Why Is Vaping Illegal in Thailand? And Will It Change?

Why is vaping illegal in Thailand? The short answer

Vaping is illegal in Thailand because the government banned importing e-cigarettes in 2014 and selling them in 2015. The stated reasons are public health and keeping young people away from nicotine. The ban also covers heated tobacco devices like IQOS, and in 2026 it’s being enforced harder, not relaxed.

That surprises many visitors, since vapes are legal in much of Europe, the US and the UAE. Here’s where the ban came from, why every attempt to lift it has failed so far, and what that means if you’re visiting.

How Thailand’s vape ban was built

There’s no single “vape law” in Thailand. The ban comes from several rules introduced over a decade:

Some older blog posts claim sales became legal after a 2019 legal change. That argument is out of date: the 2024 order banned sales again, and it’s the rule in force today.

The official reason: health and teenagers

Thai officials give the same answer every time: health, and young people in particular. Thailand’s embassy in London puts it plainly. The ban was introduced “for health reasons and that electronic cigarettes were luring young people into smoking.”

A turning point came in August 2014, when the prime minister at the time said on television that he’d seen many teenagers with e-cigarettes. The import ban followed later that year.

Teen vaping is still the main argument today. In a 2022 school survey backed by the WHO, 17.6% of Thai students aged 13 to 15 said they had vaped in the past month, up from 3.3% in 2015. The health ministry also warns that nicotine harms developing brains, and anti-smoking groups argue that vapes lead young people to cigarettes.

The ban has broad support from the country’s medical establishment. In 2021, the Medical Association of Thailand and 14 royal medical colleges publicly opposed legalization. The WHO has repeatedly called on Thailand to enforce the ban more strictly.

What critics say

The main critics are vapers’ groups, above all a users’ network called ENDS Cigarette Smoke Thailand. They argue that:

• The ban hasn’t stopped vaping. Official counts of vapers rose from under 80,000 in 2021 to hundreds of thousands by 2024, and some estimates are far higher.
• It pushes the trade underground. Nobody checks what’s in a black-market device, and police have since found pods laced with drugs like etomidate and ketamine.
• Smokers lose a less harmful option. Critics say adults who want to quit cigarettes should be able to buy regulated products.

The government’s answer so far has been to enforce the ban harder rather than rethink it.

Has Thailand tried to legalize vapes?

Yes, more than once, and each attempt stalled:

• 2017. Vapers’ groups petitioned for legalization and collected about 17,000 signatures, but the law didn’t change.
• 2021–2023. The digital economy minister campaigned openly for legalization, calling vapes a safer choice for smokers and a source of tax revenue. Two parties put it in their 2023 election platforms. It never happened.
• 2024–2025. A parliamentary committee studied the issue, and a majority of its members favored regulating vapes or heated tobacco instead of banning them. In March 2025, parliament acknowledged the report and sent it to the cabinet, but its recommendations weren’t adopted. The government moved toward stricter enforcement instead.
• March 2026. The vapers’ network asked the new government to review the ban. No public response from the government has been reported.

The 2025–2026 e-cigarette crackdown

Instead of legalization, the last two years brought a nationwide enforcement campaign:

• February 2025. The government launched a nationwide campaign, with a focus on sellers and vapes sold near schools. Police made hundreds of arrests in the first week, mostly of sellers.
• May 2025. The Education Ministry banned vapes in all schools.
• October 2025. The cabinet ordered a rewrite of the Tobacco Products Control Act to curb e-cigarettes. The draft hadn’t reached parliament as of September 2026.
• June 2026. Police set up a dedicated e-cigarette control center and ran a nationwide operation in July. Investigators also shut down a vape factory near Pattaya.
• September 2026. A raid on vape sellers on Phuket’s Bangla Road led to 10 arrests, and cyber police reported 151 arrests of online sellers over the past year.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, in office since September 2025, opposed legalization when he was health minister, and his government has kept the campaign going. Almost all of it targets sellers, factories, smuggling networks and drug-laced pods rather than tourists. We explain what that means on the street in our guide to vape fines in Thailand.

What the ban means for your trip

For a visitor, the reasons behind the ban matter less than how it works in practice. The rule applies to tourists exactly as it does to locals. Enforcement is uneven, though. Away from the airport, you’re usually just asked to put the vape away, though a fine is possible. Customs is where the ban is applied by the book, so packing a vape or IQOS in your luggage is the riskiest thing you can do.

Our guides cover the details: what the law says about vaping in Thailand, bringing a vape or IQOS through the airport and whether IQOS is legal in Thailand.

Will Thailand legalize vaping?

Not soon, based on what officials are saying and doing. As of September 2026:

• there’s no bill to legalize vapes or heated tobacco;
• no minister or government agency has publicly backed legalization in 2025 or 2026;
• the health ministry is studying a “Nicotine-Free Generation” policy that would stop people born after a certain year from ever legally buying nicotine products, though it’s at an early stage;
• Thailand isn’t alone: in February 2026, Myanmar became the eighth ASEAN country to ban e-cigarettes and heated tobacco.

Laws can change, and the parliamentary committee showed there’s support for regulation among some lawmakers. For now, though, nothing points toward legal vape shops.