While in Belgium tobacco shops will soon have to hide packets of cigarettes for sale, Paris will raise its prices on February 1: a double boon for merchants in Luxembourg.
On January 1, the price of tobacco increased in Luxembourg. In France too… But that will not prevent France from revising its prices again from February 1st. And this time again, the pack of 20 cigarettes should be 10 to 30 cents more expensive than previously.
As a result, here are the Gaulishs blondes rising to €12.50 per pack or Dunhill red and blue reaching €13.50, etc. Knowing that the objective set by Paris is toreach 13 euros by 2027 and this with the fight against smoking as the main motivation.
And that French smokers who are grumpy at this succession of increases do not put forward the argument of They do this to fill the state coffers!“. In fact, it is indeed a reduction in sales of tobacco products at tobacconists which systematically echoes an increase in prices.
This is how in 2024, if the Ministry of Finance was able to recover 13.6 billion euros due to “tobacco consumption rights” alone, this sum is €400 million less than that recovered in 2023 due solely to the loss of buyers in France.
No more puff in Belgium
In neighboring Belgium, 2025 will also be marked by many changes concerning the distribution of cigarettes and related products. Thus, since January 1, the sale of disposable electronic cigarettes are prohibited. Goodbye puff so like in France (but not in Luxembourg…).
Of the non-smoking areas are also now applied near health, reception or educational establishments in the Kingdom. Thus, lighting a cigarette can be punished if the person is seen within a radius of 10 meters in front of the entrance to a hospital, a school or a library for example.
-But above all it is the date of 1er avril who will score a real rocker in the tobacco trade in Belgium. From this day on, there will be an end to the sale of cigarettes on pop-up points of sale (like markets or festivals).
Furthermore, in order to limit the visibility of tobacco products, merchants will have to hide their offer in the eyes of potential interested parties. The absence of visibility should limit compulsive buying.
Even filters or cigarette papers must then be placed out of sight of consumers, by being placed in drawers, a separate room or opaque display cases…
These are all decisions that will delight Luxembourg tobacconists. Indeed, they should benefit (still) from a little more postponement of cross-border customers to points of sale in the Grand Duchy. And if the purchase limits remain the same, there is no doubt that the sales expected to soar more beautiful.
Enough to delight the Luxembourg Ministry of Finance, which will be able to collect more taxes. And when the market weighs every year more than 4 billion cigarettes and 6,000 tons of rolling tobaccothis makes them taxes and excise duties to be recovered. We are talking about a revenue for the State exceeding the 1.4 billion euros…
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