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Regulation
Sweden

Swedish Match is now carding every customer who buys snus — 'We should not guess. We should know.'

From October 1, the maker of ZYN requires ID from every buyer in its own Swedish stores, no matter how old they look. The company is also calling for a national ban on buying nicotine products for minors.

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Sweden's biggest snus company just made a unilateral move that goes further than Swedish law requires. From October 1, 2026, Swedish Match — the company behind ZYN — requires every customer in its own stores to show ID before buying snus or any other nicotine product. No exceptions for customers who look older. The company announced the policy the same day it took effect, with an op-ed in Dagens industri by Erick Barbor, its Sweden manager: "When it comes to age checks, we should not guess. We should know."

What actually changed

Under Swedish law, anyone selling tobacco or nicotine products must make sure the buyer is at least 18. In practice, that check has usually depended on staff judgment — if a customer looks old enough, they often don't get carded. Swedish Match argues that system produces inconsistency from store to store, and Barbor compares it to alcohol, where firm ID checks are already normalized.

The new rule: every purchase in every Swedish Match-owned store, ID every time. The company says it can lead here because it is the only major manufacturer with its own retail chain, so it can prove the policy works in practice. It also cites a test-purchase study run by the snus manufacturers' association (Snustillverkarföreningen) in 2025, which used young adults assessed as looking younger than their age to probe whether stores were checking.

The second ask: a proxy-purchase ban

Swedish Match is not stopping at its own tills. In the same op-ed it calls for a national ban on adults buying nicotine products for minors — closing the loophole where a legal adult over-18 simply buys on behalf of a 16-year-old. That would require a legislative change, and the company is effectively inviting Sweden's parliament to follow the industry's lead.

Why it matters for the pouch world

This lands at a sensitive moment. Sweden's youth snus numbers are a recurring political flashpoint, and WHO has just advised the EU to treat pouches like cigarettes in the next Tobacco Products Directive — partly on youth-access grounds. A company-controlled, card-everyone policy is the industry's counter-argument made visible: if strict access control works, the argument goes, a full retail ban is not the answer. Watch whether other Swedish retailers match the policy, and whether the proxy-purchase ban makes it into the next Swedish regulatory round.

For readers comparing what's actually on the shelves from Swedish Match's range, PouchFinder compares prices across retailers, including the ZYN lineup.

SOURCES