U.S. history of tobacco minimum purchase age by state

Since December 20, 2019, the smoking age in all states and territories is 21 under federal law which was passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.

In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration enacted regulations making the federal minimum age eighteen,[8] though later the U.S. Supreme Court later terminated the FDA's jurisdiction over tobacco, ending its enforcement practices and leaving it up to states.

[14] The United States Department of Defense followed, raising the age to purchase tobacco to twenty-one on military bases in the U.S. and abroad.

[15] In 2024, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a 2020 bylaw passed by the town of Brookline, which enforces a lifetime ban on the sale of tobacco products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2000, the first of its kind in the United States.

The communities include Brookline, Belchertown, Chelsea, Concord, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Melrose, Needham, Newton, Pelham, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, and Winchester.

Minimum age to purchase tobacco in North America as of December 2019:
Minimum age is 21
Minimum age is 19
Minimum age is 18
States that have passed their own Tobacco 21 laws either before or since the passage of the federal Tobacco 21 law (2024):
States with their own Tobacco 21 laws and comply with federal law
States without their own Tobacco 21 laws that are covered under federal law
Minimum age to purchase tobacco in the United States prior to the passage of the federal Tobacco 21 law:
Minimum age was 21
Minimum age was 19
Minimum age was 18
Minimum age to purchase tobacco in the United States as of 1989:
Minimum age was 19
Minimum age was 18
Minimum age was 17
Minimum age was 21
No set minimum age