as off limits. Bali takes temple etiquette seriously, and a vape cloud in the wrong place is genuinely disrespectful, not just against the rules.

Villas, hotels and restaurants vary, so ask rather than assume, and step out to a garden, balcony or beach where you are unsure. Plenty of bars and beach clubs are relaxed about it outdoors, but read the room and follow any no-smoking signs. Discretion goes a long way in Bali.

What to pack for Bali

Keep it simple and self-sufficient. Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough sealed e-liquid or nic salt for the whole trip, a charger and cable, and nothing you would ever need to replace from a local shop. Do that, keep well clear of anything drug related, and Bali is a straightforward and legal place to vape, as long as you never buy your juice there.

\n","Vaping is legal in Bali and you can bring your own device and e-liquid in. The one rule that matters: never buy local vape juice, because Indonesia has found it laced with drugs and its drug penalties are severe.","can-you-vape-in-bali",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003930386819",{"_314":402,"_327":403,"_329":404,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-16T17:54:32Z","Can You Vape in Bali?",{"_11":12},"gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418140094851","Checklist headed Can you vape in Bali, showing your own vape and sealed UK e-liquid are fine while local vape juice and anything drug-related are not.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-bali.webp?v=1784224474",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Spain. It is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and you can still buy vapes there.

You have probably seen the headlines: \"Spain bans vaping on beaches and terraces in 2026.\" Here is the part those headlines leave out. That ban is a bill that has not passed yet. As things stand, it is not the law, and nobody is fining tourists for vaping on a terrace. Spain is genuinely tightening its rules, and the direction of travel is clear, but there is a big difference between what is coming and what is enforced today.

Here is exactly where Spain stands, checked against the actual state of the legislation rather than the scare stories.

Is vaping legal in Spain?

Yes. Vaping is legal in Spain for adults. You can bring your own device and liquid, use them, and buy more while you are there. There is no ban on tourists carrying a personal vape, and Spain is an EU country, so bringing your own kit over from the UK is straightforward.

What is changing is where you can vape and, in time, what you can buy. Both of those are worth understanding before you travel, because the rules in 2027 will not be the rules you might remember from a trip a couple of years ago.

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What you are doing	Position now	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. No tourist limit or ban.
Vaping indoors in bars, cafes, transport	Banned	Same as smoking. Step outside.
Vaping on a terrace or beach	Allowed for now	A ban is proposed but not yet law. Be considerate.
Buying a disposable vape	Allowed for now	A national ban is expected around 2027, not yet in force.
Buying or using a THC vape	Illegal	Cannabis oil vapes are a drug matter. Leave them home.

Can you bring your vape to Spain?

Yes. Pack your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will have no trouble at the airport. There is no vape-specific customs limit for a tourist bringing their own supply into Spain.

Because sales rules inside Spain are tightening, the smart move is to take everything you need with you rather than relying on finding your exact setup out there. More on that below.

The 2026 headlines: what is actually banned, and what is not yet

This is the part worth getting right, because almost every panicked article blurs it. Spain is reforming its anti-tobacco law, and the reform passed its first parliamentary stage in September 2024. Since then it has been working through the required reports from the Council of State and the competition regulator. If and when it is approved, it will treat vapes like conventional tobacco. Here is what that reform proposes, and its current status.

Vaping on terraces, beaches and in other outdoor spaces. The reform would extend smoke-free and vape-free zones to bar and restaurant terraces, public transport shelters, university campuses, beaches, playgrounds and the entrances to public buildings. As of now this is proposed, not enforced. Treat it as the near future rather than today's rule.

A ban on disposable vapes. A separate bill to ban single-use disposables has been submitted to the Spanish Congress and is expected to be voted on later in 2026, with a stock clearance period after that. The practical effect is that disposables are likely to disappear from Spanish shelves around 2027. They are still on sale for now.

Sales moving to tobacconists. Spain is also moving vape sales towards its licensed tobacconists, the estancos, rather than every corner shop and vape store. This is being phased in, so where you can buy a vape in Spain is going to narrow over the next year or two.

None of this stops you vaping in Spain today. It just means the Spain you vape in next summer may look different, and it is worth travelling with your own kit.

Where you can and cannot vape right now

The firm rule that is already enforced is simple: if you cannot smoke there, do not vape there. Vaping is banned in enclosed public places, so no vaping inside bars, cafes, restaurants, shops, workplaces or on public transport. Spain also already restricts vaping in some sensitive outdoor spots such as school and hospital grounds and children's play areas.

Terraces, beaches and open streets are, for now, not covered by a national ban, but two things are worth remembering. Individual towns and regions can set stricter local rules, and the national terrace and beach ban is coming. The safe and courteous approach is to treat busy terraces and beaches the way you soon will have to anyway: step to one side, keep clouds away from other people, and follow any local signs.

Can you buy vapes in Spain?

Yes, for now. You will find vapes in tobacconists, vape shops and many corner shops, and disposables are still widely sold. You must be 18 or over to buy. Two caveats apply. Prices and the available brands will not always match what you get at home, and the sales rules are tightening, so the shop that sells you a vape this year may not be allowed to next year.

With disposables heading for a ban and sales narrowing to tobacconists, the reliable option is to bring a refillable setup and your own liquid. Pack plenty of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid, and take a pod kit or refillable kit rather than relying on disposables you may not be able to replace. It is cheaper, it is future-proof, and it means a good holiday never hinges on finding an open estanco.

A word on THC vapes

Nicotine vaping is legal. THC and cannabis oil vapes are not. Spain has a relaxed reputation around cannabis because of its private members' clubs, but that does not extend to carrying a THC vape through an airport or around the streets, which is treated as a drug matter. Keep it simple: bring nicotine, leave anything cannabis related at home.

What to pack for Spain

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the trip, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than a bag of disposables. Vape indoors nowhere, be considerate on terraces and beaches, and keep clear of anything cannabis related. Do that and Spain is an easy, legal place to vape, whatever the headlines say.

\n","Vaping is legal in Spain and you can bring your own device and e-liquid. The beach and terrace ban everyone is talking about is still a proposed bill, not the law, and disposables are still on sale for now. Here is what is actually enforced today.","can-you-vape-in-spain",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003935465859",{"_314":416,"_327":417,"_329":418,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-16T18:15:39Z","Can You Vape in Spain?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-16T18:25:09Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418143273347","Checklist headed Can you vape in Spain, showing your own vape and buying vapes are fine for now while vaping indoors and THC vapes are not, with terrace and disposable bans still coming.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-spain.webp?v=1784225741",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: no. Vaping is now illegal in Vietnam. Do not take your vape, and do not buy one there.

This is the guide to read if you are travelling in 2026, because the situation changed recently and most older advice is now wrong. On 1 January 2025 Vietnam brought in a full ban on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco. Guides written before then, and plenty written since, still say vaping is tolerated. It is not. Leave the vape at home.

Here is exactly what the ban covers, what actually happens to a tourist, and the one scary claim doing the rounds that does not apply to you.

Is vaping legal in Vietnam?

No. Under a National Assembly resolution passed in November 2024, Vietnam banned e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products from 1 January 2025. The ban is broad. It covers the production, sale, import, storage, transport, possession and use of vapes and vape liquids, and it applies to everyone in the country, tourists included. Heated tobacco devices such as IQOS, glo and Ploom are banned in exactly the same way.

That puts Vietnam firmly in the same bracket as Thailand and Singapore. It is not a grey area, it is not a \"be discreet and you will be fine\" situation. Bringing a vape into Vietnam now means bringing a banned item across the border.

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What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your vape into Vietnam	Banned	Risk of confiscation at the airport and a fine. Leave it home.
Using a vape in Vietnam	Banned	A fine of up to around 2 million dong, roughly £60.
Buying a vape in Vietnam	Illegal	Only a black market exists. Do not.
Importing or selling vapes	A serious crime	Up to 15 years in prison. This is for smugglers, not tourists.
Nicotine pouches	Not part of the ban	A grey area, but the likeliest legal fallback. See below.

What happens if you get caught with a vape in Vietnam?

For an ordinary traveller, the realistic outcome is confiscation of your device and a fine. The rules that came in at the start of 2025 set a penalty of up to around 2 million dong, about £60, for using a vape, and customs can take your device off you at the airport. Penalties have been tightened since the ban began, so treat any figure as a floor rather than a ceiling.

The simplest way to avoid all of it is the obvious one. Do not travel with your vape. There is no version of this where bringing it is worth the risk of losing it and paying a fine on your first day.

