United Kingdom
Legal and widely sold, but capped, taxed, and single-use devices are banned.
- Nicotine limit
- 20 mg/ml (2%)
- Flavours
- No flavour ban
- Online sales
- Allowed with age verification
- Tax
- Vaping Products Duty applies to nicotine liquid from October 2026
- Personal import
- Personal use tolerated within duty-free-style limits
- Status
- Restricted
The UK keeps the EU’s TPD rules (as retained domestic law) and has been steadily adding its own layers on top.
The TPD inheritance
Three limits shape every product sold here:
- 20 mg/ml maximum nicotine strength — the highest concentration you will find on a shelf.
- 10 ml maximum refill container, 2 ml maximum tank capacity.
- Child-resistant packaging, health warnings, and notification before sale.
That 20 mg/ml cap is why UK products trend towards higher-power, lower-strength setups than the US or Asian markets.
The disposable ban
Single-use vapes have been banned since 1 June 2025. The definition is deliberately broad: a device that is not refillable, or not rechargeable, is out. This is the single biggest structural change in the UK market in a decade, and it pushed a large share of disposable buyers into refillable pods.
Tax
A Vaping Products Duty applies to nicotine-containing liquid from October 2026, on top of VAT. It changes the economics of high-volume liquid in particular. Rates are set in the annual finance process — always check HMRC’s current published rate rather than a blog post, including this one.
Practical upshot
The UK is one of the easiest major markets to buy in legally, with the narrowest product range — 20 mg/ml ceiling, no disposables, and now a duty.