Smoking among young people

• Nearly one third of 15-year-olds (31.0% of girls and 31.3% of boys) have tried cigarettes at least once in their lives; at this age, 2.4% of boys and 3.1% of girls smoke daily.
• Overall, around one quarter of 15 to 24-year-olds smoke.
• Around one in six 15 to 17-year-olds and more than one in four of 18 to 24-year-olds use tobacco products and/or similar products every month (e.g. e-cigarettes, snus and nicotine pouches).

Smoking among young people

Products containing tobacco and nicotine have significant effects on users' behavioural and cognitive functioning. Young people in particular — whether children, adolescents, or young adults — should therefore avoid using them. Some areas of the brain that are vulnerable to the neurotoxic effects of psychoactive substances do not fully mature until around the age of 25, making children, adolescents, and young adults more susceptible to certain effects of smoking, including dependence[1]. In addition, the risk of many smoking-related consequences increases, sometimes exponentially, with the intensity of tobacco use. This can be understood as a combination of two distinct dimensions: duration (e.g. the number of years of use) and quantity (e.g. the number of cigarettes smoked). The age at which tobacco use begins, particularly early initiation, is therefore directly associated with the risk of developing smoking-related health problems[2]. Monitoring trends in tobacco use among young people is consequently a major public health priority.

Monitoring in Switzerland

In Switzerland, the monitoring of smoking among young people relies mainly on data collected through the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study[3] and the Swiss Health Survey (SHS)[4]. The former has been conducted every four years since 1986 among school pupils and documents smoking among 11 to 15-year-olds; the latter covers 15 to 25-year-olds. Further information on these surveys is available on our Overview of Monitoring Tools page. Data from the Federal Office of Public Health's Health and Lifestyle omnibus survey[5] provide additional information. It should be noted, however, that the first two surveys — HBSC and SHS — do not track smoking continuously (measurements are taken every four years for HBSC and every five years for the SHS). Their estimates are also almost invariably out of date by the time they become available, one to two years after data collection. Moreover, as both surveys cover health behaviours more broadly, they can devote only limited space to smoking and therefore include relatively few questions on the subject.

Smoking prevalence among 11 to 15-year-olds

The most recent data on smoking among 11 to 15-year-olds come from the 2022 HBSC study (Delgrande et al., 2023[6]). According to this study, 3.1% of 11-year-old girls and 5.9% of boys of the same age had tried cigarettes at least once in their lives. These proportions rise considerably with age, reaching 31.3% among boys and 31.0% among girls at age 15. A similar age-related pattern can be seen in 30-day prevalence (cigarette use during the 30 days preceding the survey), although at lower levels: in 2022, 14.4% of 15-year-old boys and 16.6% of girls of the same age had smoked cigarettes during the previous 30 days. The proportion who had smoked during the previous 30 days remained relatively low among boys and girls aged 11 and 12, but was already clearly higher at age 13 (6.1% among both girls and boys).

One in 30 15-year-old girls smokes daily

In 2022, daily smoking was almost non-existent below the age of 13 among both boys and girls. Nevertheless, 0.5% of 13-year-old girls, 1.5% of 14-year-old girls and 3.1% of 15-year-old girls smoked cigarettes every day. Among boys of the same ages, the corresponding proportions were 0.7% (age 13), 1.1% (age 14) and 2.4% (age 15). Thus, in 2022, almost one in 30 15-year-old girls smoked daily.

Significant differences according to living circumstances

Earlier in-depth analyses of the 2018 HBSC data examined associations between psychoactive substance use and various sociodemographic, family, relationship, and health and well-being characteristics among school pupils aged 14-15 (Delgrande et al., 2019[7]). In these analyses, smoking cigarettes at least weekly was classified as high-risk use. This pattern of use was significantly associated with age (14 < 15: 15-year-olds were more likely to smoke than 14-year-olds), region of residence (German-speaking Switzerland < French- or Italian-speaking Switzerland), family situation (living with both parents < another family situation), perceived parental monitoring (high < low to moderate), perceived parental support (high < low to moderate), perceived stress from schoolwork (low < moderate to high), life satisfaction (high < low), self-rated health (good < poor to moderate) and usual sleep duration before a school day (8 hours or more < less than 8 hours).

Other factors that may also be associated with early initiation, such as exposure to smoking by parents and friends. or ethnic origin and migration status, were not considered in these analyses. Further analyses of the same data (the 2018 HBSC study), conducted for the National Health Report 2020 (Swiss Health Observatory, 2020[1]) and covering 11 to 15-year-olds as a single group, nevertheless found that weekly cigarette use among 11 to 15-year-olds was more prevalent among those with at least one first-generation migrant parent (more precisely, one or both parents born abroad; 3.5%) than among those whose parents were both born in Switzerland (2.1%). Regarding the influence of parental smoking, a Zurich study conducted between 2013 and 2016 among children and young people aged 6-17 found that parental smoking (by the father and/or mother) was significantly associated with smoking among 13 to 17-year-olds (Mozun et al., 2020[8]).

Smoking prevalence among 15 to 25-year-olds

General population surveys, which usually cover people aged 15 and over — in this case the Swiss Health Survey — also provide information on smoking among adolescents and young adults.

