How Can You Tell Whether a Pack Is Legally Stamped?

A legally sold pack of cigarettes in Canada carries a federal excise stamp. The stamp seals the pack, reads DUTY PAID CANADA DROIT ACQUITTÉ, gives the pack count (20 or 25) and shows the province or territory where the pack is meant to be sold. A pack with no stamp, or one whose stamp lifts off, does not match the description the Canada Revenue Agency gives. This page sets out what the stamp shows, what Ontario and British Columbia say about their versions, what the law says about unstamped tobacco and raw leaf, and what we could not confirm.

What the stamp shows

The CRA says an excise stamp shows consumers, retailers and law enforcement that excise duty has been paid on the cigarettes, whether they were imported or made in Canada. Each pack sold to consumers needs one.

A cigarette stamp includes:

• the words DUTY PAID CANADA DROIT ACQUITTÉ and the word CIGARETTES
• the number of cigarettes in the pack, either 20 or 25
• the province or territory where the pack is intended to be sold, shown by an abbreviation on a distinctive colour band and background

The stamp measures exactly 20 mm by 40 mm and has visible and hidden security features. The CRA lists colour shift ink, intaglio printing and a latent image among them. Similar stamps appear on cigars, raw leaf tobacco, manufactured tobacco, cannabis and vaping products.

How it should be attached

The stamp is meant to seal the pack. The CRA says it must be broken or torn to open the package and that a properly applied stamp should not peel off. The Stamping and Marking of Tobacco, Cannabis and Vaping Products Regulations repeat the sealing requirement: the prescribed way of affixing a stamp includes doing so in a manner that seals the package. A stamp that comes away cleanly, or sits on a pack that opens without breaking it, does not fit that description.

Provincial marks

The province shown on the stamp matters because each jurisdiction taxes tobacco on its own. Two provinces describe their stamps on official pages.

Province	What its page says
Ontario	The Ontario-adapted federal stamp has security features and a yellow background with the letters ON in white. It is illegal to purchase, possess or sell any quantity of cigarettes without it, subject to limited exceptions.
British Columbia	The stamp is a modified federal stamp with the text BC on a green background, used on packs of 20 and 25 cigarettes and on 50, 100 and 200 g packs of fine cut tobacco. Tobacco with another province’s mark must not be sold in B.C. unless the province authorizes it in writing.

B.C. adds two more points. Tobacco marked NOT FOR SALE IN CANADA may only be sold for export outside Canada. The province also says the tobacco tax portion of a carton is $65.00, so a carton sold for less is likely illegal. That figure covers provincial tax only and is not a full retail price.

The peach stamp

The CRA says the federal CANADA peach-coloured stamp is used in some jurisdictions, on some cigarettes sold at duty-free shops and on some cigarettes sold by on-reserve retailers to Indigenous consumers. Ontario says packages for sale under its First Nations allocation system and to diplomats must carry the peach stamp, and that these packages count as unmarked under its Act. B.C. says tax-exempt packs carry the peach stamp. How the exemption works is covered in tobacco on First Nations reserves.

What the law says about unstamped tobacco

Section 32(1) of the Excise Act, 2001 says no person may sell, offer for sale or possess a tobacco product unless it is stamped. Section 32(2) lists exceptions to the possession rule, among them tobacco licensees at their premises and an individual who imported the product for personal use within prescribed limits. The prescribed limit is five units, where a unit is 200 cigarettes, 50 cigars, 200 tobacco sticks or 200 g of manufactured tobacco. Border allowances are covered in how much tobacco you can bring into Canada.

The Act also covers the stamps themselves. It is an offence to make or sell anything intended to resemble a tobacco excise stamp without lawful justification, to possess an unaffixed stamp unless an exception applies, and to supply a stamp other than as the Act allows. Penalties are on the penalties page.

Raw leaf and bagged tobacco

Raw leaf tobacco means unmanufactured tobacco or the leaves and stems of the tobacco plant. Section 30(1) bars disposing of, selling, offering for sale, purchasing or possessing it unless it is packaged and stamped. Exceptions cover tobacco licensees, licensed tobacco dealers, bonded and sufferance warehouses, a provincially established body that markets raw leaf grown in the province, and prescribed persons transporting it. Under the Regulations, raw leaf counts as packaged when it is formed into a hand for sale or when a hand or broken pieces of leaf are packed for sale.

The word baggies does not appear in the federal text we read. What the law describes is raw leaf that is not packaged and stamped.

Warnings and plain packaging

Health warnings and plain packaging are separate rules from the stamp. They are covered in health warnings on cigarette packages and plain packaging in Canada.

What we could not confirm

• A full list of stamp colours for every province and territory. Only Ontario (yellow, ON) and British Columbia (green, BC) were described on pages we could read.
• Whether a shopper can check the hidden security features. The CRA flyer lists them without a consumer check.
• Whether a stamp looks different on cigars, fine cut tobacco or raw leaf. The flyer says similar stamps are used and gives no detail.
• Whether any personal-use limit on packaged raw leaf has been added to the law. Section 30 as we read it shows none.
• Stamp rules in the provinces and territories other than Ontario and British Columbia.