South America: Market data & legal analysis of the nicotine sector

25th February 2025: Colombia: The Chamber of Representatives (lower house of the parliament) has approved bill 228/2024 in a second debate. The bill proposes a tax of COP11,175 ($2.71) on heated tobacco and COP891 ($0.22) on nicotine pouches. The initiative, referred to as a “health tax”, aims to reduce the consumption of these products nationwide. The bill now advances to a third debate in the Senate. In parallel, bill 308/2023, which proposes a tax amounting to COP295 ($0.07) per g of heated tobacco is also still under consideration. In both cases, an additional 10% tax on the retail price would apply.
19th February 2025: Chile: The developing decree of law 21,642 has been published in the country’s official journal today. The decree and the law will both enter into force three months from now, on 19th May 2025. This means that from that date, heated tobacco products (HTPs) will be explicitly included in the tobacco framework in Chile, and will be subject to a comprehensive regulatory regime. The decree sets out the specific requirements for the labelling and health warning for e-cigarettes and tobacco products, including HTPs. Nicotine pouches have been left outside the scope of the reform, meaning that they remain subject to the pharmaceutical regime.
18th February 2025: Chile: The Ministry of Health has confirmed to TobaccoIntelligence that the developing decree of law 21,642 has been recently approved by the relevant authorities. The next step will be to publish it in the country’s official journal. The decree would put law 21,642 into effect, as the law was published in January 2024 to comprehensively regulate vaping products and to explicitly include heated tobacco products (HTPs) in the tobacco regime, but cannot enter into force until the developing decree is published.
13th November 2024: Peru: The bill regulating tobacco, vaping and other nicotine products, such as pouches, was published yesterday (12th November) in the State Bulletin and is now in force. It regulates the sale, advertising and public usage of heated tobacco and nicotine pouches. In the case of heated tobacco, it completely bans its advertising, while for nicotine pouches it is limited. It also establishes packaging requirements, such as health warnings and a prohibition on the description of flavours on the package or label that may seem attractive to under-18s.
23rd October 2024: Argentina: Philip Morris International (PMI) is hoping that the Argentinian government, led by president Javier Milei after the elections in October 2023, reverses the ban on heated tobacco products (HTPs) and liberalises the national market, press reports. As forecasted in our Policy Radar, Milei’s pro-market and liberalist view could mean the reversal of the ban imposed by the Ministry of Health in March 2023. Two weeks ago, manager of PMI’s South-America cluster Demian Pintos said in an interview that the company is in talks with the government to explore the possibility of reversing the ban.
18th October 2024: Brazil: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will suspend the National Registry of Legal Entities (CNPJ) ID of the establishments that sell, display, store or transport electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco products (HTPs) or any other prohibited related products in order to fight illegal activities. Without the CNPJ, companies will not be able to carry out commercial or financial activities. The measure will take effect on 25th October.
14th October 2024: Peru: A bill regulating tobacco and nicotine products has been approved at the parliament on its second vote. The bill aims to regulate the sale, advertising and public usage of heated tobacco products (HTPs) and nicotine pouches. It also establishes packaging requirements. The bill must now be signed by the president before entering into force.
4th October 2024: Americas: The Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) – the specialised international health agency for the region of the Americas within the World Health Organization (WHO) – has adopted a new strategy to strengthen tobacco control in the region, setting out different objectives for 2030. The strategy aims to increase the number of countries in the region adopting tobacco control measures. Measures could include establishing regulatory measures for novel tobacco and nicotine products, adopting smoke-free measures, enacting legislation to introduce large health warnings (covering at least 50% of the main surfaces of packaging) for tobacco products, introducing plain packaging for tobacco products or adopting a complete advertising ban.
23rd September 2024: Peru: A bill regulating tobacco and nicotine products has been approved in Parliament on its first vote. The bill aims to regulate the sale, advertising and public usage of heated tobacco products (HTPs) and nicotine pouches. It also establishes packaging requirements. The bill must now be approved on a second vote, which will take place next week.
4th September 2024: Brazil: The Senate Economic Affairs Committee's vote on the bill to regulate e-cigarettes with and without nicotine and heated tobacco products didn't make it onto the agenda for yesterday's (3rd September) session, press reports. A new date for the debate on the bill has not yet been set.
3rd September 2024: Paraguay: Tomorrow (4th September), the Senate will debate a bill, introduced by a single member of the parliament from the ruling party, that would comprehensively regulate heated tobacco products (HTPs), regardless of their nicotine content. Provisions would include product and ingredient restrictions (similar to the ones envisaged in the European Tobacco Products Directive), reporting obligations, labelling requirements and advertising, age and public usage restrictions
21st August 2024: Brazil: The Senate Committee on Economic Affairs removed bill 5008/2023 from yesterday’s vote schedule. The bill would legalise e-cigarettes with and without nicotine, heated tobacco products (HTPs) and herbal heated products, and would introduce a regulatory framework for all of these products. Bill 5008/2023 should return to the committee’s agenda on 3rd September. If voted favourably, the bill still has a long path ahead.

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