21–27 September 2026. No jurisdiction changed its rules on nicotine pouches this week, and the tracker closes the week where it opened it. The one legislative movement was in Berlin, where the Bundestag gave a first reading to a tobacco tax bill that does not tax pouches but says Germany intends to, if the EU directive does first. The FDA did nothing at all, which I can now demonstrate rather than assume.
As in the week before, a quiet week is reported as a quiet week. Several stories ran loudly in the trade press that I could not stand behind, and they are listed at the bottom with what is missing from each, rather than passed on.
The tracker diff
| Row | Change this week | Status |
|---|---|---|
| United States (federal) | None. Authorised list still 43 products, content current as of 21 August 2026. No marketing orders, no Federal Register notices, no tobacco warning letters. | Unchanged |
| US states | None on pouches. One 1 October change verified in Virginia, and it does not mention them. | Unchanged |
| Germany | First reading, 24 September, of the tobacco tax amendment. Pouches not taxed by the bill; national taxation stated as planned if the EU directive provides for it. | Movement, no change in law |
| European Union | None. No Council or Commission document in the window; the framework evaluation page still ends at 2 April 2026. | Unchanged |
| United Kingdom | No secondary legislation made. The DHSC packaging, appearance and display consultation closes 2 October. | Unchanged |
| France, Belgium, Netherlands | None. | Unchanged |
| Nordics | None. | Unchanged |
| Australia | None. The 24 July 2026 position stands. | Unchanged |
| Industry | Turning Point Brands filed a CEO change and reaffirmed its Modern Oral sales guidance. | New |
Germany: a tax bill that does not tax pouches, and says why
The Bundestag held the first reading of the federal government’s Tobacco Tax Act amendment on Thursday 24 September 2026. The bill itself, Drucksache 21/7859 of 7 September, raises the duty on e-cigarette liquids — “Substitute für Tabakwaren”, defined as substances for use in e-cigarettes and expressly not pouches — to €0.33 per millilitre from 1 January 2027, stepping to €0.36 from 1 January 2030. Projected revenue runs from €756 million in 2027 to €3.59 billion in 2030, and a 20-pack of cigarettes is modelled at €8.77 rising to €11.36.
Pouches are not in any of that. What makes the bill a tracker item is one sentence in it:
“Soweit die überarbeitete Tabaksteuerrichtlinie bei Verabschiedung eine Besteuerung von Nikotinpouches vorsieht, ist eine nationale Besteuerung solcher Produkte ebenfalls geplant.”
My translation: to the extent that the revised Tobacco Tax Directive provides on adoption for the taxation of nicotine pouches, national taxation of such products is also planned.
Read it precisely, because it is being summarised badly elsewhere. Germany is not taxing pouches. It is stating, in a government bill, that it will when Brussels moves — which ties the German timetable to the Commission’s excise recast, the instrument that first defines “nicotine pouches” for EU purposes. Since Germany treats pouches as an unauthorised novel food and they cannot lawfully be sold there at all, a tax would be a curious thing to levy; the sentence reads to me as preparation for a change in the underlying prohibition rather than a measure on today’s market. That is my inference, not the bill’s text.
FDA: nothing, and here is the evidence
“No news from the FDA” is usually an absence of reporting rather than a finding. This week I checked it four ways and all four agree, so it can be stated as a fact.
- The authorised pouch list still reads 43 products from two companies — Helix Innovations and Swedish Match USA — and is marked “Content current as of: 08/21/2026”. The downloadable list carries “(Last Updated: August 2026)”.
- The marketing orders page is current as of 28 August. Its most recent entries are 28 August (JUUL2), 21 August (ZYN ULTRA) and 19 August (Helix). No September orders of any kind.
- A Federal Register sweep of every FDA document published 12–25 September returned 25 items, none of them touching tobacco, nicotine or oral nicotine.
- The ten warning letters posted on 22 September cover pharmaceutical manufacturing, biologics, animal food, supply-chain verification and device reporting. None is a tobacco or nicotine letter.
The only September item in the Center for Tobacco Products newsroom is a webinar series on substantial equivalence predicate review. The last pouch authorisation remains 21 August, when 11 ZYN ULTRA products took the total from 32 to 43.
