What Must an Ontario Shop Owner, Manager or Clerk Do?

Ontario sets the rules for shops that sell tobacco and vapour products through the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, 2017 (SFOA), its General regulation (O. Reg. 268/18) and the Ministry of Finance’s Tobacco Tax Act rules. They bind the owner, the manager and the person at the till in different ways, so this page is organised by job. We read the e-Laws text, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance pages and a local public health unit fact sheet on 31 October 2026. Federal rules on warnings, packaging and promotion apply on top of them and are covered in Canadian vape retailer rules.

Where each duty sits

Job	Main duties
Owner	Retail dealer’s permit, legitimate suppliers, records, staff training, registration if you are a tobacconist or specialty vape store
Manager	Signs, hidden storage, no promotion, no vending machines, stocking only permitted products
Till clerk	Age check, ID, refusing sales, never letting customers handle product
Buyer of an existing store	Conviction history and inherited sales bans

If you own the shop

Get the permit for each location that sells tobacco. The Ministry of Finance says every location needs a valid tobacco retail dealer’s permit, applied for on form 013-1963. Public Health Ontario notes this has been required since 1 July 2018. No provincial permit exists for shops that sell only vapour products. Cities can add their own licences, and the Act does not stop them, so check the local by-law through your municipality or Ontario’s municipal rules.

Buy only from registered wholesalers. Retail dealers may buy tobacco only from Ontario-registered tobacco wholesalers. The Ministry of Finance publishes a Tobacco Tax Registrant List to check a supplier. Keep records of all tobacco purchases and sales at your principal place of business for seven years.

You answer for your staff. Section 21(11) of the Act treats the owner as liable for a contravention of the sale, display, promotion, sign, packaging and flavour sections at the place of business unless the owner took due diligence steps to prevent it. A directors’ and officers’ duty also applies: those running a corporation that sells these products must take all reasonable care to prevent breaches, and failing to do so carries a fine of up to $100,000. The Act does not define due diligence, and Toronto Public Health gives properly training staff as an example.

Register if you want the specialty exemptions. Tobacconists and specialty vape stores register with their local public health unit, which Public Health Ontario says carries no fee. The conditions are in the specialty store section below.

If you are buying an existing store, note that the automatic tobacco prohibition attaches to the address, so a buyer can inherit it. Ontario tells buyers to contact the local public health unit for the conviction history before closing. Boards of health must also post retailer convictions on their websites for five years.

If you manage the floor

Keep product out of sight until it is sold. Tobacco products and tobacco-brand accessories such as branded lighters cannot be displayed in a way that lets a customer view or handle them. Vapour products follow the same rule unless the store is an exempt specialty vape store or a licensed cannabis retail store. Toronto Public Health’s retailer guidance says product must stay hidden during restocking and inventory checks too, and that opening a drawer briefly to hand over a purchase does not count as display. It lists overhead or below-counter containers and top-hinge covers that close automatically as acceptable, and curtains, blinds and cupboards that show many products as unacceptable. Other health units may word this differently, so ask yours.

Post the required signs. The sign duties are in section 7 of the Act and section 14 of the regulation.

• A Tobacco Product Age Restriction sign (18 cm high, 35 cm wide) and a Tobacco Product Identification sign (9 cm by 18 cm), if you sell tobacco.
• The matching Vapour Product Age Restriction and Identification signs in the same sizes, if you sell vapour products.
• No-smoking and no-vaping signs at every entrance and exit, in washrooms and enough other places that staff and customers know the rules.

The age and identification signs must be posted where both the seller and the buyer can clearly see them, and they must be copies of the government’s signs. Public health units supply them. A missing-sign offence is charged for each day it continues.

Limit what you say about product. A shop may post up to three signs about tobacco products and prices, each no larger than 968 square centimetres, black text and graphics on white, with no brand identification, and Ontario’s vendor fact sheet adds that they must not be visible from outside the store. Vapour sellers outside the specialty category follow the same sign limits and may also keep an on-site price document that no one under 19 can read. Promotion at a place of entertainment is separately barred by section 5.

Remove vending machines. Section 10 bars tobacco and vapour vending machines, except in places the public cannot enter, inoperable machines, or machines only staff can operate. A breach carries up to $2,000 a day.