How strictly is the ban enforced?

Strictly enough that you should not gamble on it. Because the ban is recent, enforcement is still ramping up, and it varies from place to place, but Vietnamese authorities have made vapes a public priority and airport checks are a real thing rather than a rumour. The point is not that every traveller gets stopped, it is that you have no way of knowing whether you will be the one who does, and the downside is losing your device and paying a fine on arrival. A banned item you cannot use for the whole trip is not worth carrying on the off chance nobody looks.

The \"15 years in jail\" claim, and why it is not about you

You will see headlines saying Vietnam jails people for up to 15 years over vapes. That is true, but it is being aimed at the wrong audience. The 15-year prison term and fines of up to 3 billion dong apply to importing, trading, transporting and producing vapes, in other words to smugglers and sellers dealing in quantity. A tourist with a personal device is in the fine-and-confiscation bracket, not the prison bracket.

That distinction matters, because guides that blur it either terrify people out of an honest holiday or, worse, make the whole thing sound so exaggerated that readers ignore it. The accurate version is simpler: you will not be jailed for a personal vape, but you can lose it and be fined, so do not bring it.

Can you buy vapes in Vietnam?

No, not legally. Sale is banned, so anything you are offered on the street or in a bar is black-market stock, sold illegally. Buying it puts you on the wrong side of the same ban, with no guarantee of what is in the liquid. There is no legal vape shop to walk into. Assume the answer is no everywhere.

What to use instead

The honest reality is that Vietnam is a vape-free trip, so the sensible move is to plan your nicotine before you fly. Nicotine pouches are not part of the vape ban, which targets electronic and heated devices, so they are the likeliest legal fallback. UK pouches are tobacco-free and discreet, and a tin in your bag covers the flights and the days without a vape. Keep them low-key and do not hand them round.

Traditional nicotine replacement such as patches and gum is also a straightforward option and is sold in pharmacies. If pouches are your plan, take enough of your usual nicotine pouches for the whole trip, because you will not be topping up out there. And for the day you land back home, it is worth having your e-liquid and a charged pod kit ready so you are not scrambling after a long flight.

Are nicotine pouches allowed in Vietnam?

They sit in a grey area. Vietnam's ban is written around e-cigarettes and heated tobacco, and it does not name tobacco-free nicotine pouches, so they are not banned in the way vapes are. That makes them the safest nicotine option to travel with, but grey is not the same as guaranteed. Bring a personal amount, be discreet, and do not try to sell or share them. If in doubt, patches and gum are the uncontroversial choice.

The bottom line

Vietnam banned vaping on 1 January 2025, and the ban applies to you as a visitor. Do not take your vape, do not buy one there, and plan your nicotine around pouches or NRT instead. Get that right and Vietnam is a wonderful place to travel. Get it wrong and you lose your device and start the trip with a fine.

\n","Vietnam banned e-cigarettes and heated tobacco on 1 January 2025, and it applies to tourists. Bringing your vape risks confiscation and a fine, but the 15-year jail term you have read about is for sellers, not travellers. Here is what to do instead.","can-you-vape-in-vietnam",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003936579971",{"_314":430,"_327":431,"_329":432,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-16T18:37:49Z","Can You Vape in Vietnam?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-22T20:09:00Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418143535491","Checklist headed Can you vape in Vietnam, showing bringing a vape, vaping and buying vapes are all banned while nicotine pouches are not part of the ban, banned since 1 January 2025.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-vietnam.webp?v=1784227070",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Tunisia. There is no law against it, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and vapes are openly sold there.

The part worth reading is the bit almost every other guide gets wrong. You will see confident claims that Tunisia limits you to \"ten vapes\" or \"100ml of e-liquid\" at the border. Those numbers are made up. Tunisia has no published vape allowance for tourists, and those figures are copied from one blog to the next. Here is the accurate picture, checked against the harm-reduction data rather than the next shop's guesswork.

Is vaping legal in Tunisia?

Yes, in the sense that it is not banned. Tunisia has no specific law regulating e-cigarettes, which puts vaping in a legal grey area rather than a prohibited one. The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction database records Tunisia as having no dedicated vape law, with e-cigarettes and nicotine products legally sold and no prescription needed. There are an estimated 100,000 vapers in the country, and shops sell devices and liquids openly.

So Tunisia is nothing like Vietnam or Thailand, where a vape in your bag is a criminal matter. It is closer to Morocco: tolerated, sold in the cities, and not something the authorities pursue tourists over. What you should plan around is supply and discretion, not legality.

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What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. No published vape limit.
Vaping nicotine in Tunisia	Tolerated	No law bans use. Be discreet in public and religious places.
Buying a vape in Tunisia	Available	Sold in shops in the cities. Brands and stock are patchy.
Bringing a THC or CBD vape in	Illegal	Tunisia's drug laws are strict. Leave anything cannabis home.

Can you bring your vape to Tunisia?

Yes. Bring your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Keep it to a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will pass through with no trouble. There is no vape-specific customs limit published for a tourist bringing their own supply into Tunisia.

One honest note on sourcing, because it matters here. Much of the traveller advice online, including the entry on the main harm-reduction database, actually traces back to a UK vape retailer's blog rather than to any Tunisian government notice. There is no official Tunisian statement setting a tourist vape allowance. The absence of a rule is the rule.

The \"ten vapes and 100ml\" limit that does not exist

This is the claim to ignore. Several guides state that Tunisia allows a maximum of ten devices or 100ml of e-liquid, and present it as customs law. It is not. There is no Tunisian regulation setting either figure. The numbers appear to have started as one writer's \"rule of thumb\" and been copied ever since.

The only 100ml rule that genuinely affects you is the airport security limit on liquid containers in hand luggage, and that is about your flight, not Tunisian customs. It applies to any bottle you carry through security, anywhere. So pack e-liquid bottles of 100ml or under to clear security, keep the overall amount sensible and personal, and do not worry about a Tunisian \"ten vape\" cap that was never real. What actually raises eyebrows at any border is arriving with a sealed box of stock that looks like it is for resale, so simply do not do that.

Can you buy vapes in Tunisia?

Yes, but do not rely on it. Vape shops exist in Tunis, Sousse and the bigger tourist areas, and you will find devices and liquids for sale. The catch is the usual one for a grey market: stock is inconsistent, the brands are often unfamiliar, and there is no guarantee your strength or flavour will be there when you need it.

The reliable move is to take everything you need with you. Pack plenty of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid, and bring a spare pod kit or refillable kit so a lost or broken device does not leave you hunting round Sousse for a replacement. It is cheaper and far less stressful than trusting to a local shop.

Where you can and cannot vape

There are no clear public vaping rules, but Tunisia is a Muslim country with conservative norms in many places, so read the room. Avoid vaping around mosques and religious sites, and be discreet in busy public areas, markets and near families. Indoors, treat it like smoking and step outside. Hotels and resorts vary, so check the house rules and use balconies, terraces or designated areas rather than lighting up a cloud indoors.

Nobody is going to trouble a tourist vaping quietly outdoors. The point is courtesy: a bit of discretion goes a long way and keeps the whole thing hassle-free.

A word on THC and CBD vapes

Nicotine vaping is fine. THC and CBD vapes are not. Tunisia enforces strict drug laws, and cannabis in any form, including a CBD vape you bought legally in the UK, is treated as a drug at the border. This is the one thing that turns a relaxed holiday into a serious problem, so keep it simple: bring nicotine only and leave anything cannabis related at home.

What to pack for Tunisia

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the trip in bottles of 100ml or under, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than relying on local shops. Vape discreetly, keep away from religious sites, and leave anything cannabis related at home. Do that and Tunisia is an easy, legal place to vape, whatever the invented customs limits say.

\n","Vaping is legal and tolerated in Tunisia and you can bring your own device and e-liquid. There is no official tourist vape limit: the ten-vape and 100ml figures online are invented. Here is the honest picture.","can-you-vape-in-tunisia",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003940282755",{"_314":444,"_327":445,"_329":446,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-16T18:58:04Z","Can You Vape in Tunisia?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T04:36:11Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418144059779","Checklist headed Can you vape in Tunisia, showing your own vape and personal e-liquid are allowed with no official limit, while the 10-vape cap is made up and THC or CBD vapes are illegal.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-tunisia.webp?v=1784228286",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Portugal. It is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and vapes are sold in shops.

