The Scottish Government has set 29 October 2026 as the first operative date for Scotland's new retailer registration changes under the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026. The commencement regulations were made on 24 June 2026, laid before the Scottish Parliament on 26 June 2026, and will bring section 69 and most of schedule 9 into force in the autumn. According to the Scottish Statutory Instrument published on legislation.gov.uk, this first phase is aimed at the register of tobacco and vaping product retailers in the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010. The immediate effect is to widen that register to cover additional product categories, while postponing part of the related offence regime.
Section 69 and schedule 9 extend the Scottish registration system beyond tobacco and vaping products. The explanatory note says herbal smoking product businesses and nicotine product businesses will be brought into the same regime already used for tobacco and vaping retailers, so that all four categories become "registrable businesses" once the amendments take effect. The instrument also fixes the sequence. Regulation 2 provides that the schedule 9 changes start immediately after section 68 and schedule 8 of the 2026 Act, which align the definition of "vaping product", come into force on 29 October 2026. That sequencing matters because the schedule 9 amendments are drafted to operate on the basis that the schedule 8 definitional changes are already in place.
The main exception concerns the offence provisions. Regulation 2 delays paragraph 15(a), (b) and (d) of schedule 9 until 29 April 2027, six months after the wider register becomes active. Those paragraphs amend section 20 of the 2010 Act, which deals with offences tied to registration. That means the register expands on 29 October 2026, but the revised offence rules for the newly covered business types do not start until 29 April 2027. The explanatory note presents this as a six-month registration window for herbal smoking product businesses and nicotine product businesses.
For retailers, the practical position is clear. Businesses selling herbal smoking products or nicotine products in Scotland will have a defined period from 29 October 2026 to 29 April 2027 to enter the register before the amended offence provisions begin to apply. That follows directly from the decision to start the wider register first and the revised offence provisions later. For councils, the legal position also changes. The explanatory note states that, once schedule 9 is in force, tobacco businesses, herbal smoking product businesses, vaping product businesses and nicotine product businesses will all be treated as registrable businesses. At that point, a council may apply to the sheriff for a "banning order" rather than a "tobacco and vaping product banning order".
The Regulations also deal with cases already under way before 29 October 2026. Regulation 3 states that any application for a tobacco and vaping product banning order made before that date, but not yet determined, is to be treated as an application for the new form of banning order under section 15 of the 2010 Act. The purpose is continuity: live enforcement action does not fall away because the statutory terminology changes mid-process. The source text also notes that earlier transitional wording in schedule 8 had already updated older references from a "tobacco and nicotine vapour product banning order" to a "tobacco and vaping product banning order". Regulation 3 then carries those proceedings into the new banning order model from 29 October 2026.
Existing orders are preserved as well. Where a tobacco and vaping product banning order was made before 29 October 2026 and remains in force, several provisions in the 2010 Act must continue to be read as if references to a banning order include that earlier type of order. The Regulations specifically preserve continuity for provisions on registration decisions, ancillary orders, appeals and offences relating to the register. The saving provisions go further in two places. First, where an ancillary order under section 16(1)(b) relates to an older tobacco and vaping product banning order, section 16(2) of the 2010 Act continues to operate as though the relevant schedule 9 amendment had not yet been made. Secondly, section 19 on the display of notices is also preserved for those older orders on the same basis.
The Regulations take the same approach to definitions. They preserve the meaning of "tobacco or vaping product business" for the limited purpose of making the transitional rules work and, until 29 April 2027, for the section 20(1) offence covering an unregistered person carrying on that type of business. According to the explanatory note, that temporary saving bridges the period before the amended offence wording comes into force. This is therefore a staged commencement instrument rather than a new substantive ban on sales. The dates matter more than the headline. On 29 October 2026, the register widens and the new banning order model begins. On 29 April 2027, the delayed offence amendments start, ending the temporary compliance window for herbal smoking product businesses and nicotine product businesses that need to register.