Tobacco — Netherlands
What travelers need to know about tobacco in Netherlands. What is legal at home can be a serious crime here — each rule links to its official source.
Tobacco in Netherlands: prohibited — what is legal at home can be a serious crime here.
Arriving from the US you get the non-EU allowance: per traveller aged 17 or over, 200 cigarettes OR 100 cigarillos OR 50 cigars OR 250 g of smoking tobacco. You can mix them, but the percentages must add up to no more than 100% of a single allowance — 200 cigarettes is one carton and uses the whole thing. Dutch tobacco tax is steep: Douane says one extra carton costs just over EUR 100 in duty, excise and VAT.
No fine amount is published for exceeding the tobacco allowance — Douane states only "Doet u geen aangifte? Dan krijgt u boven op de belasting een boete." Tobacco assessed as not for personal use is seized outright because it lacks Dutch excise seals.
§ Douane (Netherlands Customs) — Sigaretten of tabakThe Netherlands bans smoking indoors everywhere the public goes — bars, restaurants, hotels, offices, stations, public buildings — and there are no smoking rooms any more. E-cigarettes and shisha count as smoking. The one that catches visitors: the indoor ban applies inside coffeeshops too, so you cannot smoke a tobacco-mixed joint there. Outdoors you can smoke, except on school grounds and NS railway stations.
§ Rijksoverheid — Waar geldt een rookverbod