1 apr 2024 om 11:39 Update: 22 min. geleden
As of today, a pack of rolling tobacco will become no less than 8 euros more expensive due to an increase in excise duties. It is the largest increase ever. The price of a pack of cigarettes is also increasing considerably.
As of today, you will pay around 11 euros for a pack of twenty cigarettes. That is considerably more than the approximately 9 euros you had to pay for it recently.
A 50 gram pack of rolling tobacco costs 24.62 euros. That is about 8 euros more than before. The largest part of this (6.52 euros) is excise duty. But there is also an additional 1.37 euros in VAT. Never before has the price of a bag of rolling tobacco increased so quickly.
You will not immediately pay the new prices everywhere. Retailers may first use up their old stocks at the old prices.
No more tobacco at supermarkets
Excise duties on tobacco increase every year on April 1. By raising the price, the outgoing government wants to discourage smoking. Last year, a government plan was leaked to increase the price of cigarettes much further, whereby you would have to pay more than 30 or even more than 40 euros for a pack. That ultimately didn’t work out.
However, other measures have been introduced in recent years. For example, tobacco products in stores now have to be shielded so that they are not visible to customers. Furthermore, retailers are no longer allowed to sell tobacco online.
In addition, a sales ban for supermarkets will be introduced in July this year. They are now no longer allowed to offer cigarettes online, but they will soon no longer be allowed to do so in regular stores. Some supermarkets have already removed smoking products from their shelves on January 1, in the run-up to the actual ban.
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Treasury makes billions from smokers
With all the restrictions, the government hopes to have a smoke-free generation by 2040. This means that by that time no young person will start smoking anymore.
A significant step still needs to be taken to achieve this. Currently, more than a quarter of young people between the ages of 12 and 25 have smoked. A smaller proportion do this every day.
In the meantime, the government makes good money from smoking. It recently emerged that smokers paid 3.1 billion euros in excise duty last year. So there is a significant amount of VAT on top of that.
