Tobacco Tax Rates in Canada by Province

Tobacco is taxed twice in Canada, at different levels of government, and neither tax is a percentage of the sticker price. The federal government charges an excise duty per cigarette. Each province or territory charges its own tobacco tax per cigarette on top. Sales taxes come after both and are not in the table below.

Federal excise duty

The Canada Revenue Agency sets the duty on stamped cigarettes at $0.97299 per 5 cigarettes or fraction of 5 from 1 April 2026. A carton of 200 holds 40 of those units, so the duty is $38.92. It is adjusted each April; the rate from 1 April 2025 was $0.95391, which works out to $38.16 a carton. The same duty applies in every province.

Provincial and territorial tax per cigarette and carton

Jurisdiction	Per cigarette	Per carton of 200	Plus federal excise	In effect since
Ontario	18.475¢	$36.95	$75.87	29 March 2018
Quebec (see note)	18.9¢	$37.80	$76.72	9 February 2023
Saskatchewan	29¢	$58.00	$96.92	24 March 2022
Nova Scotia (see note)	29.52¢	$59.04	$97.96	26 February 2020
Alberta	30¢	$60.00	$98.92	1 March 2024
Manitoba	30¢	$60.00	$98.92	30 June 2019
Prince Edward Island	30¢	$60.00	$98.92	not stated in the Act
British Columbia	32.5¢	$65.00	$103.92	1 July 2021
Newfoundland and Labrador	32.5¢	$65.00	$103.92	1 June 2021
Northwest Territories	34.4¢	$68.80	$107.72	August 2022

Carton figures are our arithmetic (per-cigarette rate times 200) except where the province prints them: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario state the carton amount themselves. Newfoundland and Labrador also has a reduced rate for the Labrador border zone, applied through a retailer rebate.

Quebec. The row shows the latest rate we could read in an official document, the February 2023 bulletin. Revenu Québec’s page was blocked to us, so a later increase is possible.

Nova Scotia. The provincial rate page was unreachable. The row comes from Tax Information Bulletin 5107, which raised the rate from 27.52 to 29.52 cents on 26 February 2020. The 27.52 cents shown as the old rate in that bulletin is the pre-2020 figure. We found no later change, but could not rule one out.

Prince Edward Island. The rate is read from the Tobacco Tax Act consolidation, which is current to 29 May 2026 and is reference text rather than the authoritative version.

Not listed. New Brunswick, Yukon and Nunavut are missing because their official pages returned access errors and we will not publish a rate we have not read ourselves.

What drives the spread

Among the ten rates above, the provincial tax per carton runs from $36.95 to $68.80, a gap of $31.85. The federal duty is constant, so the total government tobacco tax runs from about $75.87 to $107.72 per carton. Ontario and Quebec are at the bottom; the Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador are at the top. The ranking page puts them in order, and the price history page shows how the federal and Ontario rates changed over time.

For single provinces see Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. Vaping products are taxed differently; see vape tax in Canada. To split a price you pay into its parts, try the tax breakdown calculator.