Earlier this year, a new law went into effect in Belgium that prohibits retailers from displaying tobacco products. The new law means that retailers need to store tobacco products in cabinets or backrooms so that a customer cannot see any of these products when they enter the store. The law has a one-year grace period, meaning that retailers must be in full compliance by April 1, 2026.
Apparently, that is not enough.
An example of plain packaging for Ireland.
Frank Vandenbroucke, Belgium’s health minister, has published a new decree that will extend Belgium’s existing plain packaging laws—which are applied to cigarettes, rolling tobacco and hookah tobacco—to all smoking products, including cigars.
In addition:
All packaging materials other than the box and tube, including the cigar band, are banned
The outside and inside of the box must be covered
All tubos must be covered
A product name is limited to three words
It’s unclear what the purpose of the final part is, but that means that “Cohiba Siglo V” can be written on the plain packaging, but not “Romeo y Julieta Churchill”.
“Nothing in the Ministerial Decree justifies the extension of plain packaging to cigars except overgeneralisation and anecdotes of product placements from Big Tobacco. As niche and occasionally consumed products, cigars play no part in smoking initiation of young Belgian people with ever fewer adult connoisseurs consuming them,” Paul Varakas, director general of the European Cigar Manufacturers Association (ECMA), in a statement. “Extending plain packaging to cigars makes absolutely no sense when cigar retailers are already covered by a display ban. As aficionados already have to buy cigars without seeing them, they should be able to get their products without additional governmental interference once the sale has been made.
The new rule is scheduled to take effect on June 1, 2026, though smaller shops will have until June 1, 2027 to be in compliance.
I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.