The catch is that Portugal is one of the strictest and most expensive countries in the EU to vape in, and it does not feel like it until you get caught out. There is a heavy tax on e-liquid, flavoured pods are banned, and vaping indoors in a bar or cafe can cost you a fine of up to 750 euros. None of that stops you vaping there, but it does mean you should bring your own supply and know where you can and cannot use it.

Here is the accurate picture for 2026, checked against Portugal's own rules rather than the usual \"it is the EU, you are fine\" hand-waving.

Is vaping legal in Portugal?

Yes. Nicotine vaping is legal and regulated in Portugal under the EU framework. E-cigarettes are sold in general shops to over-18s, though online and vending-machine sales are not allowed, advertising is banned, and e-liquid is capped at 20mg/ml of nicotine with refill tanks limited to 2ml, the same as the rest of the EU.

So the legality is not in question. What makes Portugal different from a relaxed holiday spot is how it treats vaping once you are there: as something to tax heavily, restrict tightly, and keep out of indoor public spaces.

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What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. EU country, no drama.
Vaping indoors in bars, cafes, restaurants	Banned	Fines up to 750 euros. Treat it like smoking.
Buying e-liquid in Portugal	Legal but pricey	Heavily taxed, and flavoured pods are banned.
Bringing a THC or CBD vape in	Illegal	Decriminalised use is not the same as legal import. Leave it home.

Can you bring your vape to Portugal?

Yes, and it is easy. Pack your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will walk through with no trouble. Portugal is an EU country, so there is no special customs hurdle for a tourist carrying their own kit.

The reason to bring your own is not the border, it is what waits for you in the shops.

Why you should bring your own e-liquid

Portugal taxes e-liquid harder than almost anywhere in Europe. Nicotine liquid carries an excise duty of about 35 cents per millilitre, so a 60ml bottle that might cost around 12 euros in the UK can be over 20 euros on a Lisbon shelf once tax and VAT are added. On top of that, flavoured pods are already banned, so the flavour you use at home may not legally be on sale there at all.

Put those two together and buying locally is poor value and unreliable. The simple fix is to travel with what you need. Bring plenty of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid, and pack a spare pod kit or refillable kit so a broken device does not send you hunting for an expensive, flavour-limited replacement in the Algarve.

Where you can and cannot vape: the 750 euro fine

This is the rule that catches tourists. Since 2025, vaping is banned in all indoor hospitality venues in Portugal, including bars, cafes and restaurants, along with covered terraces, sports arenas, hospitals, bus stations and the immediate area around the doors and windows of public buildings. Inspectors can issue on-the-spot fines of up to 750 euros for an individual, and far more for a venue that lets it happen.

The rule of thumb is simple: if you would not light a cigarette there, do not vape there. Step outside into the open air, keep clear of playgrounds, school grounds and sports areas where outdoor bans also apply, and you will have no problems. Portugal is not trying to catch tourists out, but the fines are real and the inspectors do act.

What is in force, and what is still coming

Because Portugal keeps tightening the rules, it is worth separating what is already law from what is proposed. In force now: the e-liquid tax, the ban on flavoured pods, the indoor vaping ban with its fines, and the online-sales ban. Still only proposed for the next couple of years: a 500-metre no-sale buffer around schools and a new duty on nicotine pouches, which are working through parliament and are not yet enforced. As a visitor, plan around what is in force today and treat the rest as the direction of travel.

A word on THC and CBD vapes

Portugal is famous for decriminalising personal drug use, and that leads some travellers to assume a THC or CBD vape is fine. It is not. Decriminalisation means small personal amounts are treated as an administrative matter rather than a criminal one once you are inside the country. It does not make cannabis legal, and it certainly does not cover bringing a THC or CBD vape through customs, which is still an import offence. Keep it simple: bring nicotine only, and leave anything cannabis related at home.

What to pack for Portugal

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the whole trip so you never pay Portuguese prices, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than a bag of disposables. Vape outdoors and away from crowds, never inside a bar or cafe, and keep anything cannabis related at home. Do that and Portugal is a straightforward place to vape, as long as you go in knowing it is one of the stricter ones.

\n","Vaping is legal in Portugal, but it is one of the strictest and priciest EU countries: e-liquid is heavily taxed, flavoured pods are banned, and vaping indoors can cost up to 750 euros. Bring your own supply and know where you can use it.","can-you-vape-in-portugal",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003972821379",{"_314":457,"_327":458,"_329":459,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T04:23:49Z","Can You Vape in Portugal?",{"_11":12},"gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418152612227","Checklist headed Can you vape in Portugal, showing your own vape and outdoor vaping are allowed while vaping indoors carries a 750 euro fine and flavoured pods are banned, with e-liquid heavily taxed.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-portugal.webp?v=1784262230",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Amsterdam. It is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and vapes are sold in shops.

The thing that catches people out is not legality, it is flavour. The Netherlands has banned every e-liquid flavour except tobacco. Your fruity, menthol or dessert juice is not on sale anywhere in Amsterdam, legally at least. So the single most useful thing you can do is bring your own supply. And do not let the coffeeshop culture fool you: relaxed rules on cannabis do not mean relaxed rules on vaping.

Here is the accurate picture, checked against the Dutch government's own rules rather than the usual holiday guesswork.

Is vaping legal in Amsterdam?

Yes. Nicotine vaping is legal across the Netherlands and regulated under the EU framework. E-cigarettes are sold to over-18s, e-liquid is capped at 20mg/ml of nicotine with 2ml tanks, and there is no special customs barrier for a tourist bringing their own kit from the UK.

What makes the Netherlands unusual is not whether you can vape, but what you can buy and where you can use it. On both counts it is stricter than most visitors expect.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. EU country, no drama.
Buying flavoured e-liquid there	Not possible	Only tobacco flavour is legally sold. Bring your own.
Vaping indoors in bars and cafes	Banned	The smoking ban covers vapes. Step outside.
Carrying a THC vape through the airport	Illegal	Coffeeshop tolerance does not cover import or export.

Can you bring your vape to Amsterdam?

Yes, and it is easy. Pack your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will walk through with no trouble. The Netherlands is an EU country, so there is no special customs hurdle for your own kit.

The reason to pack carefully is not the border. It is that once you land, the thing you actually want, your usual flavour, is not for sale.

The flavour ban: why you must bring your own e-liquid

This is the rule that defines vaping in the Netherlands. Since 2023, e-liquids may only be sold in tobacco flavour, and since the start of 2024 the sale of any other flavour has been banned completely. No fruit, no menthol, no dessert, nothing but tobacco. It is a national government rule, not an Amsterdam quirk, and it is enforced through inspections at importers and shops.

On top of that, buying anything is deliberately awkward. Online sales of vapes are banned, you cannot buy them in supermarkets, hotels or bars, and since 2025 e-cigarettes may only be sold in specialist vape shops. So even the tobacco-flavoured liquid you can legally buy takes a special trip to find.

The fix is simple and it is the whole point of planning ahead: bring your own. Pack plenty of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid in the flavour you actually vape, and take a spare pod kit or refillable kit so a broken device does not leave you stuck with tobacco flavour or nothing at all.

Where you can and cannot vape

Since 2020, the Dutch smoking ban has explicitly covered e-cigarettes as well as tobacco. That means no vaping in enclosed public spaces, including bars, cafes, restaurants and shops, and none on public transport such as trains, trams and buses. Indoor smoking rooms were scrapped entirely, so there is nowhere indoors to duck into.

Here is the coffeeshop catch that surprises people. Amsterdam's coffeeshops operate under a tolerance policy for cannabis, but they are still bound by the same indoor smoking law, so many do not allow tobacco or vaping inside at all. The relaxed reputation is about cannabis, not about where you can puff a nicotine vape. Outdoors and away from crowds is your safe bet, the same as at home.

Can you buy disposable vapes in Amsterdam?

You can bring your own, but do not count on buying replacements. The Netherlands looked at banning disposables and then dropped the plan, so they are not illegal, but many Dutch retailers stopped stocking them anyway, and any that are sold are tobacco flavour only under the flavour ban. If you rely on disposables, bring enough for the trip or, better, switch to a refillable kit and your own liquid before you fly.

THC vapes and the coffeeshops

Because Amsterdam and cannabis go together in people's minds, this comes up a lot, so here is the honest version. Coffeeshops are tolerated to sell cannabis for use on the premises, but that tolerance is narrow and it does not turn a THC vape into a legal product you can treat like a nicotine one. Most importantly, you must never carry a THC vape through an airport. Importing or exporting cannabis, including a THC cartridge in your bag on the way home, is a drug offence and the coffeeshop rules do not protect you at the border.

