ECigIntelligence

Regulatory and market intelligence for the e-cigarette sector

E-cigarettes in the United Kingdom

As Europe’s largest vaping market, the UK is a very important country and largely supportive of vaping. This page provides all of our material relating to the UK and its vaping market. This includes all of our full-length UK market and regulatory reports, our extensive news coverage – both business and regulatory – our numerous trackers and databases, as well as our live alerts.

Some e-cigarette facts in the UK

E-cigarettes and e-cig products containing nicotine are regulated under the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016. These provisions came into force on 20th May 2016 in time to transpose the TPD. The implications of the UK’s imminent departure from the EU, generally known as Brexit, are also analysed in this section. The devolved parliaments of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have imposed or are in the process of imposing regulations for e-cigs in addition to those imposed by the TPD.

The UK has one of the most developed bricks-and-mortar markets for e-cigarettes in the world, with around 50% of sales coming through vape stores and is characterised by a large number of chain vape stores.

Pre-filled e-cigarettes are gaining ground globally thanks to their simplicity to operate, accessibility through mainstream retail channels and improvement at fulfilling their main purpose – to replace the use of traditional combustible cigarettes. Open system devices are the most popular form factor in the UK, with over 60% of the vaping population using them. Refillable pod devices are gaining ground in the market thanks to their simplicity to operate compared to basic and advanced open system devices.

Sign up to our newsletter

By signing up you agree to our Terms and Conditions