The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 (Commencement No. 1, Transitional and Saving Provisions) (Scotland) Regulations 2026

Explanatory note

Reproduced verbatim from the instrument as published on legislation.gov.uk (Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0). The note is prepared by the responsible government department and is not part of the instrument itself.

These Regulations make provision for the coming into force of section 69 and schedule 9 of the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 (“ the Act ”). Schedule 9 contains amendments to the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 (“ the 2010 Act ”) for the purposes of extending Chapter 2 (register of tobacco and vaping product retailers) of Part 1 of that Act so that retailers selling herbal smoking products and nicotine products are subject to the same registration requirements as retailers who sell tobacco and vaping products. Once the amendments referred to in regulation 2(1) take effect, tobacco businesses, herbal smoking product businesses, vaping product businesses and nicotine product businesses will all be “registrable businesses” and the council will have the power to apply to the sheriff for a “banning order” instead of a “tobacco and vaping product banning order”. A banning order is an order banning a person from carrying on a registrable business from premises within the council’s area.

The provisions in section 69 and schedule 9 come into force on 29 October 2026. The exception is the amendments in paragraph 15(a), (b) and (d) of schedule 9 which are amendments to registration offence provisions in section 20(1), (2), (2A) and (6)(a) of the 2010 Act. These amendments come into force 6 months later meaning that businesses will have 6 months from the date the extended register is active to register herbal smoking product businesses and nicotine product businesses.

Transitional and saving provisions are made to clarify the effect of the law for undetermined applications for tobacco and vaping product banning orders, for ancillary orders and for tobacco and vaping product banning orders which were made before 29 October 2026. In particular, regulation 3(1) means that an undetermined application for a tobacco and vaping product banning order will be converted to an application for a banning order. The definition of “tobacco or vaping product business” is saved for the purpose of the transitional and saving provisions in regulation 3(2) to (5) and also for the offence in 20(1) of the 2010 Act of being an unregistered person who carries on a tobacco or nicotine vapour product business. The definition is saved for the purpose of section 20(1) of the 2010 Act until 29 April 2027 which is when the amendment to section 20(1) comes into force by virtue of regulation 2(2).