Nearly one quarter of adolescents and young adults smoke

In Switzerland, the latest epidemiological data, from the 2022 Swiss Health Survey (FSO, 2025[9]), show that 25.8% of people aged 15-24 smoke. The figure is 25.4% among men and 26.2% among women in this age group. It is noteworthy that the proportion of women who smoke exceeds that of men in this age group, as this is relatively unusual from an epidemiological perspective. Overall, 13.5% of adolescents and young adults smoke daily (13.3% of young men and 13.6% of young women aged 15-24; FSO, 2025[10]). Although the 2022 SHS data show that the proportion of daily smokers rises progressively up to the age group 35-44, among 15 to 24-year-olds the proportion of daily smokers (13.5%) already exceeds the proportion of occasional smokers (12.3%).

A University of Zurich study on the influence of the social and media environment on health behaviours among young people aged 15-19 reported a daily cigarette-smoking prevalence of 6.1% for this age group in 2021 (Frey and Friemel, 2021[11]). Its findings cannot, however, be compared with those of the surveys mentioned above (HBSC and SHS), because the study design and the questions differed substantially from those usually used.

Finally, the Young Adult Survey Switzerland (YASS)[12], conducted in 2018/2019 to examine the living conditions and social and political views of young people aged 18-21 in Switzerland, reveals notable differences in smoking patterns according to living circumstances. Although its measurement tools were not comparable with those used in the surveys above, the study found that daily smoking was substantially more common among young adults living in cities and in urban municipalities surrounding a central city than among those living in less urban settings (isolated towns or rural municipalities; Huber, 2022[13]).

Around one in six 15 to 17-year-olds and more than one quarter of 18 to 24-year-olds use tobacco products and/or similar products every month

The Health and Lifestyle Survey[5], an online omnibus survey conducted by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on behalf of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Tobacco Prevention Fund (TPF), presents an even more pronounced picture. Detailed analyses of the 2025 data found that the overall prevalence of at least monthly use of tobacco products or similar products (at least one of the following: cigarettes, e-cigarettes with or without nicotine, heated tobacco, waterpipe, cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobacco, snus, nicotine pouches, chewing tobacco, or nasal snuff) was 16.3% among 15 to 17-year-olds and 27.4% among 18 to 24-year-olds (Notari et al., 2026[14]).

[1] Observatoire Suisse de la santé (2020). La santé en Suisse – Enfants, adolescents et jeunes adultes. Rapport national sur la santé 2020. Bern: Hogrefe Verlag. Download.

[2] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2012). Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health. Download.

[3] https://www.hbsc.ch; accessed on 30.04.2026.

[4] https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/sante/enquetes/sgb.html; accessed on 30.04.2026.

[5] https://www.bag.admin.ch/fr/enquete-sante-et-lifestyle; accessed on 30.04.2026.

[6] Delgrande Jordan, Marina; Balsiger, Nora; Schmidhauser, Valentine. (2023). Consommation de substances psychoactives chez les 11 à 15 ans en Suisse - Situation en 2022 et évolution dans le temps - Résultats de l'étude Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) (Rapport de recherche No 149). Lausanne: Addiction Suisse. Download.

[7] Delgrande Jordan, Marina; Eichenberger, Yvonne; Kretschmann, Andrea; Schneider, Eva. (2019). Eine explorative Untersuchung des Zusammenhangs zwischen dem Konsum psychoaktiver Substanzen und Merkmalen 11- bis 15-jähriger Jugendlicher in der Schweiz - Ergebnisse der Studie «Health Behaviour in School-aged Children» (HBSC) 2018 (Forschungsbericht No 105). Lausanne: Addiction Suisse. Download.

[8] Mozun, Rebeca; Ardura-Garcia, Cristina; Jong, Carmen C. M. de; Goutaki, Myrofora; Usemann, Jakob; Singer, Florian et al. (2020). Cigarette, shisha, and electronic smoking and respiratory symptoms in Swiss children: The LUIS study. In Pediatric pulmonology. DOI: 10.1002/ppul.24985.

[9] https://dam-api.bfs.admin.ch/hub/api/dam/assets/28725086/master; accessed on 30.04.2026.

[10] https://dam-api.bfs.admin.ch/hub/api/dam/assets/30305684/master; accessed on 30.04.2026.

[11] Frey, Tobias; Friemel, Thomas N. (2021). Substanzkonsum unter Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen in der Schweiz im Jahr 2021. Eine repräsentative Befragung unter 15- bis 19-Jährigen. Zürich: Universität Zürich. Download.

[12] https://www.chx.ch/fr/yass, accessed on 30.04.2026.

[13] Huber, Gerhard (Eds.) (2022). Young Adult Survey Switzerland 2022 – Band 3. Bern: Office fédéral des constructions et de la logistique. Download.

[14] Notari, L., Amos, J., & Delgrande Jordan, M. (2026). Produits du tabac et de la nicotine – Résultats de l’Enquête Santé et Lifestyle 2025 et évolutions récentes. Addiction Suisse. Download.

AT Switzerland, April 2026