What the vape duty adds to pods, 10ml bottles and shortfills

Strip it back and the duty works out at 22p per ml, or about 26.4p per ml with VAT on top. Everything else is multiplication.

A standard 2ml prefilled pod picks up roughly 53p. A twin pack of 2ml pods is about £1.06, a four-pack about £2.11. A 10ml bottle of nic salt or freebase picks up about £2.64, the same whether it is 20mg or nicotine-free.

These are the tax parts only. Shop prices are set by plenty of other factors, so do not expect every price to rise by exactly these amounts. What you can count on is the per-ml figure, because that is fixed in law.

Shortfills are where the duty bites hardest, simply because there is more liquid in the bottle. A 50ml shortfill carries £13.20 of duty and VAT. A 100ml carries £26.40. Being nicotine-free does not help, since the duty covers all vaping liquid.

A 10ml nicotine shot adds another £2.64. Put a 50ml shortfill and one shot together and you have 60ml of liquid carrying £15.84, which is exactly what 60ml of anything else would carry. No penalty for mixing, no discount either.

Browse shortfills and nic shots knowing that the duty part is the same across every brand on the shelf.

Pod kits that come with liquid in the box are charged on that liquid, not on the device. The battery, the shell and the charging port are all duty-free hardware.

Take two kits we stock. The Lost Mary BM6000 Pod Kit comes with a 2ml prefilled pod and a 10ml refill container, so 12ml of liquid, which carries about £3.17 of duty and VAT. The Lost Mary Nera 30K Fullview kit comes with two 2ml pods and two 10ml containers, so 24ml, which carries about £6.34.

Big puff counts usually mean more liquid in the box, so it is worth glancing at the ml figure rather than the puff number when you compare.

Single-item figures are handy in the shop, but what matters to your wallet is the running total. Type in roughly how many ml you vape each week and you will get the duty and VAT for the week and the year.

For a feel of the range: 10ml a week works out at about £2.64 a week, or £137 a year. 20ml a week is about £5.28, or £275 a year. A sub-ohm vaper on 70ml a week is looking at about £18.48 a week in duty and VAT, close to £961 a year.

That gap is mostly down to coil type. Low-resistance coils run hotter and use far more liquid per puff than a tight MTL pod.

Pick the way you vape and get the duty figure that applies to you. If you use a mix, add the bits together.

Remember that the duty is charged on volume, so switching to a cheaper brand of the same size will not change the tax part. What does change it is how many ml you get through. Fixing a leaky pod, staying within your coil's power range and not chain vaping all mean less liquid used and less duty paid over a year.

For the bigger picture, including dates and stamps, start with the vape tax explained.

Since the duty follows the ml, the only real way to pay less of it is to waste less liquid. None of these are sacrifices; they are mostly habits that also make coils last longer and flavour taste better.

Leaks are the sneaky one. A pod that weeps into your pocket is taxed liquid you never vaped. Overfilling, filling with the airflow open, or a worn seal are the usual causes, and all are fixable.

Tick off what you already do.

Coil choice matters too. A 1.2 ohm MTL pod sips liquid compared with a 0.2 ohm sub-ohm coil, so if you are happy with a tighter draw, your weekly ml, and your weekly duty, can fall without you changing anything else.