This guide is about nicotine vaping, which is the part you can plan cleanly. Keep the two separate, bring nicotine only through the airport, and you avoid the one mistake that turns a city break into a serious problem.

What to pack for Amsterdam

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, plenty of your usual flavoured e-liquid or nic salt because you cannot buy it there, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than disposables. Vape outdoors and never inside a bar, cafe or coffeeshop, and keep anything cannabis related well away from the airport. Do that and Amsterdam is an easy place to vape, as long as you arrive with the flavour you actually want.

\n","Vaping is legal in Amsterdam, but the Netherlands has banned every e-liquid flavour except tobacco, so your usual juice is not on sale there. Bring your own supply, and know that indoor vaping is banned, coffeeshops included.","can-you-vape-in-amsterdam",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003972952451",{"_314":471,"_327":472,"_329":473,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T04:35:00Z","Can You Vape in Amsterdam?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T04:35:05Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418152710531","Checklist headed Can you vape in Amsterdam, showing your own vape and e-liquid are allowed while only tobacco-flavour juice is sold and vaping indoors is banned like smoking.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-amsterdam.webp?v=1784262902",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Greece. It is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and vapes are sold on nearly every corner.

The catch is a reputation that is out of date. Greece was once the smoker's paradise of Europe, but since 2019 it has enforced a strict indoor ban that explicitly includes vaping, with fines of up to 500 euros. The good news is the flip side: outdoors, including on the beach and at the outdoor tables of a taverna, you are fine, so you can ignore the scare stories about beach fines. Here is exactly where the line falls.

Is vaping legal in Greece?

Yes. Nicotine vaping is legal and regulated in Greece under the EU framework. E-cigarettes are sold to over-18s in kiosks, tobacconists and online, e-liquid is capped at 20mg/ml with 2ml tanks, and unlike some neighbours there is currently no flavour ban. There is no special customs barrier for a tourist bringing their own kit from the UK.

So legality is not the issue. The thing to get right is where you use it, because the indoor rule is real and, in the tourist cities at least, actually enforced.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. EU country, no drama.
Vaping indoors in bars, cafes, restaurants	Banned	Fines up to 500 euros. The 2019 law covers vapes.
Vaping outdoors and on the beach	Allowed	Fine outside. Ignore the beach-fine scare stories.
Bringing a THC or CBD vape in	Illegal	Cannabis is a drug matter here. Leave it home.

Can you bring your vape to Greece?

Yes, and it is easy. Pack your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will walk through with no trouble. Greece is an EU country, so there is no special customs hurdle for a tourist carrying their own supply.

You can top up locally too, but there are reasons to travel with your own, which we come to below.

The indoor ban: Greece's reputation is out of date

This is the rule that catches people who remember the old Greece. The 2019 smoking law bans smoking in all enclosed public spaces, and it explicitly includes e-cigarettes. That means no vaping inside bars, cafes, restaurants, hotel lobbies, shops, airports or on public transport. Individual fines run from 50 to 500 euros, and operators who allow it face far more.

Enforcement is not uniform. In Athens, Thessaloniki and the busy island resorts it is taken seriously, especially in peak season, while smaller villages are more relaxed. But you have no way of knowing which you will get, so the safe rule is the simple one: if you would not light a cigarette there, do not vape there. Step outside. A covered terrace with open sides is usually fine, and if you see ashtrays on the tables, vaping is tolerated.

Can you vape on the beach in Greece?

Yes. Some guides claim a specific beach vaping fine, often quoted as a couple of hundred euros, and that is not a real Greek rule. Outdoor vaping, including on the beach, is allowed. The only things to watch are litter and courtesy: never drop a disposable or a pod in the sand, some beaches now have smoke-free sections, and organised beaches with sun loungers often ask you to use the ashtrays provided. Vape considerately away from families and you will have no problems at all.

Can you buy vapes in Greece?

Yes, easily. Greece is a land of kiosks, the periptera, and you will find vapes and e-liquid in them as well as in tobacconists and online. Disposables are still sold, since Greece has not banned them. The catch is price: nicotine e-liquid is often dearer than at home, with a 10ml bottle frequently 6 to 8 euros, and the brands and flavours may not match your usual.

For that reason it is worth travelling with your own. Pack plenty of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid, and take a spare pod kit or refillable kit, so a lost or broken device does not leave you paying Greek prices for an unfamiliar replacement.

What is coming: a flavour ban

One change worth knowing about. Greece's government has been preparing a ban on flavoured e-cigarettes, leaving only tobacco and mint. As of now this is proposed, not yet in force, and it still needs to clear the usual EU steps, so flavours remain on sale for the moment. But it is another good reason to travel with the flavour you actually use, rather than assume it will be there next summer.

A word on THC and CBD vapes

Nicotine vaping is fine. THC and CBD vapes are not. Cannabis in any form, including a CBD vape you bought legally in the UK, is treated as a drug at the Greek border, and Greek drug laws are strict. Keep it simple: bring nicotine only, and leave anything cannabis related at home.

What to pack for Greece

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the trip so you skip the Greek prices, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than a bag of disposables. Vape outdoors, never inside a bar or cafe, keep the beach clean, and leave anything cannabis related at home. Do that and Greece is an easy, legal place to vape, as long as you remember the indoors line the old reputation forgets.

\n","Vaping is legal in Greece, but since 2019 it enforces an indoor ban that explicitly covers vapes, with fines up to 500 euros. Outdoors, beaches included, is fine, so the beach-fine scare stories are wrong. Here is where the line falls.","can-you-vape-in-greece",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003973083523",{"_314":485,"_327":486,"_329":487,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T04:54:06Z","Can You Vape in Greece?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T04:54:11Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418152776067","Checklist headed Can you vape in Greece, showing your own vape and vaping on the beach are allowed while vaping indoors carries up to a 500 euro fine and THC or CBD vapes are illegal.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-greece.webp?v=1784264049",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, but Australia is unlike anywhere else you will travel. Vaping is legal only as a medical product, you cannot buy a vape in a normal shop, and you can only bring a small personal supply in with you.

This is the guide that clears up the biggest myth in vape travel. You will see Australia described as a country that has \"banned vaping\". It has not. What it has done is turn vaping into a prescription and pharmacy medicine, which is stricter than a simple ban in some ways and more forgiving in others. As a tourist you can bring your own device and a limited amount of liquid for your personal use, but you must declare it, you cannot post supplies in, and you cannot walk into a shop and buy more. Here is the accurate picture, checked against Australia's own import rules rather than the headlines.

Is vaping legal in Australia?

Yes, but only as a therapeutic product. Nicotine e-liquid is a prescription medicine in Australia, classified under Schedule 4, so possessing or using nicotine liquid without proper access is technically against the law. Recreational vape sales, the kind of high-street vape shop you have at home, do not legally exist. Since 1 October 2024, adults aged 18 and over have been able to buy therapeutic vapes with up to 20mg/ml of nicotine from a pharmacy without a prescription, after a consultation with the pharmacist, where state law allows it. Higher strengths, and vapes for anyone under 18, still need a prescription.

On top of that, since 1 March 2024 all vaping goods are prohibited imports, both nicotine and non-nicotine, devices, liquids and accessories alike. Disposables were the first to go, banned from import in January 2024, with everything else following that March. That is the rule that shapes your whole trip, so it is worth understanding before you pack.

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What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and liquid in your bag	Allowed, with limits	Traveller's exemption: up to 2 vapes and 200ml. Declare it.
Posting or shipping vape supplies to yourself	Banned	All vaping goods are prohibited imports by mail. Never post them.
Buying a vape as a tourist	Pharmacy only	Over 18s, over the counter, after a pharmacist chat. No shops.
Vaping indoors and in many outdoor areas	Banned	On-the-spot fines. Rules vary by state, so treat it like smoking.
Bringing a THC vape in	Illegal	A serious drug offence, not a vaping one. Leave it home.

Can you bring your vape to Australia? The traveller's exemption

Yes, and this is the part most guides miss. Australia has a traveller's exemption that lets you bring vaping products into the country in your accompanied baggage, the bags that travel with you, for your own personal therapeutic use. The limits are clear: up to 2 vaping devices, up to 20 accessories such as pods or cartridges, and up to 200ml of liquid, and no more than a three-month supply. Anything you bring must be for treating yourself, or someone in your direct care who is travelling with you, not for sale or for a friend.

The catch is the word \"accompanied\". The exemption only covers products you carry in with you. You cannot post or courier vape supplies to yourself in Australia, because by mail every vaping product is a prohibited import with no personal allowance at all. So the rule is simple: carry what you need on the plane, and never rely on anything arriving separately.

