The Dutch government wants to steadily increase cigarette prices over the next 17 years to €47/pack.
The Dutch government is considering raising the price of cigarettes to between €30-47 per pack by 2040.
Cigarettes are currently priced at around €8 per pack in the Netherlands. According to the Rutte IV coalition agreement, Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government plans to raise it to EUR10 per pack by 2025. Furthermore, all cigarettes and tobacco products will be prohibited from being sold in Dutch supermarkets beginning in 2024. However, State Secretary of Public Health, Welfare, and Sport, Maarten van Ooijen, wants to take it even further with even higher price hikes as, according to scientific studies, financial incentives to quit smoking only make sense if the price of cigarettes rises dramatically. A new study from Maastricht University found that half of smokers will stop once a pack costs €60 or more.
Van Ooijen is following Australia's lead, where a pack of cigarettes costs around €24, in the hopes that the high prices would discourage people from smoking.
The significant price increase is part of the Dutch government's ambition to create a "smoke-free generation" by 2040, as outlined in the 2018 National Prevention Agreement. Currently, about 20% of the Netherlands’ population smoke. The government wants to reduce that to 5% by 2040.