Tobacco duty

⚠ Cigarette duty is the higher of two sums: a share of the retail price plus a fixed amount per thousand, or a minimum per thousand — whichever is more.

Which is why cheap cigarettes are not cheap

On a budget pack the ordinary sum comes to less than the minimum, so the minimum applies and the duty is the same as on a mid-priced pack. That is exactly what the Minimum Excise Duty was introduced to do, and a calculator using only the first formula gets it wrong at the bottom of the market — which is where the whole argument about cheap tobacco takes place.

The page names which of the two rules applied, so it is visible rather than buried in the arithmetic.

⚠ The rates rise on 1 October 2026

Part-way through the tax year, so both sets are live in the same year and neither is "the 2026-27 rate". This page asks which applies rather than picking one and being wrong for half the year.

Everything else is by weight

Hand-rolling tobacco, cigars, tobacco for heating and other smoking tobacco are charged per kilogram with no percentage element and no minimum. Hand-rolling has risen faster than the rest for years, deliberately, because it was much cheaper per cigarette.

And VAT is charged on the duty

The duty is part of the price before VAT is applied, so every pound of it costs a further fifth. Between the two, tax is the large majority of the price of a pack.

What this does not cover

Whether a product is a cigarette at all, which turns on length as well as form — a long cigarette can count as more than one. Fiscal marking requirements. Duty on imports and travellers' allowances. Vaping products, which have their own duty from 2026. And Northern Ireland, where some rules differ.

Where these figures come from

Every rate above is read from a dated rate file rather than written into the page, and each one is checked against the gov.uk page it came from. How these numbers are kept right sets out the whole process.

Alcohol duty calculator