UK councils' store inspections have fallen by 53% despite £10m Trading Standards boost

The newly announced government powers to shut down stores illegally operating for up to 12 months don’t go far enough, vaping industry leaders have warned.

The warning comes after more than half of UK local councils saw a drop in shop inspections for illegal nicotine products last year, despite an extra £10m for Trading Standards.

Last year 8,881 premises across the UK were inspected, down 5% compared to 2024. Of these, less than one in every 65 (1.5%) inspections resulted in a fine for premises caught selling illegal nicotine products - a 34% fall compared to the previous year.

The data, gathered from a freedom of information (FOI) request from local councils across the UK, was conducted by the UK online vaping and pod retailer, Vape Club, as part of its annual Illegal Vapes & Nicotine Report.

The top three areas carrying out the most inspections over the past three years were Swansea (2,514), Surrey & Buckinghamshire (1,363) and Kent (1,330).

Despite the drop in inspections, Trading Standards teams still seized 1.3m illegal vapes and more than 7.2m illegal cigarettes across the UK in 2025, underlining the scale of the illicit market.

On average, each Trading Standards inspection across the UK seized nearly one thousand (949) illegal nicotine products from shops, the high street and out of the hands of the public.

Looking specifically at illicit vapes, each inspection found an average of 142 illegal products.

The most successful inspections in terms of average number of illegal vapes seized per Trading Standards inspection were seen in Central Bedfordshire (9,878), Bolton (2,093), and Hillingdon (1,762).

Dan Marchant, director at Vape Club and founder member of the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), said: “It’s incredibly disappointing that despite increased funding and recruitment for Trading Standards, we actually saw fewer inspections. With major regulatory change in the form of the disposable vapes ban, we should have seen significantly more scrutiny, not less.

“We need substantially more enforcement officers if the Government is serious about tackling this issue. Our proposed licensing scheme would deliver tens of millions of pounds annually direct to Trading Standards – giving them the resources for genuine proactive enforcement and the ability to monitor every retailer, at no cost to the taxpayer.”

You can read the Vape Club report in full here.