How much will vape prices go up? The new vape tax explained

• A flat duty of £2.20 per 10ml starts on 1 October 2026. With VAT on top that is £2.64 for every 10ml of liquid, whatever the nicotine strength, including 0mg.
• It is charged per millilitre, so every format pays the same rate. A 10ml bottle, a 2ml pod and a 120ml shortfill kit all pay the same amount per ml. Bigger volumes simply carry more duty in total.
• Hardware is not taxed. Kits, batteries, empty refillable pods, coils and tanks carry no vaping duty. Only the liquid does.
• Old and new stock overlap for six months. Shops can keep selling stock made before the duty started, so you will see pre-duty and duty-paid products side by side for a while.
• The biggest savings come from using less liquid, not from timing. A lower-wattage refillable kit, a well-maintained coil and liquid stored properly all stretch every bottle further.

What the Vaping Products Duty is

The Vaping Products Duty is a new excise tax on the liquid inside vapes, collected by HMRC in the same way as the duties on alcohol and tobacco. It applies from 1 October 2026 to every vaping liquid sold in the UK: nicotine and nicotine-free, freebase and nic salt, 10ml bottles, prefilled pods and large shortfills.

The government consulted on a three-band system that would have taxed liquid by nicotine strength. That idea was dropped. What arrived is a single flat rate of £2.20 per 10ml, charged on volume alone. VAT at 20% is then charged on top of the duty, which is why the figure you will actually feel at the till is £2.64 per 10ml.

Alongside the duty, HMRC is bringing in a duty stamp scheme so that duty-paid products can be identified. You can read the official detail on the HMRC Vaping Products Duty pages. For the wider picture of what is and is not legal to sell, our guide to UK vape laws covers the disposable ban, bottle sizes and strength limits.

What the duty adds to each format

Because the tax follows the millilitres, the easiest way to understand it is to count the liquid in whatever you buy. The table shows the duty element only. It is not a shelf price, because what a product sells for also depends on the manufacturer, the supplier and the retailer.

Two things stand out. First, the rate never changes: a pod vaper and a shortfill vaper pay precisely the same per millilitre. Second, the total grows with the volume in the box, so the products that looked cheapest because they held the most liquid now carry the most duty in a single purchase. That is arithmetic, not a penalty on any one format.

For the exact figure at every size from a 1ml unit to a 200ml shortfill pack, how VAT is added on top of the duty, and what the new duty stamps look like, see our duty chart for every bottle size.

10ml bottles and multipacks

A standard 10ml e-liquid or nic salt carries £2.64 of duty and VAT. For most pod-kit vapers that is the number to remember, because a typical user gets through roughly 10ml to 15ml a week, so a single bottle lasts three to seven days.

Multipacks such as the Hangsen 10 x 10ml pack hold 100ml, so the duty and VAT in the box comes to £26.40. Packs still make sense for people who know which flavour they like, because they cut the number of orders and the delivery hassle.

Some of the lowest-priced multi-buy deals on 10ml bottles were built on very thin margins. Once duty-paid stock is on the shelf, those deal structures are likely to change across the market. That is not something any retailer can wish away: the duty is a fixed amount set by government, and it is owed on every bottle.

Prefilled pods and big-puff kits

A prefilled pod is limited by law to 2ml of nicotine liquid, so each one carries one fifth of the 10ml charge. The Vuse Pro prefilled pods come as a pack of two, for example, and the duty on the pack follows the total liquid in both pods.

Big-puff kits are described by their manufacturer puff rating, but the duty ignores the puff count completely. It is charged on the total millilitres of liquid in the box. The Lost Mary BM6000, for example, is a 1000mAh kit with one prefilled 2ml pod, rated at 6,000 puffs, with replacement BM6000 prefilled pods in 0mg, 10mg and 20mg. It pays on its liquid content in exactly the same way as a bottle does. If you want to compare formats on running cost, compare the millilitres, not the puff claims.

If you vape a pod a day or more, the duty adds up across a month in the same way it would on bottles holding the same volume. Our refillable pod kits vs big puff kits cost guide walks through the running costs of each approach so you can see which suits your habits.

Shortfills and nic shots

Shortfills are sold at 0mg in larger bottles with room left for a nicotine shot. Because 0mg liquid pays the same duty as nicotine liquid, and because a nic shot is itself 10ml of liquid, both parts of a shortfill set-up are taxed.

A 50ml shortfill topped up with one 10ml shot makes 60ml of liquid, which carries £15.84 in duty and VAT. A 100ml shortfill with two shots makes 120ml and carries £31.68. A 100ml bottle on its own, before any shots, carries £26.40. Larger sizes such as the 200ml and 500ml bottles in our Kingston e-liquid range scale up in proportion.

Bottles such as Lucky 7 80ml by The King of Vapes are a good example of the format: 0mg liquid, a large bottle and a choice of adding nic shots such as the Nic Nic 18mg 50VG shot. If you are weighing up whether to stay on shortfills or move to 10ml bottles, our shortfill vs 10ml e-liquid guide compares the two, and the guide to mixing nic shots into e-liquid covers the ratios.

Pre-duty and duty-paid stock side by side

The duty is charged when products are released onto the UK market, not when you buy them. Stock made and released before 1 October 2026 did not pay it, and shops are allowed to keep selling that older stock through an overlap period. Pre-duty stock is on sale until 31 March 2027.

In practice that means that for around six months you may see two versions of the same product at different prices: an older bottle made before the duty started and a newer duty-paid one. Neither is better or worse to vape. The liquid is the same; only the tax treatment differs. As older stock sells through, prices across the market settle at the duty-paid level.

Whatever you buy, keep it in good condition. Our guide to e-liquid shelf life and storage explains how long sealed and opened bottles last, and how to store them so nothing goes to waste.

Ways to keep your vaping costs down

The duty is fixed, so the most reliable way to spend less is to use your liquid more efficiently. None of these involve changing how much nicotine you use.

1. 1
   Match the kit to how you vape. A mouth-to-lung pod kit running a coil of 0.6 ohm and above at modest wattage uses far less liquid per session than a sub-ohm tank. If you do not need big clouds, a lower-wattage kit is the simplest saving there is.
2. 2
   Consider a refillable pod. Filling your own pods from 10ml bottles gives you the widest choice of liquid and strength, and many people find it the lowest day-to-day running cost. A good example is the Vaporesso Xros 4 Mini, which has a 1000mAh battery and 2ml refillable pods.
3. 3
   Look after your coils and pods. A burnt or flooded coil wastes liquid through leaks and binned pods. Change coils when the flavour drops off, prime every new one and fill to the line, not the brim.
4. 4
   Store liquid properly. Keep bottles capped, upright and out of heat and sunlight so the last few millilitres are as good as the first.
5. 5
   Use your rewards. Every £1 spent earns 1.8 points on our rewards scheme, 75 points are worth £1 off, and you can redeem from 275 points. Registering at checkout adds 200 bonus points.
6. 6
   Order above the delivery threshold. UK delivery is free on orders over £15, so combining a bottle order with coils or pods avoids paying for postage twice. Details are on our delivery and returns page.

Refillable pod kits are a one-off hardware purchase with no duty on the device itself, and the running cost is then just liquid and the occasional replacement pod.

Shop by the millilitre

Free UK delivery over £15, 1.8 reward points on every £1 and 20,000+ five-star reviews. New here? Register at checkout for 10% off your first order.

Quick answers