Vape Plain Packaging and Display Restrictions. What the Government Is Proposing

The government wants vapes to come in plain white packaging, with devices restricted to white, black, or grey, and no longer displayed openly on shop shelves. Ministers launched a UK wide consultation on 10 July 2026 setting out proposals to strip back the colourful branding and marketing that, they argue, helps attract young people to nicotine products.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) estimates around one million 11 to 17 year olds in Great Britain tried vaping in 2025. The consultation, developed jointly with the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, draws its legal powers from the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 29 April.

The consultation covers vaping products, nicotine products, and tobacco though in different ways and to different degrees.

Vapes and nicotine products

For vaping products, the government is proposing to require plain white packaging with tightly restricted text, branding, and imagery. Flavour names would be limited to simple, recognisable descriptions. Names tied to confectionery, sweets, desserts, and alcohol would be banned outright. Concept names and sensory descriptions would also go.

The physical appearance of vape devices would also be regulated. Under the proposals, manufacturers would be required to produce devices only in white, black, or grey with no decorative lights, no images, and screens permitted only to display safety information such as battery level. Nicotine pouches, which have seen growing use among young people, are included in several of the proposed measures.

The proposals would also require vaping products to be removed from open display in shops, wholesalers, and airports, the same restriction that currently applies to tobacco products. At present, vapes are not subject to display rules and are frequently placed in prominent positions near checkouts and at eye level.

Tobacco products

Cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco already carry plain packaging requirements, introduced in 2017. The consultation proposes to extend those rules to all remaining tobacco products, including cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobacco, waterpipe tobacco (shisha), nasal tobacco, chewing tobacco, herbal smoking products, heated tobacco devices, and cigarette papers.

Heated tobacco devices would also be restricted to a drab brown colour matching existing cigarette packaging. The consultation additionally proposes positive quit support messages inside all tobacco product packs, and the removal of a current display exemption for bulk tobacconists, duty free shops, and airport retailers.

The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 underpins all of the proposals. The Act which also introduced a provision creating a smoke free generation by preventing anyone born after a specified date from ever being legally sold cigarettes received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. The regulations being consulted on are among the first to be developed under its powers.

This consultation sits within a longer regulatory timetable for vaping products. A ban on single use disposable vapes took effect on 1 June 2025. A Vaping Products Duty is set to come into force on 1 October 2026. Bans on selling vapes through vending machines and their free distribution follow on 29 October 2026. A ban on vape advertising and sponsorship is due from 1 June 2027.

Health Secretary James Murray said vapes are less harmful than cigarettes and play a role in helping adult smokers quit, but "should never be designed or marketed in ways that tempt children." The consultation, he said, is about "striking the right balance."

Medicinally licensed nicotine products are exempt from the proposals and are governed by separate legislation.