Cigarettes to cost more from February 1. Here's how new rates will be decided

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

60% : This includes many king-size and filter variants sold in India such as Gold Flake Premium, Red & White King Size, Classic and Marlboro variants, Navy Cut longer sticks, and flavoured cigarettes like Ice Burst.
57% : Cigarette prices in India are set to rise from February 1, 2026, after the government notified a new tax system.
54% : This change marks the first major shift in cigarette taxation since GST was introduced in 2017.
53% : Till now, cigarettes were mainly taxed through GST and a value-based levy. From February 1, the government is reintroducing a specific excise duty.
53% : Simply put, longer cigarettes will attract higher tax.
52% : The new system brings back a separate central excise duty on cigarettes over and above the Goods and Services Tax, or GST. How much more you pay will not depend only on the brand name, but largely on the length of the cigarette.
49% : Even after these changes, total taxes on cigarettes in India will make up around 53% of the retail price.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.