Kingdom of Belgium
Belgium
Three categories, three different market statuses. Nicotine pouches are prohibited outright. E-liquids are permitted under the TPD transposition and carry excise. Rechargeable e-cigarettes are permitted; disposables have been prohibited since 1 January 2025, Belgium being the first EU member state to do so.
verified 23.10.2026 · TPD Pro regulatory desk
Not every value on this page is confirmed.
Fields carrying a Draft marker come from a measure that is not in force. Fields carrying Needs check have not yet been verified at source. Both are marked individually next to the value, and the open questions are listed at the foot of this page.
Product categories
Where each category stands.
Status attaches to an activity, not to a market. Where sale, import and possession are treated differently, each is stated separately rather than averaged into one answer.
Prohibited outright. Article 2 of the royal decree of 14 March 2023 prohibits placing nicotine pouches and cannabinoid pouches on the market. In force from 1 July 2023, and from 1 October 2023 for retailers, who had a transitional period to sell down stock. This is a prohibition on placing on the market, not a notification regime: there is nothing to file.
Import, manufacture, wholesale, retail and online sale are all closed off by the prohibition on placing on the market.
Permitted subject to the requirements of the royal decree of 28 October 2016, which transposes article 20 of the TPD. Excise applies. Online sale is prohibited and a display ban has applied since 1 April 2025.
Sale of tobacco products and electronic cigarettes over the internet is prohibited. The prohibition extends to smoking devices.
The device category splits. Rechargeable devices are permitted under the royal decree of 28 October 2016. Disposables have been prohibited since 1 January 2025. A single status for the category would be untrue of one half of it, so both subtypes are stated separately below.
Permitted subject to the requirements of AR 28.10.2016.
Prohibited from 1 January 2025, with or without nicotine; retailers had until 11 January 2025. Belgium was the first EU member state to prohibit them. The legal reasoning was deliberately twofold — youth health and the environmental burden of lithium batteries — and it was the environmental limb that secured European Commission approval on 18 March 2024, an earlier health-only justification having been refused.
Who regulates
Competent authorities.
Official names are kept in their own language, because that is the string you will have to quote in correspondence.
SPF Santé publique, Sécurité de la Chaîne alimentaire et Environnement
Federal Public Service for Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment
Regulator. Receives EU-CEG notifications, issues royal decrees, inspects consumer products.
www.health.belgium.beService Inspection produits de consommation (SPF Santé publique)
Consumer Products Inspection Service
Enforcement. Display ban, sale to minors, labelling.
www.health.belgium.beSPF Finances — Administration générale des Douanes et Accises
General Administration of Customs and Excise
Excise on e-liquids, fiscal marks, the GestTab application.
finances.belgium.beSmoking Info
Official product-status platform
Positive and negative lists of notified products. Where a product's approval status is confirmed.
www.health.belgium.beIncert
Traceability identifier issuer
Issues the unique Belgian identifiers used for tobacco traceability.
www.incert.beCommonly misreported
What the internet gets wrong about Belgium.
Each of these is a claim that circulates widely and does not survive contact with the primary source.
Belgium banned flavoured e-liquids from January 2025.
what the source saysIt did not. No flavour restriction is in force. What took effect is a narrower requirement that the flavour be named neutrally on the packaging. A prohibition on all flavours except tobacco was approved on 30 April 2026 and takes effect on 1 September 2028, and it has still to clear the TRIS procedure. Several secondary sources report the 2025 date; the primary record does not support it.
Council of Ministers decision of 30.04.2026 vandenbroucke.belgium.be
Nicotine pouches can be sold in Belgium once they are notified through EU-CEG.
what the source saysThere is no filing that makes them marketable. The royal decree of 14 March 2023 prohibits placing them on the market outright, so the notification regime does not apply to the category at all. Attempting to place them on the market leads to the negative list and to sanctions.
AR 14.03.2023, art. 2 etaamb.openjustice.be
Not in force
What is coming, and what was rejected.
None of this is law today. Measures that were proposed and voted down are listed alongside those that were adopted, because a rejected proposal that goes unrecorded is routinely mistaken for one that passed.
