Taxation remains one of the most established tools in tobacco control. Raising the price of cigarettes can reduce consumption, discourage initiation and contribute to lower smoking prevalence. The World Health Organization recommends that tobacco taxes account for at least 75% of the retail price.
The policy question becomes more complicated when the market contains products that differ substantially from cigarettes.
Electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco products, snus and nicotine pouches are now part of the regulatory landscape in many countries. Governments must decide whether these products should be taxed, how heavily, and whether differences in risk should be reflected in the tax system.
A new study from Switzerland provides a useful window into how those questions are already playing out politically.
Published in the European Journal of Public Health in 2026, Julie Martin, Nelly Senac, Karin Zürcher and Luc Lebon examined arguments surrounding tobacco and nicotine taxation in Swiss parliamentary proceedings between 2010 and 2025. They found that youth protection was the most common argument supporting higher taxation. The second was particularly relevant to the wider nicotine-policy debate: taxation according to product risk.
But developments during 2025 also show that Switzerland’s debate has moved beyond the narrower question of whether cigarette taxes should rise. Policymakers are increasingly asking whether the Tobacco Tax Act itself remains suitable for a market containing nicotine pouches, snus, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.
That distinction matters. The emerging debate is not simply about taxing nicotine more. It is about how different products should be classified and taxed relative to one another.
What Swiss Parliamentarians Have Been Debating
Martin and colleagues identified 86 parliamentary proceedings containing relevant tobacco-tax terminology and analysed 16 that explicitly discussed tobacco taxation and contained arguments for or against particular tax policies.
These proceedings covered cigarettes as well as newer categories. Some addressed several tobacco and nicotine products, while others focused specifically on heated tobacco, snus and nicotine pouches, roll-your-own cigarettes or e-cigarettes. Most proposals calling for higher taxation concerned specific product categories rather than tobacco and nicotine products collectively.
The study identified more arguments supporting tax increases than opposing them. Youth protection appeared most frequently among the arguments in favour, followed by taxation based on product risk. On the opposing side, concerns about illicit and cross-border trade appeared most frequently, followed by possible negative effects on the Swiss economy.
These findings should be interpreted for what they are. The researchers analysed political arguments. They did not test whether each argument was empirically correct.
That distinction is essential.
The Debate Moved Forward in 2025
The parliamentary activity captured toward the end of the study period has since developed into a broader discussion about the structure of Switzerland’s nicotine-tax system.
On 8 September 2025, the National Council adopted, by 98 votes to 90, a postulate from National Councillor Niklaus Gugger calling for a review of taxation across nicotine-containing products. Gugger advocated a 10% increase in tobacco taxation, while Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter supported reviewing the system but opposed an immediate tobacco-tax increase, pointing to the potential for higher prices to encourage cross-border purchasing and illicit trade.
The Federal Council subsequently adopted an overall report on the tobacco and tobacco-substitute market on 19 December 2025. The report identified a structural problem increasingly familiar to policymakers elsewhere: existing tax categories were developed for an earlier product landscape and have become more difficult to apply coherently as heated tobacco, e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches expand.
Among the options identified were more differentiated product categories and renewed or expanded powers for the Federal Council to adjust tax rates.
Importantly, however, this should not be interpreted as Switzerland having adopted a broad new nicotine-tax regime. The December report sets out options for reform rather than announcing a settled tax increase.
The distinction reinforces one of the central lessons of Martin and colleagues’ research: Switzerland is debating not simply how much nicotine products should be taxed, but increasingly how the tax system itself should distinguish between products.
Nicotine Pouches Put Risk Proportionality to the Test
Nicotine pouches and snus illustrate the difficulty particularly clearly.
Motion 25.4295, titled “Strengthening youth protection for snus and nicotine pouches: normal tax rate for boom products,” challenges their current tax treatment. Snus and tobacco-free nicotine pouches are presently included within the same tax category as chewing and snuff tobacco, with the motion citing a tax rate of 10% of the retail price.
The proposal seeks to apply the rate used for fine-cut and waterpipe tobacco instead. According to figures cited in the motion, a typical CHF 7.95 tin currently contains approximately CHF 0.80 in tax; under the proposed approach, this would rise to around CHF 2.65.
Yet the proposal also exposes the trade-offs involved.
Because snus and tobacco-free nicotine pouches currently share a tax category, changing the treatment of one can affect the other. The parliamentary material itself recognises concerns that substantial price differences between Switzerland and neighbouring countries could encourage undeclared imports, cross-border purchasing or illicit supply.
The Federal Council has requested rejection of the motion while the broader taxation framework is being considered.
This is precisely where risk-proportionate taxation becomes more than a theoretical principle.
The question is not whether nicotine pouches should escape taxation. It is whether the tax applied to them should reflect their characteristics, patterns of use and relative risk while still supporting youth-protection objectives.
Why Youth Protection Features So Prominently
It is unsurprising that youth protection sits near the centre of Switzerland’s debate.
Price is one mechanism governments use to discourage consumption. As newer nicotine products have become more visible, policymakers have increasingly considered whether relatively low prices could encourage uptake among young people.
The study shows this change particularly clearly in the Swiss debate over e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes were taxed in Switzerland between 2010 and 2012 before the tax was removed. An early parliamentary debate focused heavily on whether e-cigarettes could support smoking cessation and whether the available scientific evidence justified maintaining the tax. As e-cigarettes became more popular, including among younger people, a new proposal was introduced in 2019. Arguments increasingly shifted towards youth protection and taxation according to product risk, and e-cigarette taxation was eventually reintroduced in 2024.
