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HB0987 • 2026

Taxes, Tobacco, Tobacco Products

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 67, Chapter 4, relative to heated tobacco products.

Taxes
Active

The official status still shows this bill as active or still awaiting another formal step.

Sponsor
Williams, Stevens
Last action
2025-04-09
Official status
Placed on s/c cal Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee for 4/14/2025
Effective date
Not listed

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary does not mention consumers being affected directly.

Tennessee Heated Tobacco Product Tax Act

This bill amends Tennessee's tobacco laws by defining heated tobacco products and setting a specific tax rate of 0.15 cents per cigarette for these products.

What This Bill Does

  • Defines 'heated tobacco product' in Tennessee law, which includes any tobacco-containing item that produces an inhalable aerosol through heating without burning.
  • Classifies heated tobacco products as cigarettes for the purpose of taxation.
  • Sets a tax rate of 0.15 cents per cigarette specifically for heated tobacco products.

Who It Names or Affects

  • Tobacco dealers and distributors in Tennessee

Terms To Know

Heated Tobacco Product
A product that contains tobacco and produces an inhalable aerosol through heating without burning.
Cigarette Tax Rate
The amount of tax charged per cigarette sold in Tennessee.

Limits and Unknowns

  • The exact impact on state revenue from this new tax cannot be determined with certainty.
  • This bill does not specify how the additional revenue will be used.

Bill History

  1. 2025-04-09 Tennessee General Assembly

    Placed on s/c cal Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee for 4/14/2025

  2. 2025-03-25 Tennessee General Assembly

    Assigned to General Subcommittee of Commerce & Labor Committee

  3. 2025-03-19 Tennessee General Assembly

    Def. to Special Calendar to be Published with Final Calendar in Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee

  4. 2025-03-19 Tennessee General Assembly

    Placed on Senate Commerce and Labor Committee calendar for 3/25/2025

  5. 2025-03-18 Tennessee General Assembly

    Action deferred in Senate Commerce and Labor Committee to 3/25/2025

  6. 2025-03-13 Tennessee General Assembly

    Placed on Senate Commerce and Labor Committee calendar for 3/18/2025

  7. 2025-03-12 Tennessee General Assembly

    Placed on s/c cal Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee for 3/19/2025

  8. 2025-03-11 Tennessee General Assembly

    Placed on Senate Commerce and Labor Committee calendar for 3/18/2025

  9. 2025-03-05 Tennessee General Assembly

    Taken off notice for cal in s/c Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee of Finance, Ways, and Means Committee

  10. 2025-02-26 Tennessee General Assembly

    Placed on s/c cal Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee for 3/5/2025

  11. 2025-02-26 Tennessee General Assembly

    Action Def. in s/c Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee to 3/5/2025

  12. 2025-02-24 Tennessee General Assembly

    Placed on s/c cal Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee for 2/26/2025

  13. 2025-02-18 Tennessee General Assembly

    Refer to Senate Commerce & Labor Committee

  14. 2025-02-18 Tennessee General Assembly

    Recalled from Senate Finance, Ways & Means

  15. 2025-02-12 Tennessee General Assembly

    Passed on Second Consideration, refer to Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee

  16. 2025-02-11 Tennessee General Assembly

    Assigned to s/c Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee

  17. 2025-02-10 Tennessee General Assembly

    P2C, ref. to Finance, Ways, and Means Committee

  18. 2025-02-10 Tennessee General Assembly

    Introduced, Passed on First Consideration

  19. 2025-02-06 Tennessee General Assembly

    Intro., P1C.

  20. 2025-02-05 Tennessee General Assembly

    Filed for introduction

  21. 2025-02-05 Tennessee General Assembly

    Filed for introduction

Official Summary Text

Present law requires every
dealer or distributor of tobacco products
to
pay
a tax for the
privilege of selling cigarettes and tobacco products in
Tennessee. The tax for selling cigarettes is 3.1 cents per cigarette, plus an enforcement and administration fee of 0.05 cents per pack. The tax
on all other tobacco products,
including, but not limited to, cigars, cheroots, stogies, beedies, bidis, manufactured tobacco, and snuff of all descriptions made of tobacco or any substitute for tobacco
(but excluding smokeless nicotine products)
, is 6.6% of the wholesale cost price
.

This bill defines "heated tobacco product" to mean
a product containing tobacco that produces an inhalable aerosol:

(
1
) By heating the tobacco by means of a device without combustion of the tobacco; or

(
2
) By heat generated from a combustion source th
at only or primarily heats rather than burns the tobacco
.

This bill classifies heated tobacco products as cigarettes for purposes of the privilege tax on selling cigarettes in Tennessee; provided, that the tax rate on each
cigarette that is a heated toba
cco product
is
0.15
cents
.

Current Bill Text

Read the full stored bill text
SENATE BILL 893
By Stevens

HOUSE BILL 987
By Williams

HB0987
001978
- 1 -

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 67,
Chapter 4, relative to heated tobacco products.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 67-4-1001(2), is amended by
deleting the subsection and substituting instead the following:
(2)
(A) "Cigarette" or "cigarettes" means and includes all rolled, shredded, or
cut tobacco, or any substitute therefor, wrapped in paper, or substitute therefor,
and all rolled, shredded or cut tobacco, or any substitute therefor, wrapped in
homogenized tobacco wrapper, and being within customary cigarette sizes and
marketed in cigarette type packages;
(B) "Cigarette" includes any cigarette produced by a cigarette rolling
machine at a retail establishment;
(C) "Cigarette" includes a "heated tobacco product"; and
(D) "Cigarette" does not include smokeless nicotine products;
SECTION 2. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 67-4-1001, is amended by adding
the following new subdivision:
( ) "Heated tobacco product" means a product containing tobacco that produces
an inhalable aerosol:
(i) By heating the tobacco by means of a device without combustion of
the tobacco; or

- 2 - 001978

(ii) By heat generated from a combustion source that only or primarily
heats rather than burns the tobacco;
SECTION 3. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 67-4-1004, is amended by deleting
the section and substituting instead the following:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (e), the rate shall be three cents
(3¢) on each cigarette.
(b) In addition to the tax provided in subsection (a), every dealer or distributor of
tobacco products defined in this part shall pay an enforcement and administration fee to
the department of five hundredths of a cent (0.05¢) per pack of cigarettes for sale in
Tennessee. The fee shall be collected from each dealer or distributor upon the
purchase of tobacco tax stamps from the commissioner.
(c) Any wholesale dealers, jobbers, tobacco distributors, and retail dealers
having cigarette tax stamps, affixed and unaffixed, in their possession on July 1, 2007,
shall not be required to pay the additional cigarette tax on the stamps resulting from the
increase in the tax rate from ten (10) mills to three cents (3¢) on cigarettes bearing the
stamps.
(d)
(1) In addition to the tax provided in subsection (a), there shall be levied
an additional one-tenth of one cent (0.1¢) on each cigarette.
(2) Any wholesale dealers, jobbers, tobacco distributors, and retail
dealers having cigarette tax stamps, affixed and unaffixed, in their possession on
July 1, 2007, shall not be required to pay the additional cigarette tax on the
stamps resulting from the increase in the tax rate of one-tenth of one cent (0.1¢)
on cigarettes bearing the stamps.

- 3 - 001978

(e) For each cigarette that is a heated tobacco product, the tax rate shall be
fifteen hundredths of one cent (0.15¢) on each such cigarette that is a heated tobacco
product. Subsection (a) does not apply to cigarettes subject to tax under this subsection
(e).
SECTION 4. This act takes effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.