Before you fly home, check your limits with our UK duty-free allowance calculator.

Do you need a prescription to bring a vape in?

This is the grey area, so here is the honest version. The traveller's exemption is framed around personal therapeutic use rather than demanding you produce a prescription at the border, and many travellers bring a personal supply in on that basis. But because nicotine is a prescription medicine in Australia, a prescription strongly supports your case that the goods are for legitimate personal use, and it removes any doubt at customs. A prescription from your own doctor at home helps as evidence of therapeutic intent.

The practical advice is straightforward. If you already have a prescription or a doctor's letter, bring a copy. If you do not, keep your supply clearly personal and within the limits, and declare it on arrival rather than trying to slip it through. Declaring is the thing that keeps you on the right side of the line. Trying to hide a vape you are actually entitled to bring is what turns a legal personal import into a problem.

You cannot buy vapes in normal shops

Forget the idea of nipping to a shop for a refill. Since October 2024, legal vapes in Australia are sold only through pharmacies. There are no vape shops, no supermarket sales, no petrol-station disposables and no legal websites shipping to your door. To buy, an adult walks into a pharmacy, has a short consultation with the pharmacist, and can then buy a therapeutic vape of up to 20mg/ml over the counter, where the state allows it. Anything stronger needs a prescription.

What is on the pharmacy shelf is also limited. Products are plain-packaged, come in a short list of flavours such as mint, menthol and tobacco, and are refillable or pod style rather than the disposables and fruit flavours you may use at home. Anything you are offered on the street or in a convenience store is illegal black-market stock, and Australia has been cracking down hard on exactly that trade, so it is not worth the risk or the mystery contents.

Where you can and cannot vape

Treat vaping like smoking, and then some. Every Australian state and territory bans vaping in enclosed public places, the same as cigarettes, so no bars, cafes, restaurants, shopping centres, workplaces or public transport. Many outdoor areas are covered too, including outdoor dining, playgrounds, sporting venues, patrolled beaches in some states and areas around building entrances. The exact lines vary from state to state, and there are on-the-spot fines for getting it wrong.

The safe rule is the familiar one: if you would not light a cigarette there, do not vape there. Step well away from doorways, crowds and children, use open outdoor space, and check the local signage, because a beach or park that is fine in one state may be a fined offence in the next.

The $222,000 fine, and who it is actually for

You will see an alarming figure attached to Australian vaping: fines of up to $222,000. That is real, but it is not aimed at a tourist with a pod kit. Those penalties sit under the customs law and target the illegal commercial importation of vaping products, the smugglers and sellers bringing in prohibited stock in quantity. A traveller arriving with a declared personal supply, inside the 2-device and 200ml limits, is in a completely different category.

The distinction matters because the scare figure makes people either panic or assume the whole thing is nonsense. The accurate version is calmer: bring a personal amount within the exemption and declare it, and you are fine. Try to bring in a suitcase full to sell, or post a box to yourself, and you are in the bracket the big numbers were written for.

Flying with your vape to Australia

The airline rules are the usual ones and they apply on top of everything above. Your device goes in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery, and you cannot use or charge it on the plane. E-liquid bottles must follow the 100ml hand-luggage liquid rule through security. Since the traveller's exemption only covers accompanied baggage anyway, keeping your kit and liquid with you in the cabin is exactly what you want to be doing.

A word on THC vapes

Keep the two things completely separate. This guide is about nicotine vaping. A THC vape is a drug matter, not a vaping one, and Australia treats cannabis importation seriously at the border. There is no personal exemption that makes it acceptable to carry a THC cartridge in your bag. Bring nicotine only, leave anything cannabis related at home, and do not let one turn into a problem for the other.

What to pack for Australia

Because you cannot buy your usual products there and cannot post any in, plan your supply before you fly. Bring a reliable refillable kit or pod kit plus one spare, since the exemption allows up to two devices, and enough of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid for the trip, in bottles of 100ml or under and up to the 200ml total. Keep it in your cabin bag, carry any prescription or doctor's letter you have, and declare it on arrival. Do that and you can vape your own way through an Australian holiday, in a country where almost nobody else can buy what you have brought.

\n","Australia treats vaping as a prescription medicine, so you cannot buy a vape in a normal shop and everything is a prohibited import. But tourists can bring a personal supply, up to 2 devices and 200ml, if they declare it at the border. Here is exactly how the rules work.","can-you-vape-in-australia",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003973345667",{"_314":499,"_327":500,"_329":501,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T05:52:39Z","Can You Vape in Australia?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-19T08:47:04Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418152972675","Checklist headed Can you vape in Australia, showing you can bring a personal supply of 2 vapes and 200ml and buy from a pharmacy, while posting supplies in and vaping indoors or outdoors are not allowed.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-australia.webp?v=1784267820",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Italy. It is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and vapes are sold in shops.

Italy is one of the easier countries in Europe to vape in, but two things trip people up. The first is a scare story: you will read that Milan has banned outdoor smoking, and assume your vape is caught by it. It is not. Milan's ban is one of the strictest in Europe, but it covers tobacco only, and vaping is explicitly allowed. The second is the opposite mistake: assuming Italy is a total free-for-all, when in fact indoor rules are real and the government has announced plans to tighten things further. Here is the accurate picture for 2026.

Is vaping legal in Italy?

Yes. Nicotine vaping is legal and regulated in Italy under the EU framework. E-cigarettes are sold to over-18s, e-liquid is capped at 20mg/ml of nicotine with refill tanks limited to 2ml, and there is no flavour ban. Advertising is banned and there is an excise tax on e-liquid, but as a tourist bringing your own kit from the UK you face no special customs barrier.

So legality is not the issue. What matters is where you use it, and knowing which of the scary headlines actually apply to vaping.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. EU country, no drama.
Vaping indoors in bars, cafes, restaurants	Banned or ask first	Treat it like smoking. Step outside to be safe.
Vaping outdoors, including in Milan	Allowed	Milan's outdoor ban is tobacco only. Vapes are exempt.
Bringing a THC or CBD vape in	Illegal or risky	Cannabis is a drug matter at the border. Leave it home.

Can you bring your vape to Italy?

Yes, and it is easy. Pack your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will walk through with no trouble. Italy is an EU country, so there is no special customs hurdle for a tourist carrying their own supply.

You can top up locally too, but there are reasons to travel with your own, which we come to below.

The Milan myth: the outdoor ban does not cover vaping

This is the one to get right, because it worries people needlessly. From 1 January 2025, Milan banned smoking in nearly all outdoor public spaces, including streets, unless you are more than ten metres from anyone else. It is one of the toughest smoking bans in Europe. But the rule was written for tobacco, and vaping is specifically left out of it. The city and multiple reports confirm that e-cigarettes are not covered, so you can vape outdoors in Milan where a smoker cannot.

That does not mean blow clouds in a crowded piazza. The sensible approach is the same courtesy you would use at home: step to one side, keep away from children and diners, and be discreet. But you are not breaking the Milan ban by vaping outside, whatever the headlines suggest.

Where you can and cannot vape

Italy treats vaping much like smoking for indoor spaces. Under the 2016 law that brought e-cigarettes into the tobacco rules, vaping is banned in schools, hospitals, government buildings and on public transport. Bars, cafes and restaurants are not always covered by the letter of the law, but most treat vaping like smoking and expect you to step outside, so the safe move is to ask or simply go out. A useful phrase is \"e permesso svapare qui?\", meaning \"is it allowed to vape here?\".

Outdoors, away from those settings, vaping is generally fine across Italy. The rule of thumb is the familiar one: if you would not light a cigarette there, do not vape there, and keep well clear of children.

What is coming: a national tightening

Because Italy is moving in a stricter direction, it is worth separating what is law now from what is planned. The health ministry has announced plans to scrap indoor smoking rooms, extend the outdoor ban on smoking near minors and pregnant women to cover e-cigarettes and heated tobacco, and widen the advertising ban. As of now these are proposals, not yet in force. So the practical rule for a 2026 trip is simple: never vape near children or pregnant women anyway, because it is inconsiderate today and likely to be an offence soon.

Can you buy vapes in Italy?

Yes. You will find e-cigarettes and e-liquid in tobacconists, the tabaccherie marked with a white \"T\" on a black sign, and in dedicated vape shops in the cities. Disposables are still sold, since Italy has not banned them. The catch is price: Italy taxes e-liquid, at roughly 13 cents per millilitre on nicotine liquid, so a bottle costs more than at home, and the brands and flavours may not match your usual. Domestic online sales to consumers are restricted, so do not count on ordering to your hotel.

