Market & legal data for the vaping sector in South America

20th January 2025: Brazil: The Federal Highway Police (PRF) confiscated 623,437 vape products on federal highways nationwide in 2024. This marks a 150% rise from the previous year, when 246,430 units were seized. A majority of products were seized in the state of Paraná, located in the south of Brazil and bordering Paraguay. Paraguay is widely considered the main entry point for the millions of vaping devices sold and consumed illegally in Argentina and Brazil.
14th January 2025: Chile: The Public Health Institute (ISP) has issued a warning about the harmful effects of e-cigarettes to health. The warning mainly references the declarations made by the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding electronic cigarettes, as well as providing a summary of the new regulations that were adopted in January 2024 but have not yet entered into force.
12th December 2024: Brazil: The Department of Consumer Protection and Defence (Procon) of the state of Goiás has asked the social media company Facebook to provide information about illegal e-cigarette advertisements on its platform and to stop all types of display or any form of advertising. The company was previously fined for allowing the advertising of products that are considered inappropriate and harmful to the health of consumers and for violating the rules issued by the competent authorities.
14th November 2024: Brazil: Yesterday, 13th November, the Industry, Commerce and Services Committee of the Chamber of Deputies discussed with stakeholders the consequences of illegal e-cigarette sales. The proponent of the discussion, member of Parliament (MP) Heitor Schuch, from the government-coalition Brazilian Socialist Party, has supported a regulation of the products, press reports, and he said that the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) “needs to get out of its comfort zone and regulate this product”. He added: “Imagine an industry with a law, rules and certification of origin that extracted nicotine, manufactured devices, and paid 70% in taxes to public funds.” It is estimated that there are around 4.5m users of e-cigarettes in Brazil, a number that is expected to grow to 7.5m by 2026.
14th November 2024: Brazil: The Department of Consumer Protection and Defence (Procon) of the state of Sao Paulo has issued a warning to Meta to stop advertising e-cigarettes on its social media platforms. The authority said it had been informed repeatedly about the advertising of products on the platforms and asked Meta to clarify the criteria for suspending advertising and to take more effective measures to prevent it from continuing to appear.
13th November 2024: Peru: The bill regulating tobacco, vaping and other nicotine products was published yesterday (12th November) in the State Bulletin and is now in force. The bill regulates the sale, advertising and public usage of vaping products regardless of their nicotine content. It also establishes packaging requirements such as health warnings and a prohibition on the description of flavours on the package or label that may seem attractive to under-18s.
11th November 2024: Brazil: Following last month’s announcement by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about the suspension of the National Registry of Legal Entities (CNPJ) ID of establishments that sell, display, store or transport e-cigarettes or any other prohibited related products, in order to fight illegal activities, IRS secretary Robinson Barreirin has now publicly supported the measure, press reports. Last year, around 1.5m e-cigarettes were seized at the country’s borders, and by the end of 2024, the IRS expects to have seized more than 3m e-cigarettes.
29th October 2024: Ecuador: The Agency for Health Regulation, Control and Surveillance (Arcsa) has conducted a monitoring operation in 214 venues to combat the illegal sale of tobacco and vaping products, press reports. As a result, 1,611 vapes have been seized. According to Arcsa, more than 2,496 vapes have been seized so far in 2024. The agency aims to continue these operations for the rest of the year.
23rd October 2024: Argentina: Philip Morris International (PMI) is hoping that the Argentinian government, led by president Javier Milei after the elections in October 2023, reverses the e-cigarette ban and liberalises the national market, press reports. As forecasted in our Policy Radar, Milei’s pro-market and liberalist views could mean the reversal of the ban imposed by the National Administration of Drugs, Foods and Medical Devices (Anmat) in May 2011. Two weeks ago, manager of PMI’s South America cluster Demian Pintos said in an interview that the company is in talks with the government to explore the possibility of reversing the ban.
18th October 2024: Brazil: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will suspend the National Registry of Legal Entities (CNPJ) ID of the establishments that sell, display, store or transport electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco or any other prohibited related products in order to fight illegal activities. Without the CNPJ, companies will not be able to carry out commercial or financial activities. The measure will take effect on 25th October.
14th October 2024: Peru: The bill regulating e-cigarettes and other nicotine products has been approved at the parliament on its second vote. The bill regulates the sale, advertising and public usage of vaping products regardless of their nicotine content. It also establishes packaging requirements. The bill must now be signed by the president before entering into force.
4th October 2024: Americas: The Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) – the specialised international health agency for the region of the Americas within the World Health Organization (WHO) – has adopted a new strategy to strengthen tobacco control in the region, setting out different objectives for 2030. The strategy aims to increase the number of countries in the region adopting tobacco control measures. Measures could include establishing regulatory measures for novel tobacco and nicotine products, adopting smoke-free measures, enacting legislation to introduce large health warnings (covering at least 50% of the main surfaces of packaging) for tobacco products, introducing plain packaging for tobacco products or adopting a complete advertising ban.

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