Where Can You Vape in the UK? Pubs, Trains, Work and the Law

Here's the thing almost nobody knows: vaping indoors isn't illegal in the UK. Not in England, not in Scotland, not in Wales, not in Northern Ireland. There's no law against vaping in a pub, a shop, a restaurant, a cinema or an office.

When a pub tells you to put it away, that's the pub's house rule, not the law. You can't be fined for it, the council can't enforce it, and it's not a criminal offence.

There's one huge exception, and it's brand new. Since 26 December 2025, vaping on the railway is a criminal offence. That one caught almost everybody out, so we'll start there.

Where is vaping actually illegal in the UK?

Genuinely illegal, as in a criminal offence you can be prosecuted for? A very short list.

Where	Criminal offence?	What actually applies
Trains and railway stations	YES	Railway Byelaw 3, amended 26 December 2025. Fine up to £1,000.
London Underground	No	TfL's byelaw only covers lighted items. Banned by your ticket conditions instead.
Buses and coaches	No	The regulations say "lighted tobacco". Operator policy only.
Aeroplanes	Not directly	The offence is ignoring the crew, not the vaping itself.
Pubs, shops, offices, cinemas	No	House rules. Refusal of service, not a fine.

That's the whole list. Everything else you've been told is a policy, not a law.

Can you vape on a train?

No, and since 26 December 2025 it's a criminal offence. This is the single biggest change to where you can vape in years, and it went almost entirely unreported.

The Railway Byelaws were amended so that Byelaw 3 now reads: "No person shall smoke an electronic cigarette or other like device on any part of the railway on or near which there is a notice indicating that smoking is not allowed."

Before that date, vaping on a train broke the train company's conditions of carriage. They could ask you to stop and remove you. Now you're committing an offence, and the maximum fine is £1,000. It applies on the train and on the platform, right across the National Rail network.

The Tube is the strange exception

Transport for London isn't covered by the national Railway Byelaws. TfL has its own, and its smoking byelaw only catches a "lighted" item. A vape isn't lighted, so there's no offence to charge you with.

TfL bans it anyway, through its Conditions of Carriage, which say you must not "smoke or use an electronic cigarette". Break that and you can be removed. You can't be prosecuted.

So you end up with a genuinely odd situation: vaping on a Thameslink train is a criminal offence. Vaping on the Northern line is a breach of contract. Same city, same journey, different legal universe. Don't vape on either, obviously. But that's the state of the law.

Can you vape in a pub?

Legally, yes. In practice, almost never.

The smoking ban doesn't apply to vaping, so no law stops you. But a pub is private property and can set its own rules, and most large chains ban it indoors:

Chain	Their published policy
Wetherspoon	Designated smoking areas only. That includes their hotel rooms.
Greene King	Asks customers to vape in designated outdoor areas.
Mitchells & Butlers (Harvester, Toby Carvery, All Bar One, Miller & Carter)	No use of electronic cigarettes within their premises.
Independent pubs	Entirely up to the landlord. Some genuinely do allow it. Ask.

Worth knowing: the British Beer and Pub Association has argued against a blanket indoor vaping ban, telling Parliament that some pubs do allow vaping indoors and that it helps distinguish vaping from smoking. So the trade isn't uniformly against you. The big chains just find a blanket rule easier.

The practical answer: assume no, and ask if it matters to you. Being asked to leave a pub isn't a criminal matter, but it's still being asked to leave a pub.

And if you're somewhere you've been given the nod, the device matters more than you think. A low-power pod kit running nic salts produces a fraction of the vapour of a sub-ohm setup. That's the difference between nobody noticing and everybody noticing, and it's why the people who get away with a discreet indoor puff are almost never the ones on a big cloud machine.

Can you vape at work?

That's entirely your employer's call, and the law is on your side more than you might think.

The government's own guidance is blunt: "The law does not apply to e-cigarettes. Employers can decide if they can be used on their premises."

And official public health guidance goes further. It says vaping should not routinely be lumped in with smoking in a workplace policy, that the evidence of harm from second-hand vapour isn't sufficient to justify prohibiting it, and, pointedly, that "it is never acceptable to require vapers to share the same outdoor space with smokers."

The Health and Safety Executive says it doesn't enforce any standard on e-cigarettes and hasn't advised employers to ban them.

