Legal smoking age

Laws by region

Africa

Americas

Asia

Europe

Oceania

Historical regulations

Tobacco-free generation policies

Tobacco-free generation policies and regulations prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to individuals born on or after a particular date.:

• In Australia a tobacco-free generation was proposed by Ivan Dean in 2014, without success. It would have prohibited the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after 2000.
• In New Zealand, a law was passed in 2022 and then repealed in 2024 (never enforced). The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022 would have prohibited the sale of tobacco to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
• A law was proposed in the United Kingdom in 2023. In 2024, the government changed and re-introduced the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. The bill was approved by Parliament on 22 April 2026 and received royal assent on 29 April 2026 as the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026. From 1 January 2027, the law prohibits the sale of tobacco products to persons born on or after 1 January 2009.
• A law passed in the Maldives in 2025, as a second amendment to the 2010 Tobacco Control Act. It prohibits the sale, purchase and use of tobacco products by persons born on or after 1 January 2007. Enforced since 2025, it is the world’s first generational tobacco ban.

Cannabis age

Since 2012, various jurisdictions throughout the world have legalized cannabis for recreational use. In Mexico, Uruguay and cannabis-legal jurisdictions in the United States, the legal age to possess or purchase cannabis is identical to the tobacco purchase age (18 in Mexico and Uruguay and 21 in the United States). In Canada, the legal age to possess or purchase cannabis is 19 in all provinces and territories except Alberta (18) and Quebec (21). There are therefore three Canadian provinces (Manitoba, Quebec and Saskatchewan) and two territories (the Northwest Territories and Yukon) where the age to purchase tobacco is lower than the age to possess and purchase cannabis, and one province (Prince Edward Island) where the tobacco purchase age is higher. Prior to December 2019, when the United States raised its tobacco purchase age to 21 in all states and territories, several U.S. states had tobacco purchase ages lower than their cannabis possession and purchase ages. In Germany, the legal age to possess and purchase cannabis is 18.

Enforcement

To reduce illegal sales, active enforcement is more effective than giving retailers information. The retailer compliance with legislation can be assessed by test purchasing (mystery shopping).

Under Article 16 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), most reporting Parties indicate that they ban sales of tobacco products to minors, and many have raised the minimum legal age of purchase. In the 2024 reporting cycle, several Parties reported increasing the minimum age, including the Cook Islands, Ethiopia, Ireland and the Maldives, which raised it to 21 years, and others reported expanding bans on sales to minors to cover additional tobacco and nicotine products and strengthening enforcement mechanisms and penalties.

A 2024 systematic review in Nicotine & Tobacco Research examining jurisdictions that raised the minimum legal sales age for tobacco to 20 or 21 found that higher ages of sale were generally associated with lower prevalence of cigarette smoking among people aged 11–20 years, particularly where age-of-sale laws formed part of broader tobacco-control measures.