Tobacco products: Duty-free allowance for cigarettes from non-EU countries could significantly decrease
Smoking is bad for your health - and an expensive business. For this reason some smokers buy cigarettes just behind the border. In future, however, they will be allowed to bring fewer cigarettes with them than they can now.
The EU may limit the number of cigarettes that can be brought back from abroad for personal use to 200, down from 800 currently. This change could be decided by EU finance ministers on Monday and is part of an EU directive on tobacco taxes that will be implemented in 2028. The new rules may affect smokers who buy cheaper cigarettes in countries like Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, or Czech Republic and bring them back to Germany.
The directive also sets new minimum tax rates for cigarettes and e-liquids, but these will not affect Germany as its current rates are already higher. The allowed amount of e-liquid that can be brought back from abroad will be reduced from 100ml to 40ml.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's report — not a translation of it. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