So if your employer has banned vaping indoors, that's their right. But if they have banished you to the smoking shelter, they're going directly against the official guidance, and it's entirely reasonable to say so.

Fairness cuts both ways, though. The same guidance notes that people with asthma and other respiratory conditions can be sensitive to airborne irritants, and that their interests should be taken into account. A sensible office policy is a conversation, not a war.

Can you vape in a car?

Yes. There's no law against vaping while driving, though you must stay in proper control of the vehicle. We cover that properly in our guide to vaping while driving.

What about vaping in a car with children?

It's legal, and this one shocks people.

Everyone knows about the law banning smoking in a car with under-18s present, with its £50 fine. Almost everyone assumes it covers vaping.

It doesn't. The regulations make the car "smoke-free", and smoking in law requires something lit. Vapour isn't smoke. GOV.UK spells it out in terms, listing what the law doesn't apply to: e-cigarettes (vaping).

So it's not illegal to vape in a car with a child in it. Whether it's a good idea is a completely different question, and we would suggest not, but you won't be fined for it and nobody can tell you that you're breaking the law.

Can you vape in a hotel?

Not in most chains, and it's your wallet rather than the law that suffers.

Premier Inn treats vaping exactly like smoking and charges £100. Travelodge also bans vaping in rooms but publishes no fixed fee at all, reserving the right to recover its reasonable costs. That's arguably the worse deal of the two, because there's no ceiling on it.

On Airbnb, if a listing says no smoking, that automatically includes vaping. Airbnb's own house rules define smoking to include e-cigarettes.

Renting a flat is different again. There's no law, and a landlord's standard "no smoking of tobacco or any other substance" clause doesn't, on a natural reading, catch vaping. If a landlord wants to ban vaping, they have to actually write "vaping" into the tenancy.

The places that surprise people

Place	The reality
Prisons	Vaping is allowed. The prison service supplies vapes, through the canteen and in reception packs, because they were central to going smoke-free.
Hospitals	No law. Trust by trust. And the health regulator has said e-cigarettes should not routinely be treated the same as smoking in health settings.
Schools	No law bans possessing or using a vape on school premises. Schools ban it under their own behaviour policy. The under-18 rule is about selling, not holding.
Airports and planes	Its own tangle of rules. See our guide to flying with a vape.
Supermarkets	None of the big chains publish a customer vaping policy at all. In practice you will be asked to stop.

Is this about to change?

Probably, and here's where it stands honestly.

The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 got Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. It contains powers for the government to designate places as "vape-free", with a £200 fine for vaping in one, £2,500 for a manager who fails to prevent it, and £1,000 for not putting up signs.

But none of it's in force. Those sections are marked prospective. They haven't been commenced, and no regulations designating anywhere as vape-free have been made. There are two separate steps still to happen, and neither has.

The government consulted between February and May 2026 on what should become vape-free. It proposed extending it to indoor workplaces and public places, public transport, children's playgrounds, school grounds, and private cars carrying under-18s. That consultation closed on 8 May 2026 and the government hasn't yet responded.

One detail worth flagging, because the press keeps getting it backwards: the consultation expressly doesn't propose making hospital grounds vape-free. The stated reason is that vaping helps smokers quit, and they don't want to get in the way of that.

So: change is coming, nobody can tell you exactly when, and anyone who gives you a date is making it up.

Wales nearly banned it, by one vote

A footnote, but a good one. In 2016 the Welsh Government tried to restrict vaping in enclosed public places as part of a public health bill. It was defeated at the final stage by a single vote. The bill came back without the vaping clause and became law in 2017 without it.

Had one vote gone the other way, Wales would have had an indoor vaping ban a decade before the rest of the UK is even consulting on one.

The rule of thumb

Since the law is barely involved, here's what actually works:

Outdoors, in the open, away from doorways and away from children: nobody minds and nobody can stop you.

On a train or a platform: don't, it's now a criminal offence.

Indoors anywhere else: assume it's banned, and ask if it matters. You're not breaking the law, but you're a guest on someone else's property, and they get to decide.

The stealthy indoor puff into your sleeve is the single fastest way to make vapers look bad and to get the rules tightened on all of us. It's not worth it.

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Last checked 12 July 2026, against the Health Act 2006, the Railway Byelaws as amended in December 2025, the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, and GOV.UK guidance. The law here is moving, so we will keep this updated.