For those reasons it is worth travelling with your own. Pack plenty of your usual e-liquid or nic salt e-liquid, and take a spare pod kit or refillable kit, so a lost or broken device does not leave you paying Italian prices for an unfamiliar replacement.

A word on THC and CBD vapes

Nicotine vaping is fine. THC vapes are not, and a CBD vape is a needless risk. Cannabis is a drug matter at the Italian border, and while Italy has a confusing \"cannabis light\" retail scene, that does not make it safe to arrive with a THC or CBD cartridge in your bag. Keep it simple: bring nicotine only, and leave anything cannabis related at home.

What to pack for Italy

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the trip so you skip the Italian prices, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than a bag of disposables. Vape outdoors, step outside of bars and cafes, keep well away from children, and leave anything cannabis related at home. Do that and Italy is an easy, legal place to vape, Milan included, whatever the smoking-ban headlines say.

\n","Vaping is legal and easy in Italy, but two things trip tourists up. Milan's tough 2025 outdoor smoking ban is tobacco only, so vaping is allowed. And the scary rule on vaping near children is an announced plan, not yet law. Here is the accurate picture.","can-you-vape-in-italy",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003974525315",{"_314":513,"_327":514,"_329":515,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T06:20:30Z","Can You Vape in Italy?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T06:20:35Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418153169283","Checklist headed Can you vape in Italy, showing you can bring your own vape and vape outdoors including in Milan, while vaping indoors and bringing a THC or CBD vape are not allowed.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-italy.webp?v=1784269233",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: no. Vaping is banned in Sri Lanka. Do not take your vape, because it can be taken off you at the airport, and do not try to buy one there.

This is a guide to read before you fly, because a lot of older travel advice still calls Sri Lanka a grey area or says you will be fine. You will not. Sri Lanka classes e-cigarettes as tobacco products and bans them outright, customs officers at Colombo's Bandaranaike airport routinely confiscate vapes from arriving tourists, and there is nowhere legal to buy one. Here is the accurate picture, and the odd twist that makes Sri Lanka harder than most bans for anyone who has switched off cigarettes.

Is vaping legal in Sri Lanka?

No. Sri Lanka treats e-cigarettes as tobacco products and prohibits them across the board. The sale, use, advertising, importation for personal use and for trade, and online purchase of vapes and vaping nicotine are all banned. Crucially, the ban is not limited to nicotine: nicotine-free vapes are illegal too, because it is the device and the category that are prohibited, not just the nicotine inside.

That puts Sri Lanka in the same bracket as Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. It is not a \"be discreet and you will be fine\" situation. Bringing a vape into the country means bringing a banned item across the border.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your vape into Sri Lanka	Banned	Confiscation at the airport, and a possible fine. Leave it home.
Using a vape in Sri Lanka	Banned	Prohibited in public, indoors and out. No safe place to use it.
Buying a vape in Sri Lanka	Illegal	No legal shops. Only a black market. Do not.
Bringing a nicotine-free vape	Also banned	The ban is on the device, not just the nicotine.

What happens at the airport?

This is the practical bit, because for most tourists the ban bites at the border. Customs officers at Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo actively look for vapes and routinely confiscate them from arriving passengers, tourists included. The realistic outcome is that your device is taken off you and you may be fined. Hiding it in your bag is a gamble against officers who know exactly what to look for.

The simplest way to avoid all of it is the obvious one: do not travel with your vape. There is no version of this where bringing it is worth losing the device and starting your holiday with a customs problem.

The odd twist: cigarettes are legal, safer options are not

Here is what makes Sri Lanka genuinely awkward if you have switched off cigarettes. The country bans vapes, and it also bans heated tobacco products, and even nicotine replacement therapy such as patches and gum is not reliably available, as it is not listed as a regulated medicine there. Yet ordinary cigarettes remain on sale. So the one place the law leaves open is the very thing you probably quit.

That matters for planning. Unlike some countries where you can fall back on pouches or patches bought locally, Sri Lanka gives a nicotine user very little to work with once you land, so you need to think about it before you go rather than after.

Where is the actual law?

One honest note, because you will see this debated. Sri Lanka's vape ban is enforced mainly through its import prohibition and the classification of e-cigarettes as tobacco products, rather than one single, clearly worded \"vaping act\". That technicality has led some commentators to ask where the law actually is. For a traveller it makes no practical difference: the border enforcement is real, the official position is that vapes are prohibited, and a confiscated device is confiscated whatever the legal wording. Treat it as a full ban, because in practice that is exactly how it works.

Can you buy vapes in Sri Lanka?

No, not legally. Sale is banned, so anything offered to you on the street or in a shop is illegal black-market stock, with no guarantee of what is in it. There is no legal vape shop to walk into and no legal online seller shipping within the country. Assume the answer is no everywhere, and do not go looking, because buying puts you on the wrong side of the same ban.

What to use instead

The honest reality is that Sri Lanka is a vape-free trip, and it is stricter on alternatives than most, so plan your nicotine before you fly. Nicotine pouches sit in an untested grey area: there is no specific Sri Lankan law naming them, but the country bans smokeless tobacco heavily and the border is aggressive, so a tin is a calculated risk rather than a safe bet. If you take that route, keep it to a small personal amount, be discreet, and never sell or share them. Traditional patches and gum are the cleaner idea in principle, but they are not reliably sold locally, so bring your own personal supply if you use them.

And for the day you land back home, have your e-liquid and a charged pod kit ready so you are not scrambling after a long flight. If pouches are your plan for the trip, take enough of your usual nicotine pouches for the journey, and remember you will not be topping up out there.

The bottom line

Sri Lanka bans vaping, enforces it at the airport, and leaves a switched vaper with few good options once inside. Do not take your vape, do not buy one there, and sort your nicotine plan before you fly. Get that right and Sri Lanka is a stunning place to travel. Get it wrong and you lose your device at the airport and start the trip on the back foot.

\n","No. Vaping is banned in Sri Lanka, which classes e-cigarettes as tobacco products, and customs at Colombo airport routinely confiscate vapes from tourists. Even nicotine-free vapes are illegal. Older guides that call it a grey area are wrong. Here is the accurate picture.","can-you-vape-in-sri-lanka",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1003977015683",{"_314":527,"_327":528,"_329":529,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T06:59:24Z","Can You Vape in Sri Lanka?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T06:59:28Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418153333123","Checklist headed Can you vape in Sri Lanka, showing that bringing a vape in, buying one there, vaping in public and even nicotine-free vapes are all banned.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-sri-lanka.webp?v=1784271565",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: no. Vaping is banned in Qatar. Do not take your vape, do not use it in the airport, and do not assume a Doha layover is a safe exception.

This is the guide to read before you fly, and especially before you connect. Qatar bans e-cigarettes outright, customs at Doha's Hamad International Airport screen arriving bags and confiscate vaping gear, and the part most people miss is that the ban still covers you in the airport on a layover. Doha is one of the busiest connection hubs in the world for UK travellers heading to Asia, Africa and Australia, so this catches out people who are not even visiting Qatar. Here is the accurate picture.

Is vaping legal in Qatar?

No. E-cigarettes have been banned in Qatar since 2014, and it is illegal to import, sell, distribute, display or use them. Bringing a vape in for your own personal use is prohibited too, so there is no \"just for me\" exception at the border. The ban is not limited to nicotine: nicotine-free and CBD vapes are caught by it as well, because it is the device and category that are prohibited.

That puts Qatar firmly alongside Thailand, Singapore and Sri Lanka. It is not a grey area or a \"be discreet\" situation. Carrying a vape into Qatar, or into its airport, means carrying a banned item.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your vape into Qatar	Banned	Confiscation at Hamad airport, and a fine. Leave it home.
Vaping in Doha airport on a layover	Banned	The ban covers the airport. A connection is not an exception.
Buying a vape in Qatar	Illegal	No legal shops. Only a black market. Do not.
Bringing a nicotine-free or CBD vape	Also banned	The ban is on the device, not just the nicotine.

Is vaping allowed in Qatar airport?

No, and this is the question that matters most, because so many trips route through Doha. Hamad International Airport is Qatari territory, so the national ban applies inside it. You cannot vape anywhere in the terminal, there are no vaping areas, and security screening on arrival is thorough. Do not get your device out, do not charge it, and do not assume that because you are only passing through, the rules do not reach you.

