What Changed in Canada's Smoking and Vaping Laws in 2026?

This page lists only changes we could date from an official document. Nothing here comes from a retailer or news summary. Items are in date order, oldest first within the year; for the long view, start at the law changes log.

January 2026

30 January: higher federal ticket fines. The Contraventions Regulations amendment SOR/2026-11 was registered on 30 January and came into force the same day (it appeared in the Canada Gazette on 11 February). It replaces Schedule XIV, the list of Tobacco and Vaping Products Act offences that can be handled by ticket. Seven offences already on the list got higher fines, descriptions were updated to refer to vaping products, and 97 offences were added as ticketable contraventions.

Some of the amounts in the schedule: $2,000 for furnishing a tobacco or vaping product to a young person, and $2,000 for promoting a vaping product by advertising that could appeal to young persons; $1,000 for promoting tobacco or vaping through a testimonial or endorsement; $500 for selling tobacco from a self-service display; $3,000 for failing to file an ingredients or emissions report on time. These target sellers, manufacturers and promoters rather than individual smokers.

February 2026

26 February: Nova Scotia joins the vaping duty system. SOR/2026-41 was registered on 26 February (published 11 March) and came into force when made. It adds Nova Scotia to the coordinated vaping duty system, in which an additional duty at the same rate applies in participating provinces. The additional Nova Scotia duty applies from 1 April 2026, followed by a three-month transition period to 30 June 2026 during which federally stamped products can still be sold there. Federal vaping duty itself is $1.12 per 2 mL for the first 10 mL and $1.12 per 10 mL after that (see the vape tax page).

March 2026

2 March: Toronto widens its park rule to 20 metres. City by-law 1482-2025, passed on 17 December 2025, came into force on 2 March. It replaces the park smoking section of the Municipal Code so nobody may smoke or vape in a park within a 20-metre radius of listed amenities and areas, such as playgrounds and sports fields. The by-law keeps the exceptions for traditional Indigenous cultural and spiritual use of tobacco. More on the Toronto bylaw page.

April 2026

1 April: federal tobacco duty adjusts. The Canada Revenue Agency’s notice EDN105 sets the new rates, indexed each year to the Consumer Price Index: $0.97299 per 5 cigarettes, $0.19460 per tobacco stick, $12.16227 per 50 grams of other manufactured tobacco and $42.35331 per 1,000 cigars, plus an additional duty per cigar. For what that does to a carton, see the tax rates page.

May 2026

20 May: third legislative review tabled. Health Canada announced that the Minister of Health tabled the report of the third review of the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act in Parliament. This review focused on compliance and enforcement. The government also proposed an amendment that would stretch the review cycle from every two years to every five. The report changes no law by itself; Health Canada says its findings will guide future actions.

Still proposals

Two items in Health Canada’s 2026 to 2028 forward regulatory plan are not law.

• Online age verification. A new Tobacco and Vaping Products Access Regulations would replace the Tobacco Access Regulations and set out how online and distance sellers verify age and identity. The plan expected pre-publication in the Canada Gazette, Part I, in fall 2026, with a 60-day comment period. It had not been pre-published when we read the plan.
• Vape flavours. A proposed order and sensory-attribute regulations would limit flavour promotion to tobacco or mint/menthol. They were pre-published on 19 June 2021, and the plan says the timing of final publication is still to be determined.

We will move an item out of this list the day it appears in the Canada Gazette, Part II.

What we could not date

Provincial and territorial changes in 2026 are not listed because we found no provincial government release or gazette notice that we could verify. If you know of one, use the error report form and send the link to the official text. Compare with the earlier entries on the main log and read the standing rules in vaping laws in Canada.