The Cheapest Way To Vape After The 2026 Duty

From 1 October 2026, Vaping Products Duty adds 26.4p to every millilitre of e-liquid sold in the UK — 22p in duty plus VAT on top. We covered what that does to shelf prices in our full breakdown of e-liquid costs after October.

This guide is the other half of it: given that the duty is coming and nobody can avoid it, what’s the least you can spend and still vape properly?

The answer is not “shop around”. Every compliant UK retailer pays the same duty and works from the same cost base. The answer is that some setups burn four times as much liquid as others to deliver the same nicotine — and from October, liquid volume is the tax.

The one thing that changed

Before the duty, the cheapest way to vape was to buy the biggest bottle. Shortfills won on price per ml, so high-volume sub-ohm vaping was affordable even though it got through a lot of liquid.

The duty breaks that logic. It’s charged per millilitre regardless of what the liquid costs, so it punishes consumption rather than price. A setup that uses 10ml a day now carries £964 a year in duty alone. A setup that uses 2.5ml a day carries £241.

Four setups, ranked

Real annual running costs after the duty, liquid and coils included. Consumption varies enormously between people, so treat these as a like-for-like comparison rather than a prediction of your exact bill.

Two things jump out of that table.

The cheapest and most expensive setups both run shortfills at the same 36.4p per ml. The entire £1,088 difference between them is how much liquid the device gets through. Same liquid, same shop, same duty — four times the bill.

Prefilled pods use the least liquid of anything and still land near the top. At £1.76 per ml they’re roughly five times the cost of a shortfill, which cancels out their efficiency completely.

Lever one: your device

This is worth more than everything else in this article put together, so it goes first.

Wattage determines how fast you vaporise liquid. A sub-ohm coil at 70W turns a tank into vapour in a day. A 1.0Ω MTL coil at 14W makes the same liquid last four days, and — because you draw on it like a cigarette rather than inhaling a lungful — delivers nicotine perfectly well at low volume.

Moving from sub-ohm to MTL saves roughly £700 a year in duty alone, before you’ve changed anything about what you buy or where you buy it. Nothing else in this article comes close.

The honest caveat: it’s a real change in how vaping feels. Less vapour, less flavour intensity, a tighter draw. Plenty of people won’t want to give that up, and that’s a legitimate choice — just make it knowing the price. If you’re not willing to leave sub-ohm entirely, dropping from 70W to 50W and fitting a higher-resistance coil still cuts consumption meaningfully.

Lever two: go up in nicotine, not down

This one feels backwards, which is why almost nobody does it.

If you’re vaping 3mg in a high-power device, you’re inhaling a large volume of liquid to get the nicotine you need. Move to 10–20mg in a low-power MTL device and you get there on a fraction of the liquid — because nicotine delivery is strength multiplied by volume, and you can raise one to lower the other.

Nic salts cost more per bottle than freebase, and more per ml than shortfills. Doesn’t matter. A more expensive liquid consumed at a quarter of the rate is dramatically cheaper overall, and after the duty that gap widens rather than narrows.

Sensible starting point: 10mg salts if you’re a light smoker or already vaping, 20mg if you’re a heavier smoker switching over. If you find yourself vaping constantly, the strength is probably too low rather than too high.

Lever three: format

Once the device is sorted, format is where the remaining money is. Post-duty cost per millilitre of finished liquid:

The 50/50 shortfill trick

Here’s the combination that produces the £397 figure at the top, and it’s underused because the two halves are usually sold to different people.

Most shortfills are 70/30 VG/PG, formulated for sub-ohm coils. Put one in an MTL pod and it’s too thick — it won’t wick properly and you’ll burn coils constantly. That’s why MTL vapers default to 10ml nic salts and pay 59.7p per ml.

But 50/50 shortfills exist, made specifically for MTL and pod devices. Buy a 100ml 50/50 shortfill, add two nic shots, and you have 120ml of MTL-suitable liquid at 36.4p per ml instead of 59.7p. Same device, same vape, 39% off your liquid bill.

Check the VG/PG ratio on the bottle before you buy. If it doesn’t say, it’s almost certainly 70/30.

Longfills, and a straight answer on DIY

Longfills come up constantly in this conversation, so it’s worth being clear about what they do and don’t achieve.

A longfill is a bottle of flavour concentrate with headroom left for you to add your own base and nicotine. The pitch is that only the concentrate is taxed, so you pay duty on 30ml rather than 120ml.

That only holds if the base you add is untaxed — and vape-branded VG and PG carries the duty exactly like everything else, because it’s sold for vaping. Buy your base from a vape shop and a longfill saves you nothing at all on duty; the finished volume is identical, so the duty is identical.

Base bought outside the vaping trade is a different matter, and this is where you’ll find a lot of confident advice online. HMRC’s stated position is that liquid produced at home from base ingredients falls within the scope of the duty. How that’s enforced against individuals, and what it means in practice, isn’t settled. We’re a duty-registered business and we’re not going to pretend to you that we know how that plays out, or nudge you toward a workaround we can’t stand behind.

What we will say plainly is the safety part, because that one isn’t ambiguous at all.

