While higher taxes on cigarettes are encouraging more people to stop smoking, smuggling is also on the increase, according to research by the finance and health ministries.

Once every two years researchers collect empty cigarette packets that have been thrown on the street and check their origins, to gain an insight into smokers’ behaviour in the Netherlands.

In 2021, during the last survey, 15% of the empty packets had contained cigarettes which had not been subject to Dutch tobacco duties. But that had risen to 25% last year, the ministries said on Tuesday.

While nearly 19% of the cigarettes had been bought in a shop in another country,  4% were either fake branded cigarettes or had been smuggled in. Two years previously, just 1% were either fake or illegal.

“The big profits criminals can make with duty fraud and illegal production and trade are building up criminal assets,” the ministries said in a briefing for MPs. “And that allows them to finance other criminal activities.”

Research by the public health institute RIVM also indicates that smokers buy around 10% of their tobacco abroad, by either importing it themselves or asking others to do so.

That research, from 2023, also showed that price increases are an extra stimulus to smokers to quit, with health remaining the most important reason. Some 28% of the smokers who took part in the RIVM research said they had tried to quit and 18% had managed to stop.

Taxes

The price of a packet of 20 cigarettes went up by almost a euro earlier this year to around €11.10 as a part of further government moves to discourage smoking.

A packet of rolling tobacco went up €3.60 to around €24, and further increases are on the cards. Tax on cigarettes now amounts to around € 7.81 per pack, according to finance ministry figures.

Three years ago, research published by Maastricht University showed that the cost of smoking only becomes an issue for smokers when prices go up by an enormous amount, with some 50% saying they would only quit at a price of €60 per pack.