How Many People Vape? Global Vaping Statistics for 2026

How many people vape? The best current answer is that there are well over 100 million vapers worldwide — and depending on which research method you use, the true adult total could be closer to 130 million.

That is quite a jump from the early years of vaping, when the worldwide population of regular users could still be counted in the tens of millions.

Getting an exact number is surprisingly difficult, though. There is no single worldwide vaping census, countries collect their statistics in different ways and researchers don't always use the same definition of a “current vaper”.

Fortunately, the data have improved dramatically. In 2025, the World Health Organization published its first global estimate of e-cigarette use. A separate peer-reviewed study published in 2026 also produced a detailed worldwide estimate using national survey data and statistical modelling.

How Many People Vape Worldwide?

There are currently two particularly useful answers to this question.

WHO Estimate: More Than 100 Million People

In its 2025 global tobacco trends report, the World Health Organization produced its first worldwide estimate of current e-cigarette use.

WHO estimated:

• At least 86 million adult vapers.
• About 15 million adolescents aged 13–15 using e-cigarettes.
• More than 100 million current users overall.

Importantly, this isn't a count of everyone who has ever taken a puff from a vape. These figures are intended to represent current use.

2025 Adult Estimate: Around 129 Million

A separate peer-reviewed analysis published in Global Epidemiology estimated that there were approximately 129 million adult nicotine vapers worldwide in 2025.

The researchers combined national survey evidence with statistical estimates for countries where reliable vaping surveys were unavailable.

That analysis also estimated that the adult vaping population had grown from around 50 million in 2018 to more than 114 million in 2023 and approximately 129 million in 2025.

Source: Jerzyński, Mzhavanadze & Stimson, Global Epidemiology (2026).

So Is It 100 Million or 129 Million?

It's tempting to look at two different estimates and conclude that one of them must be wrong.

Global population statistics don't really work that way.

Neither organisation has literally counted every person who vapes. Both estimates depend on surveys, definitions and statistical modelling.

The WHO figure is best understood as a relatively conservative global estimate showing that at least 100 million people currently use e-cigarettes.

The 129 million estimate is specifically an estimate of adult nicotine vapers and uses a different methodology to fill gaps in countries without good recent survey data.

Why Is It So Difficult to Count Vapers?

Counting smokers is comparatively straightforward because governments have been surveying tobacco use for decades. Vaping is newer, and international data collection is far less consistent.

Several problems make comparisons difficult.

Countries Ask Different Questions

One national survey might ask whether someone vapes every day. Another counts anyone who vapes either daily or occasionally.

Someone who uses a vape twice a month might therefore be considered a current user in one dataset but excluded from another.

“Ever Vaped” Is Not the Same as “Currently Vapes”

This is an especially important distinction.

If 20% of a country's population has ever tried a vape, that does not mean 20% are vapers.

Experimentation figures are naturally much higher than figures for daily or current use.

Age Groups Are Different

One survey may cover adults aged 18 and over, another people aged 16 and over and another everyone aged 14 and over.

That makes apparently similar percentages surprisingly difficult to compare directly.

Some Surveys Include Nicotine-Free Vaping

Most vaping involves nicotine, but nicotine-free e-liquid also exists.

A study specifically measuring nicotine vaping may therefore produce a slightly different result from a survey asking about all e-cigarette use.

Many Countries Have Limited Data

Vaping surveys are especially sparse in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Researchers therefore sometimes have to estimate prevalence based on neighbouring countries, economic indicators, regulatory environments or other available information.

How Quickly Has Vaping Grown Worldwide?

The long-term direction is very clear even if the exact numbers aren't.

The 2026 global analysis estimated roughly:

Growth hasn't been evenly distributed around the world. WHO reports that adult vaping remains concentrated particularly in higher-income countries.

The European region has some of the world's highest adult e-cigarette use, while vaping remains relatively uncommon or difficult to measure in a number of lower-income countries.

How Many People Vape in Great Britain?

Great Britain has one of the world's most established vaping populations.

The latest official Office for National Statistics figures estimate that around 5.4 million adults aged 16 and over currently used e-cigarettes in Great Britain in 2024.

That's approximately 10.0% of the adult population — around one person in ten.

It was also a notable year because the estimated number of current vapers overtook the number of current cigarette smokers in Great Britain for the first time. ONS estimated smoking prevalence at 9.1% compared with 10.0% for vaping.

A separate 2025 survey from Action on Smoking and Health produced a very similar result, estimating approximately 5.5 million adult vapers, or 10.4% of adults in Great Britain.

Who Vapes in Great Britain?

Most adult vapers in Great Britain either smoke cigarettes now or smoked them in the past.

ASH's 2025 survey estimated that among current adult vapers:

• 55% were former smokers.
• 40% currently smoked as well as vaped.
• 5% had never smoked.

That helps explain why vaping is much more common in Britain than in many other countries. UK public-health policy has generally treated regulated vaping as an alternative for adults who smoke rather than simply another tobacco product.

The hardware has also changed dramatically. Today's vape kits are far easier to use than early e-cigarettes, while pre-filled pod systems have lowered the learning curve even further.

How Many People Vape in the United States?

The latest detailed figures from the US National Center for Health Statistics show that 6.5% of American adults currently used e-cigarettes in 2023.

