Revenue to tighten rules on tobacco products
Revenue has signed new rules aimed at ensuring that excise-duty reliefs on tobacco products are not abused.
The Control of Excisable Products (Amendment) Regulations 2025 will come into effect on 9 December.
Excise-duty reliefs enable people to bring duty-paid tobacco products from another EU member state into Ireland, without paying additional duty and taxes.
The relief is subject to several conditions, including:
- The goods must have been acquired by the individual for their own personal use and not for onward sale, and
- The individual must be aged 17 or over and must transport and accompany the goods themselves.
Indicative quantities
Under the current rules, the indicative quantities used to determine whether the products are for personal use are: 800 cigarettes; 200 cigars; and one kilogramme of other tobacco products.
Under the new regulations, where a person brings in duty-paid tobacco products above these quantities, this will be taken as “clear evidence” that the goods are not for personal use.
In addition, the full quantity of goods will be seized in such cases and the individual may also be prosecuted.
Michael Gilligan (manager of Revenue’s Dublin Airport frontier-management branch) said that the quantities had previously been used only as a guide.
“The new regulations make it clear that, from 9 December 2025, where the quantity of tobacco products someone brings into Ireland from the EU exceeds the permitted amounts, the full quantity will be seized,” he stated.
Survey
The tax authority highlights results from the latest Tobacco Consumption Survey that show a significant decline in the proportion of tobacco products being consumed in Ireland that have had Irish duty paid on them.
The figures show that more than one-third of cigarettes and almost half of all roll-your-own tobacco packs consumed are not being taxed in Ireland.
According to Revenue, this includes both tobacco products that have been legally purchased in another jurisdiction and brought into Ireland, and illegal tobacco products.
The tax body says that abuse of the excise-duty relief undermines the effectiveness of the tobacco tax, which it describes as “a key aspect of the Government’s strategy to disincentivise smoking”.