This evolution is instructive. Tax policy does not have to be static. As products change, evidence develops and patterns of use become clearer, governments can revisit the assumptions behind earlier decisions.
The same principle should apply to other emerging nicotine categories.
A Wider Prevention Levy Is Also Under Discussion
Switzerland’s debate is not limited to excise rates.
Motion 25.4298 proposes extending the levy that finances the Tobacco Prevention Fund to all tobacco and nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, snus and nicotine pouches.
Currently, the fund is financed through levies on cigarettes and fine-cut tobacco. The proposal argues that this funding base has become increasingly disconnected from a nicotine market in which newer products account for a growing share of consumption.
The Federal Council’s December 2025 report similarly identifies expansion of the Prevention Fund levy to additional categories as a possible option, although doing so could require legislative changes and potentially consideration of the constitutional basis.
Again, these proposals remain part of an evolving policy process rather than an enacted comprehensive regime.
That distinction is important because Switzerland is still deciding what a modern nicotine-tax framework should look like.
Taxation Can Change Consumer Incentives
Taxation affects more than government revenue.
It changes the relative prices consumers face.
If cigarettes become substantially more expensive while lower-risk alternatives remain more affordable, taxation may strengthen the financial incentive for adults who smoke to switch. If those alternatives are taxed at similar levels to cigarettes, that incentive can narrow.
The opposite concern also matters. Policymakers may worry that keeping newer nicotine products inexpensive could increase uptake among young people or people who previously did not use nicotine.
This creates a genuine policy tension.
A tax system designed around relative risk must consider both sides: preserving incentives for adults to move away from combustible tobacco while limiting unintended uptake among non-users, particularly young people.
There is also the question of illicit trade. Martin and colleagues found that illicit and cross-border trade was the most common argument raised against higher taxation in the Swiss parliamentary proceedings.
The Federal Council’s 2025 assessment shows why that concern remains politically important. Switzerland already faces substantial differences in tobacco prices and taxation relative to neighbouring markets, making the effects of further increases on cross-border purchasing part of the policy calculation.
Switzerland Has an Opportunity to Modernise the System
Martin and colleagues suggest that the emergence of new products could provide an opportunity for Switzerland to undertake broader reform of its tobacco taxation system.
The developments of 2025 make that observation particularly timely.
Switzerland is now considering whether tax categories developed around an older tobacco market remain suitable for heated tobacco, e-cigarettes, snus and tobacco-free nicotine pouches. The immediate direction appears to be towards reclassification and a broader tax or levy base, but that is not the same as a settled decision to tax every product like cigarettes.
That distinction should be preserved.
Simply inserting every emerging product into an existing tobacco-tax structure may be administratively convenient. It does not necessarily create coherent public-health policy.
A more deliberate approach asks what taxation is intended to achieve for each category.
For cigarettes, reducing consumption and initiation remains a clear priority. For lower-risk smoke-free products, policymakers should also consider whether taxation preserves incentives for adults who smoke to switch completely while discouraging uptake among people who do not currently use nicotine.
Those objectives can pull tax rates in different directions.
What This Means for GINN
For GINN, Switzerland highlights a broader principle: taxation should form part of risk-proportionate nicotine regulation, rather than operate separately from it.
This does not mean that smoke-free nicotine products should be untaxed. Nor does it require governments to adopt a fixed hierarchy or one universal set of rates.
It means policymakers should be able to explain why products with materially different characteristics and risk profiles face particular tax burdens, and whether those differences support the intended public-health outcomes.
Youth protection should remain central. So should reducing smoking-related disease.
A well-designed system should therefore monitor how taxation affects cigarette smoking, switching between products, youth initiation, dual use, legal sales, cross-border purchasing and illicit supply.
Switzerland’s current debate demonstrates that these questions cannot easily be separated. Parliamentarians calling for higher taxes emphasise youth protection and the treatment of rapidly growing product categories. The Federal Council has meanwhile stressed the need for a whole-market assessment and the potential consequences of cross-border and illicit trade.
Risk proportionality and youth protection do not have to be competing objectives. But achieving both requires more careful policy design than simply applying cigarette-style taxation across every nicotine category.
What Comes Next for Nicotine Taxation
The next important question is whether the options identified in the Federal Council’s December 2025 report translate into amendments to the Tobacco Tax Act.
That could include new or revised product categories, changes to the taxation of nicotine pouches and snus, expanded rate-setting powers, or a broader Prevention Fund levy covering nicotine products.
For policymakers elsewhere, Switzerland offers a useful lesson.
The debate should move beyond whether nicotine products should simply be taxed “more” or “less.” Governments should ask what behaviour they want taxation to encourage, what harms they are seeking to reduce and whether the relative prices consumers face are consistent with those objectives.
Tax systems designed primarily around cigarettes increasingly have to accommodate products that did not exist when those systems were created. Switzerland’s 2025 debate suggests that modernisation may therefore be as much about classification and proportionality as it is about raising revenue.
As the evidence and market develop, tax policy should be capable of developing with them.
That is what risk-proportionate taxation should ultimately mean.
Sources
- Martin J, Senac N, Zürcher K, Lebon L. Political arguments for and against tobacco tax increases in the Swiss Parliament (2010–2025). European Journal of Public Health, 2026.
- Federal Council — Overall report on the tobacco and tobacco-substitute market
- Swiss Parliament — Federal Council reviews taxation of nicotine-containing products
- Swiss Parliament — Motion 25.4295 on snus and nicotine pouches
- Swiss Parliament — Motion 25.4298 on financing tobacco prevention