The confusion usually comes from the airline. Qatar Airways, like most carriers, lets you carry a vape device in your cabin bag for battery-safety reasons and bans using it on board. That is an airline baggage rule, and it is not the same thing as Qatar's law. The device may be allowed in your bag on the plane, but the moment you are on the ground in Doha it is a prohibited item, so keep it packed away and unused, and understand you are carrying it at your own risk.

Transiting through Doha: the trap

Here is the honest version for anyone connecting rather than visiting. If your final destination allows vaping, it is tempting to pack your kit and forget that Doha sits in the middle of the journey. But a layover in Qatar is still time spent under Qatar's ban. The safe approach depends on the whole trip: if you are heading somewhere vaping is legal, keep the device sealed in your cabin bag, never use it in Doha, and be aware a bag check can still cause a problem. If your destination also bans vaping, the cleaner answer is simply not to travel with it at all.

What happens if you get caught?

For a tourist, the realistic outcome is confiscation of your device and a fine, and the penalties can be significant. Officers at Hamad routinely take vapes off arriving passengers. The simplest way to avoid all of it is the obvious one: do not travel with your vape into or through Qatar. A banned item you cannot use for the whole trip is not worth the risk of losing it and paying a fine before you have even left the airport.

Can you buy vapes in Qatar?

No, not legally. Sale and display are banned, so there is no legal vape shop, no supermarket stock and no legal online seller shipping within the country. Anything offered to you is illegal black-market stock, and buying it puts you on the wrong side of the same ban. As in several strict countries, there is an irony here: ordinary cigarettes remain on sale while the safer alternative is banned, so a switched vaper is left with nothing legal to turn to.

What to use instead

Qatar is a vape-free trip, so plan your nicotine before you fly. Traditional patches and gum are the least controversial option, and are the sort of thing to bring from home as a personal supply rather than rely on finding locally. Nicotine pouches are a grey-area gamble in a region that restricts smokeless products, so if you take them, keep it to a small personal amount, be discreet, and never sell or share them.

And for the day you reach a destination where vaping is legal, or land back home, have your e-liquid and a charged pod kit ready so you are not scrambling after a long flight. If pouches are your plan for the journey, take enough of your usual nicotine pouches for the trip, and remember you will not be topping up out there.

The bottom line

Qatar bans vaping, enforces it at Hamad airport, and the ban reaches you even on a layover. Do not take your vape, do not use it in Doha, do not buy one there, and sort your nicotine plan before you fly. Get that right and Qatar, and your connection through it, is no problem at all. Get it wrong and you lose your device at the airport and start the trip with a fine.

\n","No. Vaping is banned in Qatar and vapes are confiscated at Doha's Hamad airport. The part most people miss is that the ban covers you in the airport on a layover too, which catches out travellers only connecting through Doha. Here is the accurate picture.","can-you-vape-in-qatar",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1004007195011",{"_314":541,"_327":542,"_329":543,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T16:45:23Z","Can You Vape in Qatar?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T16:45:27Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418180694403","Checklist headed Can you vape in Qatar, showing that bringing a vape in, vaping in Doha airport, buying one there and even nicotine-free or CBD vapes are all banned.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-qatar.webp?v=1784306725",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: no. Vaping is banned in India. Do not take your vape, because carrying it in counts as importing a banned item, and customs can seize it at the airport.

This is the guide to read before you fly, because the Indian ban has a legal quirk that catches people out in both directions. You will see some guides say you will be jailed for a vape, and others say possession is legal so you can bring one. Both are misleading. India banned e-cigarettes in 2019, and the honest position for a UK traveller is simpler and more useful than either scare story. Here it is.

Is vaping legal in India?

No. Under the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act 2019, India banned the production, manufacture, import, export, transport, sale, distribution, storage and advertisement of e-cigarettes. It covers refillable and disposable vapes, heat-not-burn devices and e-hookahs, and it applies to nicotine-free devices too, because it targets the whole category. There are no legal vape shops and no legal way to buy one.

That puts India firmly alongside Thailand, Singapore and its neighbour Sri Lanka. It is not a grey area for buying or selling. The one genuine nuance is about carrying your own, and it does not work in a tourist's favour.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Carrying your vape into India	Banned (import)	Bringing it in is importing. Seized at the airport. Leave it home.
Buying or selling a vape in India	Illegal	No legal shops. Black market only. Serious penalties for sellers.
Simply possessing one already inside	Not a crime, but risky	Possession is not criminalised, but officials vary. Do not rely on it.
Bringing a nicotine-free vape	Also banned	The ban is on the device, not just the nicotine.

The possession loophole that does not help tourists

This is the bit worth getting right. India's Ministry of Home Affairs has clarified that simply possessing an e-cigarette for personal use is not, in itself, an offence under the 2019 Act. That sounds like good news, and it is why some guides tell you that you can bring your vape. But it does not rescue a traveller, for two reasons.

First, the Act bans import, which it defines as bringing an e-cigarette into India from outside. So the act of carrying your vape across the border is the prohibited part, whatever the rules on possession once you are inside. Second, enforcement is inconsistent: some officials interpret even carrying a device strictly, so the \"possession is fine\" clarification is not something to lean on at a customs desk. The safe reading is that the loophole is about people already in India, not about you arriving with a vape in your bag.

What is the punishment for vaping in India?

Here is where the scare stories overreach. The Act's prison terms and large fines are aimed at sellers, importers and manufacturers, the people dealing in e-cigarettes, not at a tourist with a personal device. For a traveller, the realistic outcome of arriving with a vape is confiscation at the airport, and potentially a penalty, rather than jail. That is still a bad start to a holiday, and it is entirely avoidable, but it is worth being accurate: you are not going to prison for a pod kit, and you also should not assume you can simply carry one in.

The sensible conclusion is the same either way. Do not travel with your vape to India. A device you cannot legally use or replace, and that can be taken off you on arrival, is not worth packing.

Can you buy vapes in India?

No, not legally. Sale and storage are banned, so there is no legal vape shop and no legal online seller. A black market does exist in the big cities, and studies have found e-cigarettes still sold under the counter in tobacco shops, but buying from it means an illegal, unregulated product and puts you on the wrong side of the same law. As in several strict countries, ordinary cigarettes remain on sale while the safer alternative is banned, so a switched vaper is left with nothing legal to turn to.

What to use instead

India is a vape-free trip, so plan your nicotine before you fly. The most useful point here is that nicotine pouches are not covered by the vape ban. They are not named in the 2019 Act, there are no known restrictions on bringing them in or possessing them, and travellers report using them without issue. They are the closest thing to a straightforward legal option, though a few states restrict certain smokeless products, so be discreet and check locally.

If pouches are your plan, take enough of your usual nicotine pouches for the whole trip, because you will not be topping up out there. And for the day you land back home, have your e-liquid and a charged pod kit ready so you are not scrambling after a long flight.

The bottom line

India banned vaping in 2019, and while merely possessing a device is not itself a crime, bringing one into the country is, and customs can seize it on arrival. The jail terms you may have read about are for sellers, not tourists, but that is no reason to risk your device. Leave the vape at home, lean on nicotine pouches or traditional NRT for the trip, and enjoy India without the customs-desk drama.

\n","No. India banned vaping in 2019. The quirk that catches people out: possessing a device is not itself a crime, but bringing one into the country is import, which is banned and confiscated at the airport. The jail terms you may have read about are for sellers, not tourists. Here is the accurate picture.","can-you-vape-in-india",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1004012503427",{"_314":555,"_327":556,"_329":557,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T17:17:54Z","Can You Vape in India?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T17:17:58Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418182431107","Checklist headed Can you vape in India, showing bringing a vape in and buying one are banned, possessing one already inside is not a crime but risky, and even nicotine-free vapes are banned.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-india.webp?v=1784308675",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Cyprus. It is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and vapes are sold in shops.

Cyprus is an easy, legal place to vape, but it is a little stricter than its relaxed-Mediterranean image suggests, and there are two things most guides miss. The indoor ban genuinely covers vapes and is enforced, and the rules are not the same across the whole island: if you cross into Northern Cyprus you are in a separate jurisdiction. Here is the accurate picture for a 2026 trip.

Is vaping legal in Cyprus?

Yes. Nicotine vaping is legal and regulated in the Republic of Cyprus under the EU framework. E-cigarettes are sold to over-18s, e-liquid is capped at 20mg/ml of nicotine with refill tanks limited to 2ml, and there is no special customs barrier for a tourist bringing their own kit from the UK. Online sales and vending-machine sales are not allowed, and there are some restrictions on flavours and advertising, but as a visitor carrying your own supply none of that is a problem.

