Four in five vapes and cigarettes consumed in Australia were bought on the black market, up from 12 per cent less than a decade earlier, according to new official estimates.
The data, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, painted a much more sobering picture of the scale of the problem compared to the government's hand-picked Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarette Commissioner.
In her 2025 annual report, commissioner Amber Shuhyta estimated illicit tobacco comprised 50-60 per cent of the total market.
Between 2017 and 2025, the black market share of total nicotine consumption climbed from 12 per cent to 80 per cent, the ABS said.
The quantity of total nicotine consumed increased by 40 per cent, while the population only increased by 14 per cent over the same period.
