Guide The ENDS notice
What Shopify's June 2026 notice actually says
Shopify published no policy page. The rule reached merchants as a private email, so most of what circulates is second-hand. Here are the wording, the dates and the documents, each with its source, so you can read them yourself.
- 12 sources linked
- Read 20 and 21 September 2026
What merchants received
June 2026“Shopify no longer supports the sale of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), including e-cigarettes, e-liquids, vaporizers, parts, and refills, regardless of nicotine content.”
- Notices sent
- 24 June 2026
- Removal deadline
- 8 July 2026
The wording
The sentence at the top of this page is the one merchants received, as reproduced from the notice by Token of Trust on 25 June 2026. Reuters quotes the opening of the same notice:
“Due to changes in legal restrictions on the sale of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), Shopify no longer supports the sale of these products.”
The phrase that matters for hardware sellers
“Regardless of nicotine content.” It reaches a vaporizer, a part or a refill whether or not nicotine is involved.
The dates
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Public date
Notices went out to merchants by email. (Reuters via The Spokesman-Review; Metorik; the Shopify Community thread opened the same day.)
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Public date
The deadline to remove the products. Reuters describes it as “the following Wednesday”, which is 7 July in some time zones and 8 July in others; merchants quoting their own emails in the Community thread say “July 8th”.
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After the deadline
Products removed, or the store suspended or terminated. Enforcement continued store by store through August and September.
Those are the only public dates. Any other date you see quoted is either a merchant's own notice date or a guess.
Who it reaches
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Every vape, authorised or not
Reuters reported on 23 June 2026 that the ban “will apply to all vapes regardless of whether they have required FDA authorisation”.
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Not only the United States
Reuters also reported that Shopify did not answer a question about geographic scope. A German merchant posted a notice with the same dates in August, so it is not limited to the United States.
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Hardware-only stores too
On 19 August 2026 a merchant posted in the Shopify Community thread titled “ENDS Policy”:
“We only sold Vape batteries and accessories (no nicotine or cannabis) JUST Hardware, but now Shopify does not allow it!”
Shopify Community, “ENDS Policy”, 19 August 2026. A first-hand merchant report. No Shopify staff replied in the thread. A reply in the same thread, from a community member rather than Shopify staff, put it this way: “The wording in the notices covers parts and refills regardless of nicotine content, so hardware only doesnt exempt you.” The same reply notes that “account level enforcement can mean locked admin access and frozen payouts” and advises merchants to “export your customers, orders and products to CSV now.”
USPS's own mail rule draws the opposite line: a device used only with dry herb, and its parts, sits outside the federal ENDS definition. See how we classify dry-herb hardware against that same distinction.
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Nothing in the public documents
Shopify's public documents do not mention any of this. As of 1 August 2026 the Terms of Service and the Acceptable Use Policy contain no occurrence of the words nicotine, tobacco, vape, ENDS, cannabis or hemp.
What happens to a terminated store
Shopify's Terms of Service, last updated 1 August 2026, in its own words.
- Section 14
- Shopify “may suspend or terminate your Account or the Terms of Service for any reason, without notice and at any time (unless otherwise required by law)”.
- On termination
- “Shopify will cease providing you with the Services and you will no longer be able to access your Account” and “your Shopify Store will be taken offline.”
- Section 8
- Shopify “can, at any time, review and delete any or all of the Materials submitted to the Services”.
There is no export right in those sections
The data-retention window Shopify describes elsewhere covers stores that close themselves. If your store is terminated, assume that whatever you have not already exported is gone.
Export this week, whether or not you plan to move.
The attorneys-general letter behind it
On 24 November 2025 the California Attorney General and New York City's Corporation Counsel wrote to Shopify on behalf of 23 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the City of New York, asking it to terminate e-cigarette sellers. The letter names 29 Shopify-hosted sites in its body and attaches exhibits listing more than 200 entries, 168 unique domains. It is public:
Letter to Shopify, 24 November 2025PDF, California Attorney General's office“It is our intention to seek equivalent termination of e-cigarette sellers from other providers of web-hosting services.”
That sentence is why our hosting policy refuses every domain on the letter's exhibits and every domain with an FDA warning letter. It is also why nicotine e-liquid, disposables and pouches are not hosted yet: we are building the four controls a lawful nicotine sale needs, and until they exist and are checked against a merchant's own catalogue, no merchant goes live in that category. The conditions are written down.
The pressure did not stop at Shopify
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Thirteen attorneys general wrote to Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover (letter, PDF).
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Twenty-five attorneys general wrote to nine payment companies including PayPal, Stripe, Sezzle and Block (Pennsylvania Attorney General, 28 April 2026).
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Reuters reported a Mastercard notice to acquirers.
What to do this week
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Export everything Shopify lets you export
Today, before anything else. Open the export checklist
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Start the merchant-account application
Shopify Payments already refuses tobacco and cannabis-related goods, so most stores in these categories are on a third-party gateway. If you need a new high-risk account, the community advice is right: approval takes weeks, and the processor decides your options.
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Save the notice email you received
With its date.
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Get a second opinion on your catalogue
If you want one, send us the products CSV.
Sources
- Reuters via The Spokesman-Review, “Shopify tells users to remove vapes from online stores”, 10 July 2026: spokesman.com
- Reuters, 23 June 2026, “Shopify to ban vapes as US authorities crack down on illegal e-cigarettes industry”, as syndicated by The Economic Times: economictimes.com. The original at reuters.com is behind a login.
- Token of Trust, “Shopify Vape Ban: What ENDS Merchants Need to Do Before July 7”, 25 June 2026, quoting the notice: tokenoftrust.com
- Shopify Community, “Shopify to ban vape stores”, opened 24 June 2026: community.shopify.com
- Shopify Community, “ENDS Policy”, 19 August 2026: community.shopify.com
- Shopify Community, “E-Zigaretten / Vapes verkauf”, 9 August 2026 (a German merchant quoting the notice and the 8 July deadline): community.shopify.com
- Metorik, “The Shopify Vape Ban: What Happened & Where Stores Are Going”, 18 July 2026: metorik.com
- Shopify Terms of Service, last updated 1 August 2026, sections 8 and 14: shopify.com/legal/terms
- Shopify Acceptable Use Policy: shopify.com/legal/aup
- Attorneys-general letter to Shopify, 24 November 2025 (PDF): oag.ca.gov
- Iowa Attorney General and twelve others, letter to the card networks, 14 April 2026 (PDF): iowaattorneygeneral.gov
- Pennsylvania Attorney General, letters to nine payment companies, 28 April 2026: attorneygeneral.gov
Pages were opened and read on 20 and 21 September 2026. If a link has moved, the title and date above should find it.