So legality is not the issue. What you need to get right is where you use it, and knowing which part of the island you are on.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. EU country, no drama.
Vaping indoors in bars, cafes, restaurants	Banned	Enclosed public spaces are off limits. Step outside.
Vaping outdoors and on the beach	Allowed	Fine outside. Keep clear of children and diners.
Bringing a THC or CBD vape in	Illegal	Cannabis is a drug matter here. Leave it home.

Can you bring your vape to Cyprus?

Yes, and it is easy. Pack your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will walk through with no trouble. The Republic of Cyprus is an EU country, so there is no special customs hurdle for a tourist carrying their own supply.

You can top up locally too, but there are good reasons to travel with your own, which we come to below.

The indoor ban: stricter than you expect

This is the rule that catches people who assume a sunny island means relaxed rules. Cyprus bans vaping in all enclosed public spaces, the same as smoking, which means no vaping inside bars, cafes, restaurants, shops, hospitals or the airport. On-the-spot fines apply, and in the tourist areas the rule is taken seriously. The rules also extend to a private car carrying a child or a pregnant passenger, so do not vape in the car on a family day out.

The safe approach is the familiar one: if you would not light a cigarette there, do not vape there. Step outside, use open terraces, and keep away from children. Do that and you will have no problems.

North Cyprus is a different story

Here is the part almost every guide skips. Cyprus is a divided island. Most UK holidays are in the Republic of Cyprus in the south, the EU side that covers Ayia Napa, Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca, and everything above applies there. But if you cross the line into Northern Cyprus, you are in a separate territory with its own rules that follow a different, Turkish-aligned framework rather than the EU one. Vaping is available there, but the specifics on sale, use and enforcement are not the same as the south.

For a normal beach holiday in the south this makes no difference. But if you are planning a day trip across the border, do not assume the rules, or the products on sale, are identical. Treat it as a separate country for vaping purposes, because in practice it is.

Can you vape on the beach in Cyprus?

Yes. Outdoor vaping, including on the beach and in parks and streets, is allowed in the Republic of Cyprus. The things to watch are courtesy and litter: never drop a disposable or pod in the sand, keep well clear of families and children, and use any designated areas where they exist. Vape considerately and the outdoors is yours.

Can you buy vapes in Cyprus?

Yes, in the south. Vapes and e-liquid are sold in dedicated shops and some kiosks to over-18s, though you cannot buy them online within Cyprus or from vending machines. Two things make buying locally less appealing than at home: Cyprus now charges an excise tax of around 12 cents per millilitre on e-liquid, and there are restrictions on flavours, so your usual may cost more or not be on the shelf.

A word on THC and CBD vapes

Nicotine vaping is fine. THC and CBD vapes are not. Cyprus has strict drug laws, and cannabis in any form, including a CBD vape you bought legally in the UK, is treated as a drug matter at the border. This is the one thing that turns an easy holiday into a serious problem, so keep it simple: bring nicotine only, and leave anything cannabis related at home.

What to pack for Cyprus

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the trip so you skip the local tax and flavour limits, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than a bag of disposables. Vape outdoors, never inside a bar or cafe, avoid vaping in the car with children, and leave anything cannabis related at home. Do that and Cyprus is an easy, legal place to vape, just remember it is stricter indoors than it looks, and that the north plays by different rules.

\n","Vaping is legal and easy in Cyprus, but stricter indoors than its relaxed image suggests, with an enforced ban and fines. Two things guides miss: the rules extend to cars carrying a child, and Northern Cyprus is a separate jurisdiction. Beaches and outdoors are fine. Here is where the line falls.","can-you-vape-in-cyprus",[48],"gid://shopify/Article/1004022890883",{"_314":569,"_327":570,"_329":571,"_331":332,"_333":334},"2026-07-17T17:34:41Z","Can You Vape in Cyprus?",{"_11":12},"2026-07-17T17:34:45Z","gid://shopify/ArticleImage/418185970051","Checklist headed Can you vape in Cyprus, showing you can bring your own vape and vape outdoors and on the beach, while vaping indoors or in the car and bringing a THC or CBD vape are not allowed.","https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/7002/9869/articles/can-you-vape-in-cyprus.webp?v=1784309683",{"_335":336},"

Short answer: yes, you can vape in Tenerife. It is part of Spain, so it is legal, you can bring your own device and e-liquid, and vapes are sold in the resorts.

Tenerife follows Spanish and EU law, so the basics are the same as the mainland. But there is one Tenerife twist that catches people out, and it is the opposite of what you would expect from a laid-back beach island: many of the beaches ban vaping. The Canary Islands have led the way on smoke-free beaches, and Tenerife has a growing list where lighting up or vaping can earn you a fine. Here is the accurate picture for a 2026 trip.

Is vaping legal in Tenerife?

Yes. Tenerife is part of Spain, so nicotine vaping is legal and regulated under the EU framework. E-cigarettes are sold to over-18s, e-liquid is capped at 20mg/ml of nicotine with refill tanks limited to 2ml, and there is no special customs barrier for a tourist bringing their own kit from the UK. As on the mainland, the thing to get right is not whether you can vape, but where.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What you are doing	Legal position	What it means for you
Bringing your own vape and e-liquid in	Allowed	Personal amount, cabin bag. Part of Spain, no drama.
Vaping indoors in bars, cafes, restaurants	Banned	Enclosed spaces and the airport are off limits.
Vaping on a smoke-free beach	Banned locally	Many Tenerife beaches ban it. Watch for the signs.
Bringing a THC or CBD vape in	Illegal	Cannabis is a drug matter here. Leave it home.

Can you bring your vape to Tenerife?

Yes, and it is easy. Pack your device and e-liquid in your cabin bag, never the hold, because of the lithium battery. Bring a personal amount, a device and a spare plus enough liquid for the trip, and you will walk through with no trouble. Tenerife is Spanish territory, so there is no special customs hurdle for a tourist carrying their own supply from the UK.

You can top up in the resorts too, but there are reasons to travel with your own, which we come to below.

The beach catch: many are smoke-free

This is the Tenerife-specific rule to get right. The Canary Islands have been at the front of Spain's smoke-free beach movement, and Tenerife now has a growing number of beaches, more than ten at the last count, where smoking and vaping are banned to cut litter and protect clean air. Popular spots such as Playa de Las Teresitas are on the list, and the bans are marked with signs and enforced with fines that start small but climb for repeat or deliberate offences.

So do not assume that a beach means a free-for-all here, the way it still mostly does on the mainland. The simple rule is to look for the signs when you settle on your spot: if the beach is flagged smoke-free, that covers your vape too, so step away to a non-restricted area. Plenty of beaches are still fine, but the popular, well-kept urban ones are the most likely to be covered.

Where else you can and cannot vape

Indoors, Tenerife follows the national rule: no vaping in enclosed public spaces, which means bars, cafes, restaurants, shops, public transport and the airport terminals at Tenerife South and North. Open-air terraces are generally fine, provided they are not effectively enclosed by walls and a roof, though individual venues can set their own stricter rules. Keep away from children's playgrounds and busy family areas, and treat anywhere indoors as off limits.

For the national picture, including the wider Spanish proposals to extend outdoor bans, see our full Spain vaping guide. Tenerife sits under those same rules, with the local beach bans on top.

Can you buy vapes in Tenerife?

Yes. There are vape shops in the main resort areas such as Playa de las Américas, Los Cristianos and Costa Adeje, as well as some kiosks and tobacconists, selling to over-18s. Online sales within Spain are restricted, so do not rely on ordering to your hotel. The usual catch applies: your exact brand, strength or flavour may not be on the shelf, and prices and stock vary.

A word on THC and CBD vapes

Nicotine vaping is fine. THC and CBD vapes are not. Cannabis in any form, including a CBD vape you bought legally in the UK, is treated as a drug matter under Spanish law. This is the one thing that turns an easy holiday into a serious problem, so keep it simple: bring nicotine only, and leave anything cannabis related at home.

What to pack for Tenerife

Your device and a spare in your cabin bag, enough e-liquid or nic salt for the trip, a charger and cable, and a refillable kit rather than a bag of disposables. Vape outdoors and on open terraces, never inside a bar or the airport, check the beach signs before you light up, and leave anything cannabis related at home. Do that and Tenerife is an easy, legal place to vape, as long as you respect the smoke-free beaches the Canaries are known for.

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