Posted by Pure E-Liquids on 8th May 2026
Vaping products are for adult smokers and existing vapers only. Not suitable for non-smokers or those under 18.
From 1st October 2026, a 100ml shortfill bottle will carry more in duty than it currently costs to buy. The Vaping Products Duty adds £2.20 per 10ml to every e-liquid sold in the UK - on a 100ml bottle with two nic shots, that stacks up to £31.68 in total duty including VAT. A bottle that currently sits around £15 could realistically cost over £40 after October.
But here is what most of the coverage misses: the tax does not hit every vaper equally. A nic salt vaper going through a couple of bottles a week faces a real but manageable increase. A shortfill vaper going through 100ml weekly faces something closer to a doubling of their liquid costs. The difference is not a matter of degree - it is a different conversation entirely.
This blog will be a deep dive into the way the upcoming VPD tax effects e-liquid pricing, and we aim to help you prepare yourself for October.
In Short: Nic salt vapers face a real but manageable increase of around £2.64 per 10ml bottle. Shortfill vapers face something considerably more severe - the duty on a 100ml bottle alone can exceed what the bottle currently costs to buy. Whether switching format makes sense depends entirely on how much liquid you go through per day.
How the Duty Actually Works
The mechanics are simple. From 1st October 2026, every 10ml of e-liquid sold in the UK carries a flat £2.20 duty charge. Add 20% VAT on top and the real-terms increase is £2.64 per 10ml. That applies to everything - nic salts, freebase, shortfills, nic shots, prefilled pods, zero-nicotine liquids. There are no exceptions based on nicotine content and no exemptions for specific formats. Hardware - your device, coils, empty pods, batteries - is not touched by the duty at all.
The duty scales with volume. The more liquid in the product, the higher the absolute cost increase. A 2ml prefilled pod and a 100ml shortfill both pay £2.20 per 10ml, but one has 2ml and one has 100ml - which means the total duty bill is very different.
That is the entire logic of why this tax hits some vapers far harder than others.
How Much Will the October Tax Cost Nic Salt Vapers?
The increase is real but manageable. A 10ml nic salt bottle currently priced around £3.99 will cost around £6.63 after October. That is a significant proportional jump - roughly 66% on the bottle price - but in absolute cash terms you are paying around £2.64 more per bottle.
For a moderate nic salt vaper going through one or two bottles a week, that works out to roughly £2.64-5.28 more per week, or around £11-23 per month. Heavier vapers going through three or four bottles will feel it more sharply. Still a fraction of what smoking costs - a pack-a-day smoker currently spends over £400 a month on cigarettes - but a meaningful increase that compounds over time.
The practical strategies for nic salt vapers come down to three things:
Stock up before October. E-liquid stored correctly keeps well for up to two years. Buying a few months of your regular liquid while pre-duty prices hold is a sensible move and costs nothing extra if you were going to buy it anyway. We run regular promotions and multi-buy deals on nic salts - keep an eye on our vape sale page for the best prices as October approaches.
Consider your nicotine strength. Since the duty is the same regardless of strength, 10mg and 20mg bottles cost exactly the same in duty terms. If you are currently on 10mg and getting through more liquid than you would like, stepping up to 20mg and vaping less frequently achieves the same nicotine intake at half the liquid cost - and therefore half the duty. Worth experimenting with before October if you have not already.
Use an efficient device. The difference in liquid consumption between a poorly set-up device and a well-tuned MTL kit can be significant. Tight airflow, appropriate wattage, and a good coil make a real difference to how much liquid you use per day.
How Much Will the October Tax Cost Shortfill Vapers?
This is the section that contains difficult news, and there is no point softening it. The duty taxes volume, and shortfills are large volumes of liquid. A 50ml shortfill that currently costs around £12.99 will carry an extra £13.20 in duty once VAT is included - that is more in duty than the bottle currently costs to buy. A 100ml shortfill with two nic shots added separately will carry £31.68 in combined duty once you account for each nic shot at £2.20 each plus VAT. That is more than double what the same bottle costs today.
This is not scaremongering. Those numbers come directly from HMRC's confirmed flat rate, applied to the volumes involved. The shortfill format - which has always been the most economical per-ml way to vape - is the format hit hardest because the tax is designed around volume.
There is time to act before October, and there are real options.