That was up from 4.5% in 2019.

Vaping was particularly common among younger adults:

• 10.3% of adults aged 18–20.
• 15.5% of adults aged 21–24.
• 12.6% of adults aged 25–34.
• 7.3% of adults aged 35–49.
• 3.3% of adults aged 50–64.
• 0.9% of adults aged 65 and over.

Source: US National Center for Health Statistics, National Health Interview Survey.

The age pattern is striking. In the United States, vaping is overwhelmingly more common among younger adults than among older age groups.

How Many People Vape in the European Union?

European Union vaping rates are generally lower than those in Great Britain, although there is substantial variation between individual countries.

An analysis by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre using 2023 Eurobarometer data found that:

• 1.7% of people aged 15 and over used nicotine-containing e-cigarettes every day.
• 2.4% used nicotine-containing e-cigarettes either daily or occasionally.

Use was considerably higher among younger adults. Almost 7% of people aged 20–24 reported daily or occasional nicotine e-cigarette use.

Individual countries differed substantially. Daily nicotine vaping was below 1% in some EU members while reaching around 4–5% in several others.

Source: European Commission Joint Research Centre.

How Many People Vape in Australia?

Australia provides another good illustration of why definitions matter.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported that in 2022–23:

• 19.8% of people aged 14 and over had tried an e-cigarette at least once.
• 7.0% were current users.

Current use nearly tripled from 2.5% in 2019.

Among people aged 18–24, current vaping reached 21%.

Source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The difference between 19.8% having ever vaped and 7% currently vaping is exactly why those two statistics shouldn't be used interchangeably.

Worldwide Vaping Statistics at a Glance

How Many Young People Vape Worldwide?

WHO's 2025 estimate included approximately 14.7 million e-cigarette users aged 13–15 worldwide.

WHO also found that in countries with sufficient data, adolescents were substantially more likely than adults to report vaping.

Youth vaping is therefore a major reason why governments around the world have introduced tighter rules around age verification, flavours, packaging, advertising and disposable products.

Vapes are intended for adults and should not be used by children or young people.

Which Part of the World Has the Most Vapers?

In absolute numbers, answering this confidently is difficult because reliable recent national surveys aren't available everywhere.

In percentage terms, though, WHO reports that its European Region has the world's highest adult e-cigarette prevalence, at around 4.6%.

That's more than double the global adult average in the WHO dataset.

Individual markets can be considerably higher. Great Britain's current adult vaping prevalence is around 10%, for example.

Vaping is generally more established in wealthier countries where:

• Vape products have been commercially available for longer.
• Consumers have greater access to specialist retailers.
• Smoking populations have had more opportunities to switch products.
• Regulations permit a legal consumer vaping market.

That doesn't mean vaping is absent elsewhere. It means we're much better at measuring it in some parts of the world than others.

How Many People Have Ever Tried Vaping?

Far more people have tried a vape than currently use one.

That's true in almost every national survey.

Australia, for example, reported 19.8% lifetime use but only 7% current use. The same general pattern appears across Europe and North America.

This is why a headline saying “one in five people have vaped” can sound much more dramatic than the underlying data actually suggest.

Trying a friend's vape once several years ago and using a vape every day are obviously very different behaviours.

If you're trying to answer how many people vape, current-use statistics are much more useful than lifetime experimentation.

Are There Now More Vapers Than Smokers?

Worldwide, no.

Tobacco smoking remains far more common globally than vaping.

However, some individual countries are beginning to see vaping approach or overtake cigarette smoking.

Great Britain crossed that line in the 2024 ONS survey, when an estimated 10.0% of adults used e-cigarettes compared with 9.1% who currently smoked cigarettes.

That doesn't necessarily mean every former smoker has simply switched to vaping. The vaping population includes current smokers, former smokers and a smaller number of people who have never smoked.

Will the Number of Vapers Keep Growing?

It's difficult to predict.

The global trend has been upward, but individual markets can level off or decline as regulations and consumer preferences change.

Britain provides a good example. Vaping grew rapidly for years, particularly after easy-to-use disposable devices became widespread, but ASH's 2025 adult survey estimated a slight reduction from 5.6 million vapers in 2024 to approximately 5.5 million in 2025.

The UK market is also changing again following the 2025 single-use vape ban, with rechargeable pre-filled systems and refillable pod kits replacing traditional disposables.

Globally, meanwhile, much of the future growth may come from countries where vaping currently has a relatively small presence.

So the worldwide number could continue rising even if mature markets such as Britain begin to stabilise.

Frequently Asked Questions

So, How Many People Vape?

The days when the global vaping population could reasonably be estimated at only 20 or 30 million are long gone.

The most cautious current answer is that more than 100 million people around the world vape. A detailed independent estimate suggests the adult nicotine-vaping population alone may already be close to 130 million.

What's more interesting than choosing between those two numbers is what they tell us about the bigger picture. Vaping has moved from a niche alternative used by a relatively small group of early adopters to a product used by tens of millions of people across dozens of countries.

The statistics are still much better in Britain, the United States, Europe and Australia than they are in many other parts of the world. As international survey coverage improves, the worldwide estimate will probably become more precise.

For now, though, “well over 100 million” is a considerably better answer to how many people vape than trying to pretend we know the exact number down to the last pod.