The new duty adds about £2.64 for every 10ml you vape, so a 20ml-a-week vaper pays roughly £5.28 a week more in tax than before. Whether vaping still beats your old tobacco bill depends on two numbers only you know, and this page helps you find both.
The short version
- Duty and VAT add about 26.4p per ml of liquid.
- 10ml a week costs about £137 a year in duty; 20ml about £275.
- Hardware is duty-free, so devices and coils cost what they did.
- Compare against your own receipts, not a national average.
The money question, nothing else
This page is about pounds, not health. If you want what the NHS says about vaping, that lives in our guide to what the NHS actually says.
Here is the bit that changed: since 1 October 2026, every 10ml of vape liquid carries £2.20 of duty with VAT on top, about £2.64 in all. That is a fixed amount per ml, so the extra you pay depends entirely on how much you vape.
Everything else in your vaping budget, the kit, coils, tanks and batteries, is untouched by the duty. So the honest comparison is your total weekly vaping spend against your total weekly tobacco spend.
Source: Worked from gov.uk: £2.20 per 10ml plus VAT
Step one: what the duty costs you
Start with the liquid, because that is the only part the duty touched. Enter your weekly ml and you will see the duty and VAT per week and per year.
If you do not know your weekly ml, count bottles or pods. A 2ml pod a day is 14ml a week. Two 10ml bottles a week is 20ml. Half a 100ml shortfill a week is 50ml.
Write down the yearly figure. It is the cost of the new tax to you personally, and it is usually smaller than people fear for pod vapers and bigger than they expect for heavy sub-ohm users.
Duty and VAT add about £5.28 a week, £275 a year
How much liquid changes the answer
The duty scales in a straight line with how much you vape, so the spread between a light pod user and a cloud chaser is huge. Here is what a year of duty and VAT looks like at five common levels of use.
Notice the jump at the top end. Sub-ohm tanks run low-resistance coils at higher power, and that burns through liquid. If you vape 70ml a week, the duty alone is close to £961 a year. The same person on a tight MTL pod might use a fraction of that liquid.
That is not advice to switch; it is just where the money goes.
Source: Worked from gov.uk: £2.20 per 10ml plus VAT, 52 weeks
Step two: your tobacco side
We are not going to quote you a national average price for cigarettes or tobacco, because what you actually paid is the only number that counts. Brands, pack sizes and where you buy all vary.
Go back through a normal week, or check your banking app, and add up every pack or pouch. Multiply by 52 for the year. Then do the same for vaping, including liquid, pods or coils, and an allowance for a new device now and then.
Set the two yearly totals side by side. That gap, in pounds, is the real answer to the question at the top of this page.
- Add up a normal week of tobaccoEvery pack or pouch, from receipts or your banking app
- Multiply by 52That is your yearly tobacco spend
- Add up a normal week of vapingLiquid or pods, coils, plus a bit for hardware
- Multiply by 52That is your yearly vaping spend, duty included
- Subtract one from the otherThe difference is your real yearly gap
Your full vaping budget
Liquid is only part of the picture. Coils wear out, pods get replaced, and devices eventually give up. Use the cost calculator to rough out the whole lot so your comparison is fair.
Two things keep the total sensible. First, coils and pods last longer when you prime them and stay within the power range printed on them, so you buy fewer. Second, refillable kits let you buy liquid in 10ml bottles or shortfills rather than paying for a new prefilled pod every time. Either way, the duty on the liquid is the same per ml.
Nicotine is addictive, whichever way you take it, so keep an eye on strength as well as spend.
About £156 a year, or £9.00 a week
One thing to remember
The new duty did not touch every part of vaping, and that matters when you are budgeting. A quick test to check you have got it.
If you are weighing up a new device, the price you see is the price of the hardware alone; the tax lands on the liquid you put through it. So a kit that sips liquid can work out cheaper to run than a bargain kit that drinks it. Browse vape kits with that in mind.
And if you are mid-way through the maths and want the product-by-product figures, they are in what the duty adds to pods and shortfills.
Which part of your vaping spend does the new duty not touch?
Quick answers
How much does the vape duty add per week?
About £2.64 for every 10ml you vape. At 20ml a week that is about £5.28 a week, or £275 a year.
Did the duty make vape kits more expensive?
Not through the duty itself. Hardware such as kits, coils and batteries is duty-free.
What is the best way to compare vaping and smoking costs?
Add up a normal week of each from your own receipts, multiply by 52, and compare the yearly totals.