Stock up now, seriously. Shortfills are the format where buying ahead makes the biggest financial difference. A 100ml shortfill bought before October saves you potentially £25+ compared to the same bottle bought after. E-liquid stores well for up to two years in a cool dark cupboard away from heat and direct light - a consistent temperature is more important than how cold it is. If shortfills are your format and you have storage space, buying several months of supply before October is the clearest way to limit the impact. We will be running promotions on shortfills in the lead-up to October - check our multi deal page and sign up for our emails so you do not miss them.
Consider switching to nic salts alongside your shortfill habit. This is worth thinking through honestly rather than just as a cost-cutting exercise. Nic salts at 20mg in an efficient MTL pod kit deliver nicotine faster and more smoothly than 3mg shortfill at high wattage. Our nic salt range covers the main brands and formats if you want to explore what is available. If you currently go through 100ml of shortfill a week, and the reason is partly that you need more liquid to feel satisfied at low strength, a period of experimenting with higher-strength nic salts on a tight MTL draw might tell you something useful. Some vapers find they use significantly less liquid per day when they switch format. Some do not. It is worth finding out before the duty lands rather than after.
Think about which shortfills to prioritise buying. Not every shortfill you vape is equally important to you. The everyday all-day liquid that you use most deserves the most storage investment. The one you reach for occasionally probably does not need a six-month reserve.
The Device Question: Which Kits Use the Least Liquid?
The format of your device matters almost as much as the format of your liquid when it comes to how much you spend under the new tax.
Sub-ohm devices running at 40-80W consume liquid at a significantly higher rate than MTL pod kits running at 10-20W. A heavy sub-ohm vaper might use 10-15ml per day. A comparable MTL vaper on a tight draw with 20mg nic salts might use 2-4ml per day and feel equally satisfied, because the nicotine delivery is more efficient.
The reason is how nicotine reaches you. Nic salts at 20mg through a tight MTL draw deliver nicotine quickly and smoothly - closer to the sensation of a cigarette, and enough to satisfy the craving with far less liquid. Sub-ohm setups produce more vapour but typically use 3mg or 6mg freebase, which means more puffs and more millilitres to reach the same nicotine hit. Today that is mostly a question of preference. After October, it becomes a question of cost.
If you are currently a sub-ohm vaper going through large volumes of shortfill and the October duty is making you reconsider your setup, here are the MTL pod kits worth looking at. All are stocked at Pure E-Liquids, all are designed for nic salts, and all use considerably less liquid per day than a high-wattage sub-ohm device.
If you want the lowest barrier to entry, the Innokin Arcfire is where we point people first. It is the cheapest kit we would feel comfortable recommending to a sub-ohm vaper who wants to test whether MTL vaping actually works for them before committing to anything more. One button, tight draw, nothing to configure. If you try it for a week and find you are still reaching for the shortfill device, that tells you something useful and has cost you very little to find out.
The SMOK Novo 6 Ultra is the option if you want more than the Arcfire offers but still want to stay well within MTL territory. The dual coil pod gives you a tighter or slightly looser draw from the same pod, and the 1700mAh battery - two days on a charge for most vapers - means you are not constantly hunting for a cable. That practical detail matters more than it sounds when you are already adjusting a lot of other things about how you vape.
OXVA Xlim Pro 3 - strong battery, adjustable airflow from a tight pinhole MTL draw through to something slightly airier, and a Pulse System that keeps flavour consistent right to the end of the battery charge rather than fading in the last 20%. One of the most well-regarded MTL pod kits at its price point, and the pick if coil-to-charge flavour consistency is your priority.
Vaporesso XROS 5 Nano - the pod longevity here is directly relevant after October. COREX 3.0 pods regularly last 10-14 days before flavour drops, which means fewer pod replacements and less liquid consumed per week. Add a 1600mAh battery and a touchscreen interface that actually works, and this is the pick if you want something that feels considered rather than functional. Which of these two suits you better comes down to whether you prefer the OXVA or Vaporesso pod ecosystem - both are excellent.
Prefilled Pod Kits: The Unexpected Option
Prefilled pod kits - devices that use factory-sealed pods rather than liquid you pour yourself - carry very little duty per use because the pod volumes are small. A 2ml prefilled pod carries just 53p in duty including VAT. A pack of four pods carrying 8ml total carries around £2.12.
For vapers who currently use refillable kits primarily for the flavour variety they offer, and who mostly stick to the same two or three flavours anyway, a prefilled pod kit is worth reconsidering after October. The duty per puff is lower, the convenience is higher, and the ongoing cost for a moderate vaper may be competitive with a refillable kit on nic salts.
