The Ninth Circuit let California make cigar companies prove their products are unflavored. The industry lost the injunction, but it won something on the record that may matter more, and the opinion now sets the rules for flavor lists across nine western states.
We scored all 50 states and the District of Columbia on the state laws that matter most to a premium cigar: tax, indoor smoking, flavor bans, shipping and local power. Maine leads, the Southeast trails, and taxes explain most of the gap.
FDA's flavored cigar ban is gone, but flavor rules have not disappeared. They have moved to the states, where California and Massachusetts treat premium cigars very differently and tax increases are arriving one legislature at a time.
Illinois and Louisiana added per-cigar caps, Maine nearly doubled its rate with no cap at all, and two states now require out-of-state sellers to license and collect. State tax law is moving faster than it has in years, and in both directions.
Beyond taxes, 2026 brought a new cigar bar law in South Dakota, vetoes in Wisconsin and Alaska, a generational sales ban bill in New York, local flavor bans upheld in Oregon and California's unflavored list in full force. Each one changes where and to whom a premium cigar can be sold.
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The briefing
The developments that matter to the cigar trade, when they matter.
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