Central Excise (Amendment) Act, 2025: Revised Excise Duty Rates for Tobacco and Nicotine Products

The Central Excise (Amendment) Act, 2025 introduces a comprehensive overhaul of the excise duty structure applicable to tobacco, manufactured tobacco products, and emerging nicotine-based alternatives.

The amendment modifies the Fourth Schedule of the Central Excise Act, 1944, substituting the existing tariff table under Section IV with a newly structured rate framework. The revised schedule standardises and, in many cases, significantly increases excise duties across a wide spectrum of products ranging from unmanufactured tobacco and cigarettes to hookah tobacco, biris, smoking mixtures, chewing tobacco, jarda, snuff, and reconstituted tobacco.

Notably, the amendment also introduces explicit classifications and duty rates for products intended for nicotine intake without combustion, including inhalation and oral/transdermal applications, reflecting the regulatory expansion to cover modern nicotine delivery systems.