A Eurostat study has found that just over one in every six persons in the Maltese islands aged 16 or older uses tobacco and related products every day.
Eurostat stated last week that 16.5% of people aged at least 16 years of age across the entire European Union consumed tobacco and related products daily in 2025. This means that the tendency for a Maltese adult to consume such products rests slightly above the EU average.
For Malta and the EU alike, a slight decrease was observed in the percentage of people using such products on a daily basis from 2022, three years prior. A 0.9% decrease was noted for Malta between 2022 and 2025, while a 1% drop was observed for the whole EU population.
18.7% of Maltese said they consume tobacco and/or related products on a daily basis in 2022. This has now decreased to 17.8% daily.
The countries with the highest incidence of daily tobacco consumption (and related products) were found in Bulgaria (26.3%), Sweden (23.9%), Norway (23.8%), Croatia (23.6%), and Greece (22.6%).
The countries with the lowest incidence of daily tobacco consumption (and related products) were the Netherlands (9.9%), Ireland (11.7%), Belgium (13.6%), Luxembourg (13.8%), and Germany (14.9%).
Ranked by incidence of daily consumption, Malta placed thirteenth (13th) across all European Union countries.
In this study, "related products" relates to items such as e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, and/or heated tobacco products. Across the whole continent, nearly four in every five people (77.5%) said that they do not use any of these products or had not used them in the 12 months prior to this study's data collection. Meanwhile, 2.7% of respondents said they use these products on a weekly basis, 1.4% said they consume these products on a monthly basis, and 1.8% noted their frequency of use at less than once a month.
Malta was among 17 EU countries where the share of people using tobacco and related products daily decreased between 2022 and 2025. Spain and Luxembourg observed the largest decreases (-2.1% each). On the other end of the spectrum, Croatia and Lithuania recorded the largest percentage increases in this regard (up +2.7% each).
From the one in six people across the EU block who consume such products every day, the majority are men. Just over one in five (20.8%) men smoked every day, in comparison to 12.6% of all women. Both of these gendered marks have gone down since 2022; back then, 22.2% of men and 13.1% of women admitted to smoke daily.
The age demographic responsible for most daily users of tobacco and related products was that of 35-49-year-olds; 21.3% of this whole demographic consumes these products daily. Younger people aged between 25 and 34 years of age followed suit, with 19.9% of this age demographic across the EU smoking daily. Virtually the same share of 50-64-year-olds (19.8%) use these products every day.
The age groups with the lowest shares of people using these products every day were the youngest and oldest within this study; 12.1% of people aged between 16-24 years of age and 9.1% of people aged 65 and over recorded daily consumption.