One number to be careful with, since FDA’s own pages disagree: the 4 August pilot-programme announcement says 30 pouches authorised, the 21 August announcement says 43, and a shortlink rendering of the list shows 42. The list page itself, dated 21 August, says 43. That is the one to cite.
Industry: Turning Point Brands changes chief executive, holds its pouch guidance
Turning Point Brands, which sells the FRE and ALP pouch brands, filed an 8-K on 21 September reporting an event dated 18 September: Graham Purdy resigns as president and chief executive effective 30 September, and executive chairman David E. Glazek becomes chief executive from 1 October. The filing is explicit that “his resignation was not related to any disagreement between Mr. Purdy and the Company or the Board.”
The pouch content is in the accompanying release, not the 8-K. Modern Oral guidance for 2026 is reaffirmed at “$330 million to $350 million” gross sales and “$260 million to $270 million” net. Group EBITDA guidance narrows to “$70 million to $80 million from $70 million to $90 million”, attributed to onshoring benefits not landing until 2027 and freight costs staying elevated.
Reaffirming the pouch line while trimming the top of group profitability is the interesting combination: the category is delivering volume, and the margin problem is in logistics and manufacturing location rather than demand. Neither FRE nor ALP is on the FDA’s authorised list, a fact that sits underneath all of these numbers and goes unmentioned in both documents.
Diary: what closes and what starts
The UK consultation on tobacco and vapes packaging, appearance and display closes at 11:59pm on 2 October 2026. It reaches nicotine products, not only vapes, so it is the live route by which UK pouch packaging could be standardised under the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 (2026 c. 18), whose section 51 defines “nicotine product”. Published 10 July, last updated 7 September — it is a deadline, not news, and it is the last chance to respond.
On 1 October, Virginia § 59.1-293.20 raises its directory penalties from “$1,000 per day” to tiered civil penalties from “$5,000 per liquid nicotine or nicotine vapor product” up to “$15,000”. It covers liquid nicotine and vapor products and does not mention pouches — worth noting because a state registry regime extended to oral nicotine is the most likely shape of the next US state change, and this one still drafts around the category.
Reported this week, not printed here
Five stories circulated that I could not anchor to a primary document. Each is listed with the missing piece.
- India, Bombay High Court, 23 September. A Division Bench is reported to have held that duty-free shops enjoy no immunity from domestic regulatory law, upholding the ban on selling imported nicotine pouches at Mumbai airport, in Mumbai Travel Retail Ltd v. Union of India, neutral citation 2026:BHC-OS:20816-DB. This is the week’s strongest candidate and I could not get the court’s own copy — the High Court’s judgment retrieval is a POST form, and the public databases hold only the earlier orders of 24 June in the same matter. Missing: the judgment text.
- India, Union Health Ministry, 19 September. Reported to have written to states directing enforcement action against nicotine pouches under drug-law powers. Missing: any reference number or published document. The drug regulator’s public notices for September cover cosmetics and misbranded drugs, with nothing on pouches.
- Canada, 23 September. The health minister is reported to have ruled out loosening pouch rules. Missing: any Health Canada release, Gazette instrument or Hansard record. The only primary Canadian page on pouches remains the 2023 advisory, last updated August 2025, stating that pouches “have not been authorized in Canada”.
- FDA, 24 September. Reports of a planned overhaul to simplify e-cigarette and pouch review. Missing: any announcement, notice or guidance — consistent with the Federal Register sweep above returning nothing.
- Turkey, mid-September. A reported generational sales ban from 2040 plus a health tax. Missing: the official gazette text or a parliamentary bill page. It also concerns combustibles rather than oral nicotine.
What to watch
The German bill moves to committee, and its pouch sentence is the thing to follow into the committee report. The EU excise recast is what would trigger it, and those Council files remain live with nothing accessible later than May 2026. FDA’s next authorisation batch is the other pending event. And the Bombay judgment is worth retrieving once the court publishes it: a ruling that domestic product bans bite inside duty-free areas would travel well beyond India.
The country-by-country position lives on the global regulation tracker; the products worth buying where they are legal are in the master ranking.