Revenues from tobacco excise duty falls despite recent hikes

The government received less revenue from the tobacco excise duty last year, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported based on preliminary figures. In 2025, tobacco excise duty yielded €2.55 billion for the treasury, down from nearly €3 billion a year earlier.

The government has raised tobacco excise duty rates several times in recent years. The excise duty on cigarettes has doubled since 2020. Last year, the minimum rate for a pack of 20 cigarettes was €7.81. In the same period, the excise duty on smoking tobacco tripled from just over €114 per kilogram to nearly €374.

So far, the excise duty increases have not led to additional revenue for the government. But the number of smokers decreased. In 2015, one in four people aged 12 or older indicated that they smoked occasionally. Ten years later, that figure was one in six.

Fewer and fewer people are also smoking every day. Ten years ago, 18 percent of the Dutch smoked daily. Last year, that dropped to 12 percent.

In addition to people smoking less, earlier research by CBS in 2024 showed that people also cross the border to buy tobacco products more often. In 2024, 12 percent of smokers said they often or always bought their tobacco abroad, compared to 5 percent in 2020. Over 40 percent of smokers sometimes went abroad for this, compared to a quarter of smokers in 2020.

CBS also noted at the time that more people picked up vaping between 2021 and 2023.