Cigarette Price History in Canada: The Tax Side

A history of what cigarettes cost at the till would need an official series of retail prices. We looked for one and could not open it, and we do not use prices quoted by sellers or the press. What governments do publish is their tax, and in Canada tax is the largest part of the price of a legal pack. So the history below is a tax history, with dates and carton amounts you can check at the source.

Federal excise duty, 2022 to 2026

The Canada Revenue Agency lists the cigarette duty per 5 cigarettes. A carton of 200 is 40 units, so each carton figure is the rate times 40.

In effect	Per 5 cigarettes	Per carton of 200
1 April 2022	$0.74470	$29.79
1 April 2023	$0.79162	$31.66
1 to 16 April 2024	$0.82883	$33.15
17 April 2024	$0.92883	$37.15
1 April 2025	$0.95391	$38.16
1 April 2026	$0.97299	$38.92

From April 2022 to April 2026 the federal duty per carton rose by $9.13, or 30.7%. The biggest single step came on 17 April 2024, when the rate jumped by 10 cents per 5 cigarettes, which is $4.00 per carton, on top of the annual April adjustment. The other years show only the April adjustment.

Ontario, the longest official record

Ontario publishes every change in its tobacco tax back to 1981. Here is the stretch from 2005:

In effect	Cents per cigarette	Per carton of 200
19 January 2005	11.725	$23.45
1 February 2006	12.35	$24.70
2 May 2014	13.975	$27.95
26 February 2016	15.475	$30.95
28 April 2017	16.475	$32.95
29 March 2018	18.475	$36.95

Between February 2006 and May 2014 the dataset lists no change, then four increases came between 2014 and 2018. Since March 2018 there has been none, so the Ontario share of a carton has been frozen for more than eight years while federal excise has risen.

Other provinces, where the record is shorter

Most provinces publish only their current rate. A few documents we could open show earlier steps:

• Quebec raised its tax from $18.10 to $20.60 per carton in December 2003, and from 14.9 to 18.9 cents per cigarette on 9 February 2023. The 2023 bulletin calls that an $8.00 increase per carton.
• Nova Scotia raised its rate from 27.52 to 29.52 cents on 26 February 2020.

We have not pieced together a national series from these fragments. Doing so would mean guessing at the dates and rates we could not read.

Reading the pattern

Where the record is complete, tax per carton moves in steps rather than gradually. The federal duty has a step every April; Ontario’s steps stopped in 2018. Compare today’s rates on the tax rates page, or see the Ontario figures in detail on the Ontario page. The price index page turns the same data into a quarterly index, and the Quebec explainer covers the gap at the low end.