Greece registered the greatest drop in consumption of contraband cigarettes in 2025 among the 27 European Union member-states, the Papastratos tobacco company announced on Thursday, confirming the significant progress in recent years of fighting illegal trade.
The data, released in the annual KPMG Report commissioned by Philip Morris International, also showed that in the EU the consumption of contraband cigarettes exceeded 10% of all cigarette consumption since 2014.
For Greece specifically, contraband cigarettes are assessed at a 14.1% share of total cigarette consumption, reduced by 3.4 percentage points compared to 2024. Overall, 1.9 billion contraband cigarettes were consumed in 2025.
Losses to public funds are assessed at €330 million in 2025, while in 2024 they amounted to €438 million.
It is the second year in a row that Greece achieved the biggest drop in the EU-27 of consumption of contraband cigarettes, KPMG said.