Coils: the cost everyone forgets

Coils are untaxed, but they’re between £65 and £156 a year depending on setup, and most of that is avoidable.

• Prime properly. Wet the wicking ports, fill the tank, then leave it standing five minutes before the first draw. Most coils that die in two days were killed in the first thirty seconds.
• Start low. Run a new coil ten watts under its rating for the first tank, then bring it up.
• Watch the sweeteners. Heavily sweetened dessert and candy liquids caramelise onto the coil and will halve its life. If you’re getting a week out of a coil on a fruit flavour and two days on a custard, that’s why.
• Don’t chain vape. Give the wick a few seconds to re-saturate between draws. Dry hits are what cook a coil.

Getting three weeks out of an MTL coil instead of one takes your coil spend from £65 a year to about £22.

False economies

Three things that look like savings and aren’t.

Unstamped stock after April 2027. From 1 April 2027 every product on sale must carry a duty stamp. Anything dramatically below market price after that date hasn’t had duty paid on it, which means it’s illegal to sell and outside the regulated supply chain entirely — no MHRA notification, no ingredient controls, no recourse. The saving isn’t worth what you’re actually buying.

Enormous stockpiles. Buying ahead of October is sensible and legal. Buying five years’ worth isn’t, because e-liquid has a best-before around two years and nicotine oxidises. Keep it to what you’ll realistically get through, store it cool, dark and sealed, and keep it in child-resistant packaging well out of reach of children and pets.

Dropping nicotine strength to save money. It doesn’t work. You’ll vape more to compensate, use more liquid, and pay more duty. Strength is the one place where going up saves money.

A realistic plan

If you want to spend the least without a wholesale change to how you vape, in order of return:

1. Sort the device. Biggest single saving by a distance. If you’re sub-ohm and willing to move to MTL, everything else is detail.
2. Raise your nicotine, lower your volume. Costs nothing to try and it’s usually the difference between vaping constantly and not.
3. Switch format to a 50/50 shortfill if you’re on an MTL device buying 10ml bottles. Roughly 39% off your liquid.
4. Get your coil life up. Worth £40 or so a year and it takes no effort beyond priming properly.
5. Buy some pre-duty stock before October — sensibly, within shelf life.

And keep the scale of it in perspective. Even the most expensive setup in the table above is a fraction of what smoking costs: a 20-a-day habit runs to roughly £6,200 a year once the October tobacco duty rise lands. The duty narrows the gap. It doesn’t close it.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest way to vape in the UK after the 2026 duty?

A refillable MTL pod kit running a 50/50 shortfill with nicotine shots, at roughly £400 a year including coils. It works because MTL devices use around 2.5ml of liquid a day against 10ml for a sub-ohm setup, and the duty is charged per millilitre.

Is it cheaper to use shortfills or 10ml nic salts?

Shortfills, at 36.4p per ml against 59.7p for 10ml salts bought on a 3 for £10 deal. But standard 70/30 shortfills don’t work well in MTL devices — you need a 50/50 shortfill for that.

Are prefilled pods cheaper than refillables?

No, and the gap is large. Prefilled pods work out around £1.76 per ml after the duty, against 36.4p for a shortfill. Even though pod kits use less liquid, the cost per ml is roughly five times higher, so the annual bill is around three times greater.

Does vaping at a lower wattage save money?

Yes, and it’s the biggest saving available. Wattage determines how fast you vaporise liquid, and the duty is charged per millilitre. Moving from a 70W sub-ohm setup to a 14W MTL setup cuts liquid consumption by around 75%, saving roughly £700 a year in duty alone.

Do longfills avoid the vape tax?

Not if you buy your base from a vape retailer. Vape-branded VG and PG carries the duty like any other vaping liquid, so the finished volume attracts the same duty as a shortfill would. HMRC’s stated position is that liquid produced at home from base ingredients is also within scope of the duty.

Can I make my own e-liquid to avoid the duty?

HMRC has stated that vaping liquid produced at home from base ingredients falls within the scope of the duty. Separately and more importantly, never use ingredients that aren’t sold as suitable for vaping. Supermarket food flavourings are often oil-based, and inhaling oils can cause serious lung damage.

Does higher strength nicotine save money?

Usually, yes. Nicotine delivery is strength multiplied by volume, so a higher strength in a low-power device gets you the nicotine you need on far less liquid. Since the duty is charged on volume, less liquid means a lower bill even though the liquid itself costs more per bottle.

Will hardware get more expensive too?

No. The duty applies only to liquid. Kits, mods, coils, empty pods, tanks and accessories stay on standard 20% VAT and are unaffected.

This guide is intended for existing adult smokers and vapers aged 18 and over. Vaping products contain nicotine, which is addictive. If you don’t currently smoke or vape, don’t start. Figures are based on published HMRC guidance and the Finance Act 2026 and are correct as of the date below; illustrative retail prices are examples only and will vary by product and retailer.

Last updated: 27/07/2026 | Sources: HMRC guidance on Vaping Products Duty and the Vaping Duty Stamps Scheme (GOV.UK), Finance Act 2026, Autumn Budget 2024.