On September 14, 2026, HM Treasury made the Finance Act 2009 (Section 101) (Vaping Products Duty) (Appointed Day) Order 2026 (SI 2026/1024, C. 85). The Order appoints October 1, 2026 as the day on which section 101 of the Finance Act 2009, HMRC's standard late-payment interest provision, comes into force for the UK Vaping Products Duty (VPD) and for penalties under Part 4 of the Finance Act 2026.
October 1, 2026 is the same day the VPD charge itself becomes payable under Finance Act 2026 Part 4. From that date, any VPD-approved manufacturer, importer, warehousekeeper or overseas maker with a UK representative that pays the duty late will see interest accrue from the due date, and the Part 4 penalty regime will be live for failures to file, pay or account for the duty. Affected businesses have 17 days to fold the interest and penalty start into payment calendars and cash-flow forecasts.
What does SI 2026/1024 appoint, and why does the date matter?
Section 101 of the Finance Act 2009 is HMRC's general late-payment interest provision: it charges interest on tax paid late, at the late-payment interest rate set separately under the Act. On its own it says nothing about vaping. SI 2026/1024 extends it to VPD and to the Part 4 penalties, fixing October 1, 2026 as the start, and records that no Tax Information and Impact Note was prepared, consistent with a commencement of previously announced interest policy rather than new policy.
The timing matters because VPD liabilities first arise on October 1, 2026, when the duty becomes chargeable on the production, import and release of vaping products in or into Great Britain. Aligning the interest start with the first day of charge means there is no interest-free grace period for the first return period: a late or short-paid first VPD return carries interest from the due date. The Order also brings the Part 4 penalty provisions into force on the same day, and section 101 interest runs on the penalties themselves, not only on the underlying duty.
Who must build this into their payment calendar?
Every entity in the VPD approval regime is in scope: manufacturers producing vaping products in Great Britain, importers bringing them in, warehousekeepers moving goods through excise warehousing, and overseas makers who must appoint a UK representative to account for the duty. In practice that spans the UK vape operations of Imperial Brands and British American Tobacco, JTI's vape units, independent UK e-liquid manufacturers, and the Chinese OEMs that supply the UK market directly.
For all of them the operational consequence is the same: the first VPD return and payment must land on time, because the cost of being late now includes interest from day one plus the Part 4 penalty ladder for late filing, late payment, and understatement or failure to account for the duty.
| Milestone | Date | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Duty-stamp and production rules in force; VPD approvals opened | April 1, 2026 | SI 2026/331 (C. 28) |
| VPD duty chargeable; FA 2009 s.101 late-payment interest and Part 4 penalties in force | October 1, 2026 | SI 2026/1024 (C. 85) |
| Unstamped product offences apply | April 1, 2027 | FA 2026 Part 4 |
What should affected businesses do before October 1, 2026?
- Confirm VPD approval status with HMRC: only approved manufacturers, importers and warehousekeepers may handle duty-suspended vaping product from October 1.
- Map the duty-payment and return cycle to the Part 4 deadlines and load the late-payment interest rate into cash-flow models, treating any short payment as carrying interest from the due date.
- Brief finance and compliance teams that Part 4 penalties are live from October 1 and themselves bear interest, so a late-filing or late-payment penalty compounds rather than sits flat.
Continuous, per-jurisdiction real-time monitoring surfaces a commencement order like this the moment it lands on the statute book, so payment-calendar changes can be queued before the duty start rather than caught after the first return.
Subscribe to the free newsletter
Next steps: verify your entity's VPD approval and registration, confirm the first return and payment dates against Finance Act 2026 Part 4, and brief finance on the interest-from-day-one exposure. Obsidian tracks every UK excise and tax commencement as it publishes, so the VPD rollout does not arrive unannounced.
