The new vape tax, explained in plain English

The official name is Vaping Products Duty, and it is a flat charge on the liquid, not on the price. A cheap 10ml bottle and a premium one pay exactly the same: £2.20 per 10ml. VAT is then charged on top, which takes the tax part to about £2.64 per 10ml.

Because it is a per-ml charge, it scales neatly. A 2ml pod carries a fifth of the 10ml figure, a 100ml shortfill carries ten times it. Once you know how many ml you get through, you know what the tax costs you, no guesswork.

You will not usually see it as its own line on a receipt. It sits inside the price you pay, like the duty on a pint.

The rule of thumb is simple: if it is liquid you vape, it is in. That means prefilled pods, 10ml bottles, shortfills, longfills, nicotine shots and the ingredients people buy to mix their own. Nicotine-free liquid is not let off either, so a 0mg shortfill pays the same rate as a 20mg nic salt.

Hardware sits outside it completely. A new vape kit, a box of coils, a tank or a spare battery carries no vape duty at all.

One bit of good news for shortfill fans: if your shortfill and your nic shot have both had duty paid, mixing them at home does not trigger a second charge. More on that in our guide to duty on shortfills, nic shots and DIY.

The quickest way to stop worrying about a tax is to put a number on it. Pop in roughly how many ml you vape in a week and the calculator does the rest, using £2.20 per 10ml plus VAT.

Not sure of your weekly ml? Count it backwards. A 2ml pod a day is 14ml a week. A 10ml bottle every two days is 35ml. A 100ml shortfill a fortnight is 50ml. Most pod vapers land somewhere between 10ml and 30ml, and sub-ohm tank users go well beyond that, because bigger coils drink more liquid.

The figure you get is the tax part only. Shop prices depend on plenty of other things, so treat it as what the duty adds, not a full price forecast.

Duty-paid products carry a duty stamp, in yellow or red. The changeover is staggered, which is why you will see a mix of stamped and unstamped stock for a while.

Physical transitional stamps can be bought until 30 November 2026 and stuck on until 31 December 2026. From 1 January 2027 the system moves to digital stamps only. Shops are allowed to sell old unstamped stock until 31 March 2027, and from 1 April 2027 everything must be stamped.

So an unstamped bottle today is not automatically dodgy. After April 2027, it is a red flag. Our duty stamps guide covers what to look for.

The duty is new, so the rumours are flying faster than the facts. A few of the common ones come up in the shop every day, usually from someone who has just paid more for a shortfill than they expected.

The biggest misunderstanding is that it is a percentage tax. It is not. A bargain bottle and a luxury one pay the same per 10ml, so the duty makes up a bigger share of a cheap liquid's price than a pricey one. The second is that 0mg is exempt, which would have been handy, but no.

Tap each card to check what you thought you knew.

One question to lock it in. If you can answer this, you understand the vape tax better than most people moaning about it online.

Remember the two moving parts: the duty itself, which is set per 10ml, and VAT, which is charged on top of it. Multiply up for bigger bottles, divide down for pods. A 2ml pod works out at roughly 53p of duty and VAT, a 50ml shortfill at £13.20, and a 100ml shortfill at £26.40.

If you want the product-by-product breakdown, see what the duty adds to pods, 10ml and shortfills.