Pay tobacco tax

You must pay the tobacco tax in the form of the tax stamp debt by affixing German tax stamps to your retail packages and cancelling them, i.e. using them. The tax stamps must already have been used at the time the tax is incurred.
This is how you acquire the German tax stamps, if you are in possession of a valid permit and are authorized to obtain tax stamps:

• You can find the form "Tax declaration for tobacco tax stamps" (Form 1619) on the Customs website. This can be completed digitally or manually after printing.
• Calculate the tax stamp debt on the form.
• Send the printed and signed form to the main customs office in Bielefeld.
• Pay the tax stamp debt on the respective due date.
• You will receive the ordered quantity of tax stamps.
• Validate the tax stamps and attach them to the sales packages.

You must submit a tax return (in individual cases) if the tax is due, for example, to

• Unlawful withdrawal from the tax warehouse or unlawful consumption in the tax warehouse,
• production without the required permission of the main customs office,
• irregularities in transportation under tax suspension,
• supply to persons who do not hold a valid permit for tax-free commercial use,
• holding tobacco products for commercial purposes (in the case of transfer of tobacco products from the tax-free circulation of another Member State).
• has arisen.

To do this, proceed as follows:

• Access the "Tax Return for Tobacco Products in Individual Cases" form (Form 1625) on the Customs website. Fill it out digitally or manually after printing it out.
• Send the completed and signed form immediately to your responsible main customs office.
• You will receive a tax assessment.

The responsible main customs office is the one from whose district you operate your business or, if you do not operate a business, in whose district you are domiciled. If your business is operated from a location outside of Germany or if you do not have a residence in Germany, the main customs office in whose district you first appear for tax purposes is locally responsible.

Please note that the tobacco products may be seized.

More information

Goods subject to tobacco tax are defined as follows:

Cigars or cigarillos

Cigars or cigarillos are strands of tobacco intended and suitable for smoking, wrapped with a wrapper or with a wrapper and a binder. The tobacco strands must

• be made entirely of natural tobacco
• have an outer wrapper of natural tobacco, or
• be filled with cracked mixed tobacco, and
  
  • have an outer wrapper of normal cigar color made of reconstituted tobacco that completely wraps them (if applicable, the filter but not the mouthpiece may also be wrapped).
  • have a unit weight (= average weight of 1,000 pieces without filter and mouthpiece at the time of taxation) of not less than 2.3 grams and not more than 10 grams.
  • have a circumference of 34 millimeters or more over at least one-third of their length.

Cigarettes are rolls of tobacco that are

• are suitable for smoking directly and are not cigars or cigarillos as described above,
• are inserted into a cigarette paper tube by a simple non-industrial process
• or
• Are wrapped by a simple non-industrial process with a cigarette paper wrapper.

Smoking tobacco (fine cut and pipe tobacco)

Smoking tobacco is the generic term for fine cut and pipe tobacco and is

• tobacco cut or otherwise shredded or spun or pressed into slabs suitable for smoking without further industrial processing.
• not limited to finished products, but also includes tobacco processed and suitable for smoking as a precursor, semi-finished or intermediate product.
• Whether the smoking tobacco is fine cut or pipe tobacco can be distinguished by the following characteristics.

Fine cut

• has tobacco parts that are 25 percent of their weight less than 1.5 millimeters long or wide,
• contains smoking tobacco intended for self-manufacture of cigarettes, for example, according to the inscription on the sales packaging or according to other enclosed documents
• consumers use to make their own cigarettes.

Pipe tobacco

• is smoking tobacco that cannot be classified as fine cut.

Waterpipe tobacco

• Water pipe tobacco is classified as pipe tobacco even if its tobacco parts meet the size requirements for fine cut.

Heated tobacco ("heat-not-burn" products)

• Heated tobacco ("heat-not-burn" products) are strands of tobacco (also called "tobacco sticks") surrounded by an aluminum paper composite and consumed by means of an electronic device. Heated tobacco is classified as pipe tobacco.

In contrast, tobacco sticks that are not wrapped with an aluminum paper composite and therefore can be smoked directly like cigarettes are classified as cigarettes for tax purposes.

Tobacco waste

Tobacco waste is smoking tobacco if

• it is suitable for smoking
• packaged for retail sale and
• are not cigars, cigarillos or cigarettes as described above.

Tobacco waste includes

• remains of tobacco leaves as well as
• By-products resulting from the processing of tobacco or from the manufacture, treatment or processing of tobacco products.

Goods assimilated to tobacco products (substitute products).

• Such goods consist in whole or in part of substances other than tobacco, i.e., for example, "herbal cigarettes," "smoke pastes," "hookah wads," or "vapor stones"

• As a rule, no documentation is required.

• Forms Management System (FMS) of the Federal Finance Administration
  

There are usually no additional costs.
In the event of late payment, a late payment surcharge will be levied.

What deadlines must be paid attention to?

Use of the tax stamps: before the emergence of tobacco tax
Submission of the tax return: immediately

How long does it take to process

Tax stamps are usually sent within 2 business days.
The tax assessment upon submission of a tax return is usually issued within 6 weeks.

• §§ 17 bis 18 Tabaksteuergesetz (TabStG)
• §§ 32 bis 38 Tabaksteuer-Durchführungsverordnung (TabStV)

• Informationen zum Steuergegenstand im Tabaksteuerrecht auf der Internetseite der Zollverwaltung
• Informationen zu Besteuerungsverfahren auf der Internetseite der Zollverwaltung