Check what you stock. Ontario bans flavoured tobacco products at retail except exempt items: certain spiral-wrapped flavoured cigars without tipping paper and flavoured pipe tobacco, which excludes waterpipe tobacco. Cigarettes and cigarillos must be in packs of at least 20. Flavoured vapour products may be sold only by specialty vape stores and licensed cannabis retail stores, with tobacco, menthol and mint flavours excepted, and vapour above 20 mg/mL nicotine only by specialty vape stores. Our menthol and flavoured tobacco guide and vape flavour bans by province go further into both.

If you work the till

Ask for ID when the customer looks under 25. Section 3 of the SFOA bars selling or supplying tobacco or vapour products to anyone under 19, and to anyone who appears under 25 unless you have required ID and are satisfied they are at least 19. A 30-year-old who looks 22 gets asked.

Know which ID counts. The regulation accepts ID that includes a photograph, states the date of birth and reasonably appears to be issued by a government or the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Examples on the Ontario pages are an Ontario driver’s licence, a Canadian passport, a citizenship card and a Canadian Armed Forces card. You may not demand a health card, but you may accept one the customer offers if it shows a photo and date of birth.

Know the defence. It is a defence if you believed the buyer was at least 19 because they produced the right kind of ID and nothing gave you reason to doubt it was genuine or issued to them. Handing over someone else’s ID is itself an offence for the buyer under section 3(4). ID rules in the other provinces are in selling to minors and ID checks.

Do not let customers touch product first. Hand it over only after payment is agreed. Ontario says improper display or promotion, intentional or not, can lead to charges against the salesperson or the owner.

Where you may not sell at all

Section 6 of the SFOA bars selling or offering tobacco and vapour products in:

• hospitals, psychiatric facilities and long-term care homes
• pharmacies, and any shop that contains a pharmacy or that a pharmacy’s customers can enter directly or through a corridor used only to connect the two
• the campuses of post-secondary institutions
• schools, private school buildings and their grounds, child care centres and places where home child care is provided

The regulation adds private hospitals, integrated community health services centres, certain Province-owned office buildings and the flavour and nicotine limits described above. On a campus, the regulation’s definition reaches buildings and leased areas used for teaching, recreation or residence by a college, university or student union.

If you run a tobacconist or specialty vape store

Both types register with the local public health unit and must keep the specialty share of sales high.

	Tobacconist	Specialty vape store
Sales test	At least 85% specialty tobacco in the past 12 months; stores registered before 1 January 2020 may qualify on 50%	At least 85% vapour products in the past 12 months
New stores	Test applies to inventory purchases or sales since opening	Same
Remaining sales	Cigarettes or items reasonably associated with tobacco, or branded with the store or a tobacco brand	Items reasonably associated with vapour products or branded with the store or a vapour brand
Display allowed	Specialty tobacco products and promotion, not visible from outside at any hour	Vapour products, entirely inside, not visible from outside at any hour
Entry	No one under 19, except staff and a support person aged 19 or older; people who look under 25 are treated as under 19 until ID is checked	Same
Building	Must be in a building, entered only from outdoors or shared mall areas, and not a thoroughfare	Same

A specialty vape store may also let customers sample if no more than two people sample at once, unused disposable mouthpieces are supplied unless the customer uses their own device, and the device holds no cannabis, tobacco or controlled substance. A tobacconist may let a customer activate a tobacco-containing e-cigarette for testing if no vapour is inhaled or exhaled.

What inspections look like

Local public health units enforce the SFOA. Under the Ministry of Health’s June 2021 protocol, each unit runs two youth test shops a year on every tobacco retailer and one on every vapour retailer, using test shoppers aged 15 to 18, plus an annual inspection of display and promotion rules. Cannabis retail stores are left out of those counts, and units coordinate with Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario inspectors for them. Units are told to use a mix of education, inspection and progressive enforcement, meaning warnings and graduated charges that reflect how often and how seriously a shop breaks the rules.

An inspector can enter without a warrant or notice at any time, though not a dwelling without the occupant’s consent and not by force. The inspector can ask for records, take them away to copy, question staff and seize products sold or stored contrary to the Act. Obstructing an inspector or giving false information is its own offence. Ministry of Finance inspectors work separately on tax compliance: their visits are also unannounced and need no warrant, and you should have the retail dealer’s permit, receipts, invoices and shipping documents ready.

