The increase, announced in the Budget 2027, will take excise duty from 50 cents to 70 cents per millilitre on 1 January 2027. It applies to all taxable e-liquids, including those containing no nicotine.
The announcement comes less than a year after Ireland introduced its E-liquid Products Tax on 1 November 2025. The levy covers liquids used in refillable devices as well as pre-filled products.
What the increase will cost
For a 10ml bottle, excise duty alone will rise from €5 to €7. For a product containing 2ml, it will increase from €1 to €1.40.
Those figures exclude VAT. The eventual change in shelf prices will depend on how suppliers and retailers pass on the additional cost. The 40 per cent increase refers specifically to the excise rate.
Because the tax is based on liquid volume, people using lower-strength or nicotine-free refills will pay the same duty per millilitre as those buying higher-strength liquids. Reducing nicotine content does not reduce the tax bill.
The budget also increased the tax on a packet of 20 cigarettes by €1, including VAT, with proportionate increases for other tobacco products. The cigarette measure took effect on 7 October, ahead of January’s vape tax rise.
Retailers warn about illegal competition
Vape retailers have warned that the increase could make regulated products less competitive with illegal alternatives.
The Asthma Society welcomed the budget measures, while Retailers Against Smuggling warned that higher tobacco taxes could encourage purchases from the illicit market. These are responses to the announcement; the effect of the new rates on purchasing and smoking has yet to be established.
Smoking decline has slowed
Ireland’s smoking rate has changed little in recent years. The Healthy Ireland Survey 2025 found that 17 per cent of people aged 15 and over smoked, the same proportion as in 2024 and 2019. That compares with 23 per cent in 2015.
The survey also found a gap by educational background: 21 per cent of people whose highest qualification was the Leaving Certificate or below smoked, compared with 11 per cent of those with further education.
Meanwhile, evidence supporting vaping as a quitting aid has continued to build. An updated Cochrane review, published in August 2026, found high-certainty evidence that nicotine vapes help more people stop smoking than nicotine replacement therapy, such as patches and gum.
Researchers assessed whether participants stopped smoking for at least six months. They also stressed that longer and larger studies are needed to assess safety fully.
The review didn’t examine Ireland’s tax policy, so it can’t predict the effect of January’s increase. It does, however, establish that the products facing higher duty can help adults stop smoking.
Vaping delivers nicotine with fewer toxins than cigarettes.
The question for smokers switching to vapes
The increase will also affect adults who have replaced cigarettes with refillable vapes.
Ireland’s Health Service Executive acknowledges the difference in exposure between the two products, saying: “Vaping delivers nicotine with fewer toxins than cigarettes.”
Its guidance says vaping may be less harmful than smoking, while stressing that it isn’t harm-free. The HSE recommends licensed medicines and professional support for quitting and does not recommend vaping as a stop-smoking treatment.
The NHS takes a different approach, recognising nicotine vapes as an effective quitting tool. It advises smokers that switching completely reduces exposure to harmful substances, while warning that children and non-smokers should not vape.
For Irish adults who have already made that switch, January’s increase will raise the tax on the liquid they use to stay off cigarettes.