The tax is officially called Vaping Products Duty. It was announced in the Spring Budget 2024 and sits alongside the Tobacco and Vapes Act, which became law on 29 April 2026. It is a brand new excise duty. Vaping liquid has never been taxed like tobacco or alcohol before, so this is a genuine change rather than a tweak to an existing charge.

The rate is flat. Twenty-two pence per millilitre of liquid, which works out at £2.20 on a standard 10ml bottle. Crucially it is charged on volume alone. Nicotine strength makes no difference, so a 0mg shortfill is taxed at exactly the same rate per millilitre as a 20mg nic salt. Standard 20% VAT is then applied on top of the price including the duty, which means you pay a little tax on the tax.

The duty applies to the liquid only. Devices, tanks, coils, batteries and chargers are not taxed unless they arrive prefilled with liquid. So a refillable pod kit sitting on the shelf is unaffected. A disposable or a prefilled pod is not, because the liquid inside it is in scope.

This is the part other guides skip. The headline rate is the same for everyone, but the impact swings massively depending on what you buy. Figures below are duty plus VAT against typical current shelf prices and they are estimates, not fixed prices.

Numbers in isolation are easy to wave away. Here is one common purchase, a 100ml shortfill with two nic shots, priced as it stands today and as it lands once the duty and VAT apply.

The same 120ml of liquid roughly doubles in price, and most of that increase is government duty rather than retailer margin. Reputable sellers are not adding profit on top of the tax. The duty is fixed and passed straight through.

The duty does not flip every shelf price overnight on 1 October. Any e-liquid produced on or after that date must carry a tax stamp and incur the duty. Stock manufactured before then can still be sold without the tax during a six month sell-through window that ends on 1 April 2027.

In practice that means a window. Pre-duty stock will sit alongside newly stamped stock for a few months and gradually sell through. As that older stock clears, the lower prices disappear with it. So the cheapest period to buy is now and the months immediately before October, while pre-duty inventory is still plentiful.

Yes, and that needs saying plainly because the headline figures look alarming. Even with the duty applied, vaping remains significantly cheaper than smoking. A pack-a-day smoker still spends far more over a year than even a heavy shortfill vaper will after the tax lands.

The stated aim of the duty is to make vaping less attractive to young people and non-smokers while funding a crackdown on the illegal market. Whether it achieves that is a separate debate. The practical reality for an existing adult vaper is straightforward. Your costs are going up, the increase depends heavily on your chosen format and the smart move is to understand which format you use and prepare accordingly.

The one genuine concern worth flagging is supply. Smaller shops squeezed by the change may struggle, which makes buying from established, compliant retailers more important than ever. A seller with proper stock, correct tax stamps and a track record is a safer bet than chasing the cheapest unverified price online.