The Cheapest Ways to Vape After the Vape Tax

Long term, the cheapest way to vape after the tax is a refillable vape kit with bottled e-liquid. If you want the lowest upfront cost and the least to manage, it is a 600 puff style 2ml prefilled kit.

The duty is charged per millilitre, so since 1 October 2026 every way of vaping costs more, but not by the same amount. This page costs each format with the duty included, sets out what you can and cannot do about the tax, then lists the ways to bring your weekly spend down.

What the vape tax adds to every bottle and pod

Vaping Products Duty adds 22p per millilitre to all vape liquid, with VAT on top, so the real increase is 26.4p per ml. It applies with or without nicotine.

• 10ml bottle: £2.64 more
• 100ml shortfill: £26.40 more
• 2ml prefilled pod: 53p more

Devices are not taxed. Kits, empty pods and coils cost the same as before, and that does a lot of work later on this page. Our guide to how much vape juice has gone up covers the rules on 0mg, shortfills and mixing.

Every liquid format costed per millilitre

Format	Before the duty	With the duty
100ml shortfill (typical £7.99)	about 8p per ml	about 34p per ml
10ml nic salt (typical £1.99)	about 20p per ml	about 46p per ml
Large prefilled refills (12ml sets, typical £5.99)	about 50p per ml	about 76p per ml
2ml prefilled pods (typical £1.75 a pod)	about 87p per ml	about £1.14 per ml

The order does not change, but the gaps close up. Before the duty a shortfill was roughly eleven times cheaper per millilitre than a small prefilled pod, and with the duty it is roughly three times cheaper.

In percentage terms the tax hits the cheapest liquid hardest. A duty-paid 100ml shortfill carries £26.40 of duty and VAT on its own, so the old £7.99 price goes for good once pre-duty bottles sell out.

Why your millilitres matter more than your bottle price

Our own numbers, from nearly 18,000 customers, put the typical vaper at 5.7 to 10.3ml a day, with prefilled pod users well under that and sub-ohm vapers well over. A per-millilitre tax turns that difference into money: 10ml a day through a sub-ohm kit carries about £2.64 of duty and VAT every day, while 2ml through a tight pod kit carries about 53p.

That is why the biggest saving is not a cheaper bottle. It is getting your millilitres from a bottle instead of a prefilled set, and knowing your own daily number before you decide how to buy.

The four main setups, costed per week

Setup	Liquid per week before the duty	With the duty
Refillable pod kit and bottled e-liquid (2 to 3ml a day)	about £3.50	about £8
600 puff prefilled pods (a pod a day)	£12 to £15	£16 to £19
Big puff and larger prefilled kits with refill sets (4ml a day)	about £14	about £21
Sub-ohm kit and shortfills (10ml a day)	about £6	about £24

Replacement pods and coils go on top and carry no duty.

Long term, the refillable kit with bottled liquid comes out well ahead. If the priority is the lowest upfront cost and the least to manage, the 600 puff 2ml kits suit you: the kit is a few pounds, each pod carries only 53p of duty and there is nothing to fill. Elf Bar, Lost Mary, SKE Crystal and Hayati all make prefilled pod kits in this format.

The format that comes off worst is the big puff and larger prefilled kits with their refill sets. Their liquid costs roughly double a bottled e-liquid per millilitre, the format is built around getting through plenty of it, and a single 12ml refill set carries £3.17 of duty and VAT.

The sub-ohm row makes the other point: even the cheapest liquid per millilitre adds up fast at 10ml a day.

How to avoid the vape tax

There is no legal way to avoid the duty on vape liquid itself, so the real choice is how much liquid you buy and in what form.

Some vapers are buying PG and VG from non-vaping suppliers and mixing it with longfills and nic shots, and on paper it costs less because the base carries no duty. HMRC's position is clear, though: mixing liquid on which duty has not been paid counts as making a vaping product, even for your own use, and that is against the law without HMRC approval. PG or VG bought for another use, such as pharmacy grade, is not duty-paid vaping liquid.

The legal ways to pay less are to use fewer millilitres, move to a higher strength nic salt in a pod kit, and mix only from parts sold as duty-paid vaping products. The list below covers the rest.

Eight ways to bring the cost of vaping down

• Buy the biggest bottle you will finish. Per millilitre a 100ml shortfill still costs less than ten separate 10ml bottles with the duty included.

• Know what a longfill saves. A longfill is taxed on the flavour in the bottle, and the duty-paid base and nic shots you add carry duty too, so the duty ends up the same as a shortfill of the same size. The saving is in the price of the flavour, and our longfill tax calculator shows the numbers.

• Settle on flavours you know. A duty-paid bottle you do not enjoy is the most expensive liquid there is, so stick to the ones you know you will finish.

• Buy pre-duty while it lasts. Shops can sell older products without the duty until 31 March 2027, and every pre-duty 100ml saves £26.40 against a duty-paid bottle. We have pre-duty prices on some lines until 31 March 2027 or until they sell out.

• Go rechargeable, not throwaway. A 600 puff pod kit from £3.99 splits your spend, because the kit never carries duty and only the pods do.

• Make pods and coils last. Fill before the pod is empty and let fresh liquid soak in before the first puff, so a coil gives you its full life.

• Watch the deals. Our weekly offers change every week, and kit, pods and liquid together often cost less as a bundle.

• Order to the free delivery line. UK delivery is free on orders over £30, so one batched order costs less than three small ones with postage on each.

Are pods cheaper than disposable vapes?

Single-use vapes have not been legal to sell in the UK since June 2025, so at the till the question answers itself. Their replacements do the same job for less: the battery that used to go in the bin is now a kit you keep, from £3.99, and each sealed 2ml pod carries only 53p of duty, with the kit never taxed.

Work out your own numbers

If you are weighing vaping against smoking, even with the duty included a vaper spends a fraction of what a 20-a-day smoker does, and our guide to whether vaping is cheaper than smoking has every figure with sources.

For your own basket, the savings calculator does the sums.

Vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking but it is not risk-free, and it is intended for adult smokers and existing vapers. If you do not smoke, do not vape.