When a charge is laid for a tobacco sales offence, the health unit must send the owner a notification within 48 hours. Convictions are then posted publicly with the business name, address, date and offence.

Fines and automatic bans

The maximum fine rises with the number of convictions for the same offence in the previous five years, and it is higher for corporations than for individuals. Section 21 of the Act has one table for tobacco (Table 1) and one for other products such as vapour (Table 2). The amounts below are the Act’s own, as in force from 28 June 2024. Between the first and third offence the maximum steps up through two further levels; for the sale, ID and display offences a tobacco corporation’s levels are $20,000, $40,000, $100,000 and $300,000, and an individual’s are $8,000, $20,000, $40,000 and $200,000.

Offence	Individual (no earlier conviction / three or more)	Corporation (no earlier conviction / three or more)
Tobacco sold to under-19, no ID check for apparent under-25, or tobacco displayed or promoted	$8,000 / $200,000	$20,000 / $300,000
Vapour sold to under-19, no ID check for apparent under-25, or vapour displayed or promoted	$4,000 / $100,000	$10,000 / $150,000
Missing required signs, or selling in a prohibited place	$2,000 / $50,000	$5,000 / $75,000
Packaging or flavour offences, tobacco	$4,000 / $100,000	$200,000 / $600,000
Packaging or flavour offences, vapour	$2,000 / $50,000	$100,000 / $300,000

Ontario’s tobacco vendor fact sheet (published 2015, updated 4 February 2026) says a corporation convicted of a tobacco sales offence faces up to $10,000 for a first offence and $150,000 for a third or later one, and an individual $4,000 and $100,000. Those amounts are the vapour row of the Act (Table 2). The tobacco row (Table 1) is higher, and a tobacco retailer should rely on it.

Section 22 adds an automatic prohibition on selling or storing tobacco at the address, and wholesalers may not deliver there. It runs six months after two tobacco sales convictions at the same place in five years, nine months after three and 12 months after four or more, and it applies even if a different owner had the earlier conviction. You must post the government’s prohibition sign at the entrance and wherever tobacco was sold, and removing it is an offence.

Tobacco tax duties

The Tobacco Tax Act sits beside the SFOA. Ontario tobacco tax has been 18.475 cents per cigarette, which is $36.95 for a carton of 200, since 29 March 2018. Other tobacco is taxed at 18.475 cents per gram and cigars at 56.6% of the taxable price. Consumers bear the tax: wholesalers and retailers pay an equal amount to their supplier and recover it in the price, and retailers do not file returns. Legal cigarettes and fine cut tobacco carry the yellow Ontario-adapted duty-paid stamp, while peach federal stamps mark product meant for personal use by eligible buyers such as First Nations individuals and diplomats, and the ministry treats that product as unmarked. Federal excise duty and HST come on top, and current rates by province are in the tobacco tax rates guide.

Penalties for tax breaches are separate from SFOA fines. Unmarked cigarettes or fine cut tobacco can be seized and attract a penalty of three times the tax plus $500, $2,500 or $5,000 depending on earlier penalties. Selling without a valid permit or breaching its conditions brings $500, $1,000 or $2,500. Two or more violations within five years can lead to a temporary prohibition of up to 180 days. Ontario also says retailers found selling contraband tobacco may be banned from selling tobacco or lottery products. Provincial price effects are on the Ontario page.

What we could not confirm

• The e-Laws version date. We read the text the e-Laws site marks as current, in force from 28 June 2024, and the regulation version from 25 September 2023. A later amendment would not show in what we read. Check the live e-Laws page before relying on a fine figure.
• Why the fact sheet differs. The tobacco vendor fact sheet’s fine amounts equal the Act’s non-tobacco table. The sheet describes the rules that began in 2006, such as the 2008 display ban, and we could not tell whether it has been reconciled with the 2017 Act. It names no section, so we cannot say which offences it means.
• Fine amounts for selling during a Tobacco Tax Act prohibition. The Ministry of Finance page gives two different dollar ranges, so we state none.
• The 2021 protocol is the version we read. A newer edition may exist.
• Municipal licences. Public Health Ontario says its by-law list is not necessarily complete, so we do not state which cities require a licence or the fees.
• Local health unit wording. The storage examples come from one unit, Toronto Public Health. We did not compare other units.
• Schedule 3 of the regulation. We did not read which Province-owned office buildings are no-sale places.