Last fact-checked 17 April 2024
Here in the UK, it can take a long time to bring new e-liquid brands to market! It can take as long as 6 months before a new vape juice can be marketed for sale to the general public.
In this article, we’ll explain the reasons why the UK authorities make us wait up to a half a year for new vape juices. We'll explain what the MHRA is and does, why it's involved in e-liquid regulation and what this all means for vapers in the UK.
Registering e-liquids with MHRA: the law
According to British vaping laws (learn more about the TRPR here), if an e-liquid manufacturer wants to sell e-liquid containing nicotine in the UK, they must formally notify the government at least six months before they plan to actually sell the product (source: legislation.gov.uk).
Each formal notification of a new e-liquid product gets submitted to the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), and has to contain specific information including…
- The name and contact information of the e-liquid creator (or importer)
- A full list of ingredients
- Emissions and toxicology data
- Nicotine dosage
The vape juice manufacturer also has to explain how the e-liquid was produced. They also have to make a formal declaration accepting full responsibility for the quality and safety of their product.
This notification process is an important public safety tool, because it means that there’s a formal record of every single nicotine-infused vape juice for sale in Britain today. If someone in the UK vapes a new e-liquid and feels ill, they can alert the government via the MHRA’s yellow card system in a matter of minutes. The manufacturer of that e-liquid can be notified, and their juice can be investigated, suspended or withdrawn from sale as quickly as possible.
MHRA: who they are and what they do
The MHRA, or Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, is the UK’s governing body for medicines and medical devices. It exists to make sure that any product that claims to deliver a medical benefit is safe to use (and that it does actually work). Every drug sold in the UK, from generic paracetamol tablets to advanced gene therapy treatments, has to be approved by the MHRA.
It might seem strange to think of e-liquid as a medicinal product, but if it contains nicotine, then technically, it is. Any Nicotine Containing Product (NCP), falls under the MHRA’s scope and needs to meet stringent safety standards.
In addition to a 6-month notification period, e-liquid containing nicotine can’t be stronger than 20 mg/ml, and it can’t be sold in bottles larger than 10ml. There are also health warnings that need to go on the label.
Do all new e-liquids have to wait 6 months?
The MHRA notification-and-approval process only applies to e-liquids that contain nicotine. For manufacturers of 0% shortfill e-liquid, the TRPR doesn’t apply. There’s no requirement to submit an MHRA notification or wait 6 months. Shortfill e-liquids still need to meet high standards of safety and quality, but these standards are covered by a different set of laws: the General Product Safety Regulations (source: legislation.gov.uk).
MHRA approval sometimes takes less than 6 months. As soon as an e-liquid is added to the MHRA’s published list, it can be sold here in the UK.
The MHRA decides how and when this list gets updated, but if you’re a startup e-liquid producer who wants to speed the process up as much as possible, then it’s probably worth submitting the very best notification you possibly can. You should make sure that you have done all of the necessary tests and that ingredients are listed in the correct format.
There’s some really useful guidance on how to submit an MHRA notification, explaining everything from emissions testing to labelling, on the Gov.uk website here.
What this all means for the UK e-liquid industry
The MHRA notification process might be good for public safety, but from a business perspective it’s pretty challenging.
E-liquid producers have to invest a huge amount of money, time, energy and hope into any new product before they can even get it to the stage where they’re ready to submit the MHRA notification paperwork. Then, having invested everything in their brand-new product, they have to wait up to 6 months before they can make a single sale. There's no guarantee that a new e-liquid will be added to the MHRA list, so vape juice manufacturers are effectively risking about a year of time and effort before they can get a product onto the shelves. This isn't 'business as usual' in other industries; for instance, if you wanted to brew beer you could be fully registered and selling in 1-2 months. The paperwork needed to register for beer duty takes between 15 and 45 days on average (source: gov.uk).
Because of this massive half-year gap, it’s much easier for established e-juice businesses to grow than it is for startups to get going. If you’ve already got a few MHRA-approved products in your line-up, then you're more likely to be able to ‘afford the wait’ while your latest flavours come online. By contrast, startup juice producers need to effectively risk a full year of time — never mind the expense — just to get a new e-liquid onto the shelves.
Some might argue that this whole notification process stifles innovation. In reality, if you’re passionate about e-liquid and vaping, you can still go ahead and create something special — you just have to do it without nicotine. That’s what we did with Fog Addicts, our 0mg range of e-liquids. We chose to make a nicotine-free shortfill and as a result we were able to focus on making the very best e-liquid we possibly could. Vapers who want to add their own nicotine can still do so (our beginner’s guide shows you how to do this), so the fact that Fog Addicts is nicotine-free isn’t a show-stopping issue for most of our customers.
I hope this guide helps explain the basics of the MHRA notification process, and shows you how (if you wanted to do it) you could start your own e-juice business some day. Here in the UK, we can claim to have one of the safest vaping industries in the world, and it’s all thanks to regulations like the TRPR, and governing bodies like the MHRA.
Stay safe and happy vaping!
John Boughey