What restrictions apply to where tobacco may be sold?

Sale is prohibited in educational and upbringing institutions and within a 50-meter radius of their territories, and in public, medical, sports and cultural institutions. In a trade object, the product must be placed separately from food or other products.

May cigarettes be sold as single sticks?

No. Sale by single sticks or in a package containing fewer or more than 20 cigarettes is prohibited, as is sale without packaging or through machines, the internet or mail.

How large must the medical warning be on packaging?

The warning must occupy not less than 65 percent of the total area of the front and back large sides of the package, with a frame line 1 mm thick, in the state language and bold type.

How does warning rotation work?

Over a year, the manufacturer or importer must use every main warning evenly and select 3 additional warnings with the corresponding pictograms. Information on the rotation is submitted to the authorized organ.

What quantity of imported tobacco is exempt from the law's norms?

The norms — apart from the smoking restriction — do not apply to quantities brought in by air within 1 calendar day, or in other cases within 30 calendar days, in the amounts determined by the Customs Code.

Tobacco Regulations in Tbilisi, Georgia

The regulation of tobacco products, tobacco accessories and consumption devices is the product-side face of the Law of Georgia on Tobacco Control: what counts as a tobacco product, where and how it may be sold and displayed, what its packaging and medical warnings must look like, and how consumers are protected from falsified products. This page describes precisely that product-and-trade dimension, and separately addresses export and import rules.

Terminology: what counts as a tobacco product

A tobacco product is a product containing tobacco or its elements — except a medicinal product containing nicotine — intended for smoking, chewing, sucking or inhaling. The law includes in this category filtered and unfiltered cigarettes, papirosy, cigars and cigarillos, pipe tobacco, hookah tobacco, twisting tobacco, chewing, sucking and inhaling tobacco, as well as the nicotine-containing material, cartridge or capsule of an electronic cigarette.

Separate definitions exist for the new tobacco product — one that does not fall into any other category; the nicotine-containing product without tobacco; heated tobacco, intended for consumption by heating only; and the tobacco accessory or consumption device — from mouthpiece to pipe, from electronic cigarette to any kind of cigar case. The tobacco industry means the production, import, sale, export, re-export or transit of tobacco products; sale means the transfer of a ready product to another person for sale or other forms of distribution for commercial gain.

Restrictions on sale and display

It is prohibited to involve persons under 18 in the tobacco industry and to sell products, accessories or devices to persons under 18. Sale is prohibited in educational and upbringing institutions and within a 50-meter radius of their adjacent territories, as well as around early and preschool education institutions within the same radius.

The law also prohibits sale and placement:

in public institutions and in medical, sports and cultural institutions and their territories;
in a trade object unless the product is placed separately from food or other products — separated placement means an opaque shelf, partition or a separate section;
as single sticks or in a package containing fewer or more than 20 cigarettes;
without packaging, through electronic or mechanical machines, via the internet or by mail, free of charge or below cost;
on a shop window visible from outside or inside the object, and by direct delivery to persons seated in a vehicle.

Supply of pipe tobacco, twisting tobacco and tobacco raw material is permissible only in primary packages of 50 or 100 grams net mass. At points of sale, an approved medical warning must be placed on paper of at least A4 format, together with a contact telephone for consultation and information on the ban on sales to persons under 18. If a seller cannot confirm the buyer's age of majority, the seller is obliged to request an identity document.

Tobacco Regulations