How Popular Are Nicotine Pouches? Usage in the US, UK and Sweden

By PouchGuide Editorial Team · Published September 25, 2026

“How popular are nicotine pouches in your country?” gets asked a lot, and the honest answer is that it varies enormously. In Sweden, pouches are an everyday product. In Britain, they’re still used by a small minority. In the US, use is growing fast from a low base.

Here’s what the best national surveys actually show. One caveat up front: countries measure this differently (past-month use, daily use, “current” use), so the numbers aren’t perfectly comparable. We say which measure each figure uses.

At a glance

Sweden: the clear outlier

Sweden has used oral nicotine for generations in the form of traditional tobacco snus. Tobacco-free pouches, which Swedes call “vitt snus” or “nikotinsnus”, have spread quickly on top of that.

According to the Public Health Agency of Sweden (Folkhälsomyndigheten), in 2024:

• 5% of people aged 16–84 used nicotine pouches daily.
• Among young adults aged 16–29, daily use rose sharply between 2022 and 2024: from 10% to 15% among women and from 5% to 11% among men.

That rise among young women stands out. Traditional snus in Sweden has always been used mostly by men, but tobacco-free pouches are drawing in a different group of users.

United States: growing fast from a low base

The best recent US adult data comes from the Monitoring the Future panel, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2026. Among adults aged 19–65:

• past-12-month use rose from 3.4% in 2023 to 5.9% in 2024
• past-30-day use rose from 2.3% to 4.2%
• among 19–30-year-olds, past-12-month use roughly doubled, from 4.8% to 9.5%

The authors found increases across ages, sexes and regions. That’s a big jump in a single year, and it matches the sales growth of brands like ZYN and VELO over the same period (see who owns the major brands).

Great Britain: still niche

Britain is at a much earlier stage. A 2025 study in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, using Action on Smoking and Health’s nationally representative surveys, found that current adult use was:

• 0.5% in 2020, 0.4% in 2021, 0.7% in 2022, 0.6% in 2023, and 1.0% in 2024

Among 11–18-year-olds in 2024, 1.2% reported current use and 3.3% had ever tried a pouch.

The same study found use is concentrated among people who smoke or used to. Among adults in 2024, around 17% of current smokers had ever tried a pouch, compared with about 7% of ex-smokers and 1.5% of people who had never smoked. For the UK’s rules on pouches, see our UK legal guide.

The global picture

A 2026 systematic review in Addiction pulled together population-based studies from around the world. Its overall conclusion: nicotine pouch use is still low in most places, but there’s evidence of increases in some regions, particularly the United States. The review also found that young people can get hold of pouches, and that people who use them often see them as less harmful and easy to use. It called for better, standardized monitoring as the market grows.

Elsewhere, the picture is shaped heavily by regulation. In countries such as Australia and France, legal consumer access has effectively been shut off (see our guide to countries where pouches are banned).

Who is driving the growth?

Across the three countries, a consistent pattern shows up:

• Young adults have the highest and fastest-rising use, especially in the US and Sweden.
• Smokers and ex-smokers are much more likely to use pouches than never-smokers, at least in Britain.
• Young women in Sweden are a notable new group of users.

Whether pouches are mostly helping smokers switch or mostly bringing new people to nicotine is exactly the question regulators are arguing about, and the answer seems to differ by country. For what the evidence says about switching, see do nicotine pouches help you quit smoking? For youth data specifically, see our youth use explainer.

Bottom line

Nicotine pouches are mainstream in Sweden, where 5% of people use them daily and far more young adults do. In the US, use is lower but climbing quickly: past-month use among adults nearly doubled between 2023 and 2024. In Britain, pouches are still niche at around 1% of adults, used mostly by current and former smokers. Globally, use remains low but is rising in several regions, which is why researchers are calling for closer monitoring.