Daily tobacco smoking among Australians aged 14 and above dropped to 5.6% in 2025, according to the AIHW National Drug Strategy Household Survey The Guardian. The figure marks a steep decline from 8.3% in the 2022–23 survey period and places Australia well ahead of the federal government's National Tobacco Strategy 2023–2030 target of less than 10% prevalence by 2025. The strategy sets a further goal of 5% or less by 2030.

The survey, administered from June to December 2025, drew on responses from more than 17,500 people aged 14 and over across Australia. It is the largest nationally representative survey on tobacco use in the country The Guardian. By contrast, the previous iteration in 2022–2023 captured over 21,000 participants AIHW.

Overall nicotine use has also declined. The proportion of people using any nicotine in Australia fell to 15.2% in 2025, down from 17.4% in 2022–23 The Guardian. Vaping rates have stabilised, according to the same survey data.

Cancer Council Australia CEO Jacinta Reddan noted that more than two-thirds of Australians aged 14 and above had never smoked, a historic high The Guardian. The broader context here is a generational shift in smoking uptake, corroborated by earlier AIHW data showing steep drops among young adults. The daily tobacco smoking rate for males aged 18 to 24 fell from 24.5% to 6.9%, while the rate for females in the same cohort fell from 23.5% to 5.0% AIHW.

Yet the headline gains coexist with a rapidly expanding illicit tobacco market. Thirty-four percent of smokers reported recently using illicit tobacco in 2025, more than double the 16.7% recorded in 2022–23 The Guardian. Twenty-two percent of smokers said they had purchased branded illicit tobacco without plain packaging and graphic health warnings in the previous three months. Of those who bought branded illicit tobacco, 57% reported purchasing it from a tobacconist.

Looking at what this means for public health policy, the illicit market dynamic complicates the relationship between excise-driven demand reduction and regulatory enforcement. Australia's plain packaging laws, among the strictest in the world, rely on compliance at the point of sale. A majority of illicit purchases occurring through licensed tobacconists indicates an enforcement gap within regulated retail channels rather than a purely shadow economy.

The equity dimension also warrants attention. Australians with a mental health condition were twice as likely to smoke daily in 2022–2023 as those who had not been diagnosed or treated for a mental health condition AIHW. Australians with disability are more likely to report current daily smoking (14% compared with 8.7%) and having ever smoked (51% compared with 37%) AIHW. These disparities suggest that the aggregate decline may be unevenly distributed across population subgroups.

The AIHW hosts an official data-collection page for the 2025 National Drug Strategy Household Survey AIHW. The 2022–2023 iteration of the survey included a dedicated section on tobacco and e-cigarettes and vapes AIHW.

Australia's trajectory toward the 2030 target of 5% daily smoking prevalence appears achievable based on the 2025 data point of 5.6%. Whether the remaining gap can be closed, however, depends on addressing both the illicit supply chain and the persistent prevalence gaps among vulnerable populations. The stabilisation of vaping rates adds a further variable to the nicotine landscape, though its net effect on long-term cessation patterns remains an open empirical question.