Capital Video: Tobacco: discover the new prices for cigarette packs in 2024, brand by brand
© Illustration Capital
– The prices of cigarette packs should increase by 50 cents to 1 euro from January 1, 2025.
Will the price of a pack of cigarettes increase in 2025? From January 1, smokers will have to pay a little more money at tobacconists. The majority of packs will pass the 12.50 euro mark for 20 cigarettes with an increase of up to an additional euro depending on the manufacturer and the product. Cigarettes as well as cigars, heating tobacco and packets of rolling tobacco are affected. The General Directorate of Customs and Excise, which oversees the regulation of the tobacco trade, has published the list of new tariffs valid for the year 2025 on its website.
From now on, the price of a pack of 20 Lucky Strike brand cigarettes will, for example, be offered at 12.50 euros. This is also the case for packages branded Camel, Winston, Philip Morris and Rothmans, which all increase by 50 cents from January 1, 2025.
Packs of the Marlboro, Peter Stuyvesant and Vogue brands will even exceed the 13 euro mark for 20 units. As for Dunhill, the brand’s cigarettes will now be sold in tobacco shops at 13.20 euros. The Gauloises blondes will only increase by 30 cents to reach a selling price of 12.30 euros.
Rising tobacco prices: have cigarette sales really fallen near you?
Indexation to inflation, the cause of the increase in tobacco prices
“Tobacco prices in France are officially set freely by manufacturers”recalled Cyril Lalo for Capital last year (director of external relations for the Seita group which produces several brands of cigarettes and tobacco such as News or Gauloises). On the other hand, since the sale price is made up of more than 80% taxes, excise on tobacco products and VAT, “when the latter increase a lot, prices also change”added the professional. But this is not the only reason for the increase in tobacco prices.
As a reminder, the government launched an anti-smoking plan in 2023 which provided for the increase to 12 euros per pack of cigarettes from 2025. This year, the official price will therefore be higher than what had been anticipated by the executive which wanted to increase the price of the pack to 13 euros by 2027. This is notably due to a change in the calculation of the price of tobacco. Since December 2022 and the vote on the Social Security financing law for 2023, tobacco taxation has been indexed to inflation for year N-1 and no longer for year N-2. Every year, cigarette prices therefore increase in line with inflation.
Why is the price of tobacco still on the rise and not that of alcohol?
An increase in cigarette prices which remains “contained”
For 2025, the government had promised indexation to inflation “content” by the voice of the former Minister responsible for the Budget and Public Accounts, Laurent Saint Martin, on October 17. “Excessively large differences (in prices) with our European neighbors can lead to a weakening of flow rates, in particular those installed in border areas, and to the persistence of an excessively large parallel market”then justified the minister, invited to the annual congress of the Confederation of tobacconists.
Faced with the increase in tobacco prices, manufacturers have not reduced their margins, which represent 65 cents on a pack sold at 11 euros according to customs. Result ? Tobacco prices will increase from January 1, 2025 to between 50 cents and 1 euro for packets of cigarettes. One more argument for the French who have promised to stop smoking in 2025.