The trade-off is real: flavour choice is narrower, you cannot fine-tune your nicotine strength, and you are tied to whichever pods are available for your specific device. But for a vaper who already sticks to two or three flavours and wants the lowest possible running cost after October, it is a trade-off worth taking seriously rather than dismissing.
What Does the October Vaping Tax Not Affect?
The cost gap between vaping and smoking does not close. The government raised tobacco duty by an equivalent amount specifically to ensure vaping remains significantly cheaper than cigarettes after October. Even shortfill vapers, who face the steepest increases, will still be spending a fraction of what a cigarette habit costs annually.
Your device does not cost more. The duty applies to liquid only. Your hardware, coils, replacement pods (empty), batteries and tanks are untouched.
There is a grace period. Retailers can sell existing unstamped stock until 31st March 2027. That means pre-duty prices may still be available from some suppliers for several months after October - particularly if retailers stock up heavily before the deadline. The window for buying at current prices is longer than the October headline date suggests.
Will Vaping Still Be Cheaper Than Smoking After October?
Yes - by a significant margin, even for shortfill vapers facing the steepest increases.
A pack-a-day smoker currently spends around £14 per day on cigarettes - over £5,000 a year. After October 2026, a moderate vaper going through 3-4ml of nic salt per day will spend roughly £550-750 a year on liquid at post-duty prices, depending on device efficiency and the brands they buy. Even a heavier shortfill vaper going through 50-60ml per week will face annual liquid costs well under £2,000 - less than half what cigarettes cost.
The incentive to switch from cigarettes to vaping is preserved by design, not by accident. The government was explicit about this: tobacco tax was raised by an equivalent amount at the same time specifically to ensure that vaping remains financially preferable to smoking.
What the October duty does change is the internal economics of vaping itself - the cost gap between formats, the value of device efficiency, and the calculation around stocking up. It does not change the fundamental case for vaping over smoking.
FAQ
When is the best time to stock up before October? The sooner the better for shortfill vapers specifically. The closer you get to October, the more likely you are to find popular flavours out of stock as other vapers have the same idea. Late summer - August or September - is the practical window. E-liquid stores well for up to two years in a cool, dark place away from heat. Nic salt vapers have slightly more flexibility because the per-unit saving is smaller, but buying a month or two ahead is still worthwhile.
Are nic shots taxed as well as the shortfill? Yes - both carry the duty independently. A 10ml nic shot attracts its own £2.20 charge, so a 100ml shortfill with two nic shots carries duty across 120ml of liquid total - £26.40 in duty, or £31.68 including VAT. HMRC confirms that mixing a duty-paid shortfill with a duty-paid nic shot is permitted. The key point for budgeting: nic shots are not free additions after October.
Will brands absorb any of the duty or will the full increase be passed on? In most cases, the full increase will land on the shelf price. HMRC applies the duty at manufacture or import stage, which means every compliant retailer in the UK is working from the same increased cost base - it is not a discretionary price rise that individual businesses can choose to absorb without taking a significant margin hit. Some brands may hold introductory prices briefly after October, and retailers clearing pre-duty stock during the grace period will offer lower prices for a while. But planning around the full £2.64 per 10ml increase is the more realistic approach.
Does it make financial sense to switch from shortfills to nic salts? For vapers going through significant volumes of shortfill, often yes - but only if nic salts actually satisfy you. If switching means you use 15-20ml per week instead of 100ml and feel equally content, the liquid cost after duty falls considerably. The maths falls apart if the format does not work for you and you end up vaping more to compensate. It is worth a genuine trial before October rather than a guess.
Which format is hit least by the October duty? Prefilled pods carry the lowest absolute duty per use because the volumes are small. For light-to-moderate vapers who do not need a wide flavour selection, a prefilled pod system may work out lower cost after October than a refillable kit with nic salts. Devices and empty hardware carry no duty at all.
Will Pure E-Liquids be running any deals before October? Yes - we plan promotions on both shortfills and nic salts in the run-up to October to help customers stock up at current prices. The best way to stay on top of these is to check our deals page regularly or sign up for our email list.
Last updated: May 2026 Sources: HMRC Introduction of Vaping Products Duty from 1 October 2026; HMRC Prepare for Vaping Products Duty and the Vaping Duty Stamps Scheme (gov.uk)
Vaping products are for adult smokers and existing vapers only. Not suitable for non-smokers or those under 18.