Prohibition on all e-liquid flavours except tobacco
A draft. It is not law and does not bind anyone.
On 30 April 2026 the Council of Ministers approved draft decrees to allow only tobacco-flavoured and unflavoured e-liquids, and to ban components that change the taste, smell or colour of the vapour. The draft royal decree was notified to the EU as TRIS 2026/0254/BE on 22 May 2026. Detailed opinions from Greece, Romania and Italy extended the standstill to 26 November 2026, so the decree cannot be adopted before then. Press reports give 1 September 2028 as the intended start; the notified text has not been adopted or published in the Moniteur belge.
Draft royal decree amending the AR of 28 October 2016 on the manufacture and marketing of electronic cigarettes (TRIS 2026/0254/BE), with a draft ministerial decree technical-regulation-information-system.ec.europa.eu
Open questions
What we have not closed yet.
Published deliberately. Every field on this page that depends on one of these carries a marker, and the rest of the page does not.
| Priority | Question | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| High |
Status and transitional provisions of the flavour prohibition: approved 30.04.2026, effective 01.09.2028, currently in the TRIS procedure. blocks: flavour-restriction |
Moniteur belge · EU TRIS database · vandenbroucke.belgium.be |
| High |
Exact commencement date and legal basis of the excise on e-liquids — 01.01.2024 introduction against 01.07.2024 full application — and the programme-law or Code des accises reference. blocks: excise |
finances.belgium.be · Moniteur belge |
| High |
Exact reference — number, date and Moniteur citation — of the royal decree prohibiting disposable electronic cigarettes from 01.01.2025. |
ejustice.just.fgov.be · health.belgium.be |
| High |
Whether SPF Santé publique imposes an annual reporting obligation for e-liquids and e-cigarettes beyond the EU-CEG notification itself, and on what date. No annual-reporting value is recorded for Belgium, so the deadline checker returns nothing for it. blocks: annual-reporting |
AR 28.10.2016 and the arrêtés ministériels under it · health.belgium.be — e-cigarette notification guidance |
| Medium |
Whether track and trace — the Incert unique identifiers — applies to electronic cigarettes and e-liquids. blocks: track-and-trace |
SPF Santé publique · Incert |
| Medium |
Exact trilingual wording (FR/NL/DE) of the mandatory warnings for e-liquids, and the placement rules. blocks: warning-format |
Moniteur belge — consolidated AR 28.10.2016 |
| Medium |
PCN and UFI: the specific thresholds at which poison-centre notification becomes mandatory for e-liquid formulations. |
ECHA Poison Centres · Centre Antipoisons |
| Low |
Possible extension of the plain-packaging regime to electronic cigarettes, currently being lobbied for. blocks: plain-packaging |
news.belgium.be · health.belgium.be |
| Low |
Revision of the TPD at EU level (TPD3) and its effect on nicotine products; a draft is expected towards the end of 2026. |
ec.europa.eu · health.belgium.be |
Sources
Everything above, traced.
| Type | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Arrêté royal du 14 mars 2023 relatif à l'interdiction de mise sur le marché de certains produits similaires | etaamb.openjustice.be |
| Primary | Moniteur belge / ejustice — consolidated Belgian legislation | ejustice.just.fgov.be |
| Authority | SPF Santé publique — Réglementation tabac | health.belgium.be |
| Authority | SPF Santé publique, Arrêté royal du 28 octobre 2016 relatif aux cigarettes électroniques | health.belgium.be |
| Authority | SPF Santé publique — Tabac: ce que dit la loi | health.belgium.be |
| Authority | SPF Finances — Douanes et Accises, accise sur les e-liquides | finances.belgium.be |
| Authority | News.belgium — extension du régime d'emballage neutre au 01.06.2026 | news.belgium.be |
| Authority | Cabinet Vandenbroucke — interdiction des arômes, décision du 30.04.2026 | vandenbroucke.belgium.be |
| Authority | TRIS 2026/0254/BE, draft royal decree amending the AR of 28.10.2016 on electronic cigarettes | technical-regulation-information-system.ec.europa.eu |
verified 23.10.2026 · TPD Pro regulatory desk