 Romania’s Tobacco Excise Policy in 2025: Missed opportunity ahead of the EU Tobacco Taxation Directive updateNóra Kungl,
Hana Ross () and
George Stefan
No 100, wiiw Policy Notes from The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw Abstract: In August 2025, as part of a large fiscal package, Romania announced an increase in tobacco and alcohol excise taxes, news welcomed by proponents of public health. However, the announcement turned into a disappointment for the tobacco control community when the final increase in cigarette excise tax amounted to only 2.25%. This policy note outlines the reform and uses a simulation model to demonstrate the missed opportunity to adopt pro-health tobacco tax policy. By not implementing a 10% increase, as for other excises, the newly adopted schedule not only fails to reduce smoking prevalence but also deprives Romania of an opportunity to collect RON 1.657bn (EUR 326.6m) in additional tax revenues in 2025-2027. Moreover, an accelerated tax roadmap aligning Romania with the proposed EU Tobacco Taxation Directive by 2027 would raise an additional RON 4.73bn (EUR 932m), reduce smoking prevalence by 4%, and avert nearly 50,000 smoking-related premature deaths. Keywords: Excise; Taxation; Tobacco; Smoking (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published as wiiw Policy Note Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wii:pnotes:pn:100 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in wiiw Policy Notes from The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw Contact information at EDIRC. |
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