Does the vape duty cover shortfills, nic shots and DIY?

When the duty landed on 1 October 2026, shortfill fans hoped the 0mg loophole might hold. It did not. The duty covers all vaping liquid, nicotine or not, and the official list names shortfills, longfills, nicotine shots and DIY ingredients alongside pods and refills.

The rate is the same as everywhere else: £2.20 per 10ml, with VAT added. Because shortfills come in big bottles, the totals look bigger, but the rate per ml is exactly the same as on a 10ml bottle of nic salt.

Everything you vape it through, from the tank to the coil, is still duty-free.

This was the big worry, and the answer is reassuring. If your shortfill was duty-paid and your nic shot was duty-paid, mixing them in your kitchen does not count as making a new product that needs taxing again.

So a 50ml shortfill carries £13.20 of duty and VAT, a 10ml shot carries £2.64, and the finished 60ml bottle has carried £15.84 in total. That is exactly 60ml at the normal rate. No penalty, no bonus.

The same goes for a 100ml shortfill with two shots: £26.40 plus £5.28, so £31.68 across 120ml. Grab a shortfill from our shortfill range and a shot from nicotine shots and mix as normal.

Here is the duty and VAT on the bottles you are most likely to buy. These are the tax parts only, not full prices.

Nicotine is addictive, and a nic shot is how you add it to a shortfill. One 18mg shot in a 50ml shortfill gives about 3mg/ml; two shots in a 100ml give the same strength over 120ml. The duty does not care about strength, only volume, so a 3mg mix and a 0mg mix of the same size carry the same tax.

Want to check strengths before you mix? The shortfill calculator in our other guides works it out in seconds.

If you mix from scratch, the duty reaches you too. DIY ingredients are named in the duty, so the components you buy to make your own liquid carry it the same way finished liquid does.

The kit you mix with is a different story. Bottles, syringes and other DIY e-liquid accessories are not liquid, so the duty does not apply.

If you want to see what a typical DIY batch carries, use the calculator: enter the ml you make and vape in a week. The maths is identical to buying ready-made, at about 26.4p per ml once VAT is included. DIY can still make sense for flavour control, but it is no longer a way around the duty.

Forums filled up with theories the week the duty started, and a few of them have stuck around. Most come from the idea that 0mg or homemade liquid somehow falls outside the rules.

The duty wording is broad on purpose: all vaping liquid, nicotine or not, including the separate parts people mix themselves. The one genuine break is the no-double-charge rule for duty-paid products mixed at home.

Flip each card to check.

If a shop or a forum post tells you otherwise, they have either misread the rules or are selling something that has not had its duty paid, and neither is a great sign. The rate is flat and simple, which at least makes it hard to get wrong once you know it.

One last check before you go and mix something. If you get this right, you have understood the only bit of the duty that actually works in your favour.

For the full picture of what the duty covers and how it rolls out, read the vape tax explained. And if you are wondering about stamps on your shortfill bottles, the short version is that unstamped stock can be sold until 31 March 2027, and everything must be stamped from 1 April 2027.

Not sure which strength to aim for? Lower strengths in bigger clouds is the usual shortfill pattern, and the duty on a 3mg mix is no different from a 0mg one.