Around one in six Europeans uses tobacco or related nicotine products every day. That’s fewer than before. Tackling nicotine, however, has become more complicated, as new alternatives continue to emerge faster than European legislation can keep up.
In 2025, 16.5% of people aged 16 and over in the European Union used tobacco or related nicotine products every day, according to new Eurostat data. Three years earlier, the figure stood at 17.5%.
The decline is modest, but it reinforces a longer-term trend: fewer people are using traditional tobacco products. At the same time, it shows that Europe’s nicotine debate no longer revolves around cigarettes alone.
Eurostat’s figures cover not only conventional tobacco but also related products such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches. The market has changed, and so has the question of how Europe should regulate nicotine use.
You might be interested
Who uses tobacco and nicotine the most?
The latest figures reveal clear differences across the population. Men use tobacco and related nicotine products every day more often than women. In 2025, 20.8% of men were daily users, compared with 12.6% of women.
Age also makes a difference. People aged 35 to 49 recorded the highest share of daily users. They were followed by those aged 25 to 34 and 50 to 64. The youngest and oldest age groups recorded the lowest rates.
The picture also varies sharply across the EU. Bulgaria recorded the highest share of daily users at 26.3%, followed by Sweden (23.9%) and Croatia (23.6%). At the other end of the table sat the Netherlands (9.9%), Ireland (11.7%) and Belgium (13.6%).
From cigarettes to a broader nicotine market
Europe’s tobacco control rules still rest on legislation adopted more than 15 years ago. At the time, conventional cigarettes dominated the market.
That market has changed dramatically. E-cigarettes, heated tobacco, nicotine pouches and other alternative nicotine products have become increasingly popular. Yet the current directive covers many of them only partially, or not at all.
To address that gap, the European Commission tabled a proposal in 2025 to revise the Tobacco Taxation Directive. The overhaul aims to update the rules, extend them to newer products and adjust minimum excise duty rates to reflect today’s market and years of inflation.
The reform also forms part of the EU’s wider ambition to create a “tobacco-free generation” by 2040, cutting tobacco use to below 5% of the population. At the current pace of decline, that target remains out of reach.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also warns that despite falling tobacco consumption in recent years, Europe still has the world’s highest tobacco use rates.
No consensus yet
The reform has yet to win the backing of all member states. In early June 2026, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs endorsed a compromise version of the proposal that significantly watered down the original plans.
Later that same day, however, finance ministers removed the directive from the ECOFIN agenda after member states failed to reach the required unanimous agreement.
That left the legislation back at a standstill. Ireland, which now holds the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU, has taken over the search for a compromise and made agreement on the revised directive one of its priorities for the second half of 2026.
Do higher taxes work?
Higher tobacco taxes have long ranked among the EU’s main tools for reducing smoking. Studies based on data from EU countries show that higher tobacco prices go hand in hand with lower smoking rates, particularly among younger people.
The logic is straightforward. Higher prices can discourage people from taking up smoking and encourage some existing smokers to quit. The impact, however, varies widely by age, gender and region.
The rise of new nicotine products has made the debate far more complex. Regulators no longer face only one question: how to reduce cigarette smoking. They must also decide how to regulate products that do not fit neatly into the traditional tobacco categories.
