Taxation and Price

Heated tobacco products (HTPs) were first launched in Japan at the end of 2014 and are now available in at least 64 countries or jurisdictions.¹ Follow this link for more information on HTPs, brands, and the global HTP market. A detailed description of the tobacco excise taxation system for heated and conventional cigarettes is available for each country. To access a country’s description and sources, go to the “Excise Tax Gap” tab, click on a country, then follow the link at the bottom of the box.  

HTPs use an electronic device to heat a pod or stick of compressed tobacco (by definition, a cigarette), producing an aerosol for the user to inhale. Heated cigarettes and pods are sold in packs and positioned as comparable to a leading conventional cigarette brand (e.g., Philip Morris International’s heated cigarette HEETS, used with the global market leader IQOS, is co-branded with Marlboro in some markets).² Although heated cigarettes and pods are often priced similarly to conventional cigarettes, many countries subject HTPs to a much lower excise tax. As a result, HTPs tend to bear a smaller tax burden than conventional cigarettes, reducing the amount of potential revenue that governments could collect if heated cigarettes and pods were taxed the same way as conventional cigarettes.

Taxing tobacco products to make them expensive is the most effective way to prevent non-users from starting and to spur users to quit. As HTPs and conventional cigarettes are both harmful, governments should discourage their use and promote public health by imposing high and equivalent excise taxes on both, which increase price and reduce affordability. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids developed this interactive tool to help technical experts/researchers, government policymakers, and advocates compare excise tax on heated cigarettes to excise tax on conventional cigarettes in 65 countries, jurisdictions, and provinces across the world, as of October 2020. These maps illustrate how differences in taxation impact relative prices. Such differences eventually affect government revenue from total tobacco excise taxes.