Preparing for VPD: 8 Operational Checks Retailers Should Make Now

From 1 October 2026, vaping liquid made in or brought into the UK carries a duty of £2.20 per 10ml. This applies whether or not the liquid contains nicotine. Any product released onto the UK market from that date must also carry an approved vaping duty stamp on its retail packaging.

Most guidance so far has been aimed at manufacturers, importers and warehouse operators, because those are the businesses that need HMRC approval. Some store owners have therefore assumed the change is handled upstream and will arrive on the shelf already sorted. That is not the case. Here are eight checks to make.

1. Check Which Suppliers Are Genuinely Ready

Ask every vape supplier for a written transition plan, then keep it on file. Four questions will show you whether a supplier is prepared.

• Which company makes or imports the product, and does it hold the relevant HMRC approval?
• When will duty-stamped stock be available to order, and on which lines?
• How will duty status appear on invoices and delivery notes?
• What happens to orders placed before 1 October but delivered after it?

If a supplier answers in general terms, take note. "It's all in hand" is not a record. You cannot show it to a Trading Standards officer, you cannot give it to the person taking in the pallet, and it will not help if a line turns up unstamped when it should have been stamped. HMRC has said applications can take more than 45 working days, and advised businesses to apply by the end of July to be ready for October. Suppliers who started early are in a very different position from those who did not.

2. Record What You Already Hold, and Date It

You can keep selling eligible unstamped stock made or imported before 1 October, up to 31 March 2027. From 1 April 2027, all vaping products outside duty suspension must carry a stamp. That transition period is only useful if you can show what you held and when. So before 1 October, create a dated record of your unstamped stock. Any of these will work: a stock-system report, dated and saved; a spreadsheet count checked against supplier invoices; or a physical count, backed by the purchase paperwork.

Then keep old and new stock apart in the stockroom. If unstamped and stamped stock get mixed together, you lose the ability to prove which is which, at the point where proof matters most.

3. Work Out What You Can Sell Before You Buy More

There is an obvious temptation to buy heavily before the duty starts. Be careful. Anything you buy now has to sell before the transition window closes on 31 March 2027. Whatever is left must be returned, exported, destroyed or otherwise dealt with lawfully. None of those options gets your money back.

Forecast line by line, not by category as a whole. Core sellers behave very differently from slow flavours and small variants, and it is the slow lines that are usually still sitting there in March. If a supplier is pushing large volumes at you in the final weeks, they may be clearing their own warehouse rather than helping yours. This is where tight ranging stops being a shelf-space question and becomes a cash question.

4. Work Out the Real Effect on Price

The duty is charged on liquid volume, at 22p per millilitre. A 2ml pod carries 44p of duty. A 10ml refill carries £2.20 of duty. VAT still applies on top. So if the full duty and its VAT are passed on, a 10ml product carries £2.64 in extra tax, before any other cost changes.

Keeping the same percentage margin on a more expensive product gives you a bigger cash increase than you might expect. That may be the right call, but make it a decision rather than an automatic calculation. Absorbing too much of the duty makes the category hard to sustain at volume. Because duty is based on volume, not strength or format, it affects products very unevenly. A 2ml prefilled pod goes up by a fairly small percentage. Larger bottles go up by much more. One blanket margin rule across the whole category will leave some prices wrong.

5. Know That the Stamp Itself Changes

The stamp scheme is not fixed. Transitional stamps with physical security features can be used for a limited time, and digital stamps have been available since September 2026. From 1 January 2027, only digital stamps can be applied. Stock arriving early in the regime may carry a different stamp from stock arriving later, and both can be perfectly valid. Staff should not treat an unfamiliar but genuine stamp as suspicious, or panic about older transitional stock that has no stamp at all. If a particular delivery raises a question, the supplier's paperwork should answer it. That is another reason to insist on documents rather than verbal assurances.

6. Remember the Second Date in October

Duty is not the only change coming. From 29 October 2026, the minimum age of sale of 18 applies to all consumer nicotine products, including nicotine pouches and zero-nicotine vapes. If you currently apply age checks only to nicotine vapes, that needs to extend to pouches and zero-nicotine lines. Update your challenge policy, till prompts and staff briefing at the same time as the duty briefing, rather than coming back to it four weeks later.

7. Brief the Whole Team, Not Just the Owner

The people taking in deliveries and filling shelves need to understand the basics. A short written briefing, plus a named manager for questions, covers most of the risk. Staff should know the following.

• What a duty stamp looks like, in both permitted formats, and where it sits on the pack.
• That older stock can still be sold unstamped during the transition period.
• That new stock bought from 1 October should arrive stamped.
• That the 18+ rule covers all consumer nicotine products from 29 October.
• Who is allowed to buy vape stock for the business.
• What to do if packaging looks tampered with.
• Who to tell if a supplier or product does not look right.

8. Treat a Price That Looks Impossible as a Warning

Duty sets a clear cost floor for legitimate supply. Once you allow for duty, VAT and normal supply costs, a price that looks impossible usually is. Before buying, ask: is the supplier established and traceable; are proper invoices provided and will you keep them; does the product carry the stamp it should, given when it was made or imported; and can the supplier explain how the product entered the UK market.

Stock that gets seized, or that you cannot legally sell, is not cheap. Selling unstamped product after the transition period ends carries civil and criminal risk, and that risk sits with whoever is holding the stock. Legitimate retailers should not be undercut by product that has avoided duty, and buying decisions stay in the retailer's hands.

Before 1 October

1. Get written confirmation from every vape supplier.
2. Record and date the unstamped stock you hold.
3. Plan sell-through line by line.
4. Set new prices deliberately, by format.
5. Update your age-verification policy ahead of 29 October.
6. Brief every relevant member of staff, in writing.

Retailers who do this will go into October knowing exactly where they stand. Those who wait for the first stamped delivery to work out the rules may find the most useful preparation time has already gone.