How to quit vaping: Practical tips for Kiwis plus potential insurance savings

1. Know why you're quitting, and write it down

As per Health New Zealand's advice, you must remind yourself of the reasons and benefits of stopping. Quitline's free online quit plan lets you enter them so they're written down and easy to revisit. New Zealanders who have tried to quit vaping give three main reasons: health concerns (47%), disliking feeling dependent (39%), and cost (27%).

2. Set a quit date and get ready for it

Health New Zealand's advice is to set a date to stop vaping. Before it arrives, watch your own habits. This means when and where you vape, and at what time of day. Writing it down can help you change them.

Worth doing before the day arrives:

• Put your vape out of sight and carry it less often.
• Tell people who can support you, and ask them to help you not to vape.

3. Decide how you'll quit: cut down or stop all at once

There's no single right way to quit because people use a few different approaches. Among New Zealanders who have quit or tried to quit vaping, 55% simply stopped, 23% reduced their nicotine strength first, and 19% leaned on support from friends or family.

People who are more dependent on nicotine more often cut down first. People who are less dependent more often just stopped. Cutting down is usually gentler on withdrawal.

Lower your nicotine strength step by step

Lowering the nicotine in your e-liquid over time makes cravings and withdrawal symptoms easier to handle. New Zealand law caps nicotine at 28.5 mg/mL in salt form, and 20 mg/mL for everything else, and the strength must be labelled in mg/mL. New Zealand doesn't publish a step-down schedule, so it's worth asking a pharmacist or Quitline for the numbers.

Stretch out the gaps between vapes

Stretching the time between vapes cuts your nicotine intake without changing anything you buy. The NHS suggests noting your usual gap, then extending it. If you vape every 20 minutes, try 40 instead, and keep pushing it out while paying attention to how you feel.

Going cold turkey: who it suits

In a 2025 New Zealand study, people who just stopped vaping tended to have lower nicotine dependence, and were more likely to have vaped for less than a year or to live rurally.

4. Use nicotine replacement therapy to take the edge off

Nicotine replacement therapy gives you the nicotine without the vape. New Zealand has five forms:

• Patches
• Gum
• Lozenges
• An inhalator
• A mouth spray

The patches, gum, and lozenges are funded in the community for quitting smoking, while the inhalator and mouth spray are bought over the counter.

Only one of these has an NZ indication for vaping. In January 2026, Medsafe approved a nicotine replacement product for vaping dependence, the first product here indicated for quitting vaping. The other four are indicated for quitting smoking, and using them for vape cravings isn't backed by strong evidence yet.

How to get free or subsidised NRT in New Zealand

You can't get funded nicotine replacement therapy for quitting vaping in New Zealand. Quitline states plainly that NRT isn't currently funded for that.

That said, most NRT products, like Habitrol patches, gum and lozenges, are available for free. You also have the subsidised route, where four weeks of patches, gum, or lozenges costs about $5. This is for those who are quitting smoking.

5. Get free help from a New Zealand quit service

Quitline support exists whether or not you smoke: it helps people of all ages stop vaping, even if you've never smoked. Health New Zealand also points vapers to their local Stop Smoking service.

Quitline recorded 4,000 Quit Vaping enrolments last year. Local stop smoking services include kaupapa Māori and Pacific options in some areas. Funded stop-smoking programmes generally aren't resourced to help under-16s or non-smoking youth quit vaping. 16+ dual users may be eligible, depending on the region.

Quitline: phone, text and online support

Quitline is free and reaches you four ways: call 0800 778 778 and text 4006, or use the webchat and email quit@quit.org.nz.

Ask your GP, nurse or pharmacist

Your GP, practice nurse or pharmacist can help you build a quit plan. New Zealand clinical guidance tells clinicians to make sure a patient using vaping to quit smoking also has a plan to stop vaping too. Enrolling with a practice is free, though practices may charge a reduced consultation fee each visit.

6. Get through cravings and nicotine withdrawal

Withdrawal from quitting vaping is real, though for people who used vaping to quit smoking, it's typically milder than withdrawal from cigarettes. Health New Zealand says cravings can feel strong in the first few weeks, and lists five common symptoms, including:

• Low mood
• Feeling irritable
• Not sleeping well
• Finding it hard to concentrate
• Feeling hungrier than usual

Things that help while you wait it out:

• Keep your hands busy with a fidget toy or stress ball.
• Switch to a vape flavour you like less.

How long does vape withdrawal last?

In a trial of 109 former-smoker daily e-cigarette users, withdrawal peaked on day one or two, then eased slowly. But a significant portion still had symptoms after six days.

No published research has followed vaping withdrawal past about a week, so there's no confirmed end point.

7. Break the habits and triggers that go with vaping

The most commonly reported relapse triggers for New Zealanders who have vaped are feeling stressed (49%), being around others who vaped (41%), and nicotine withdrawal itself (37%). It helps to plan for each one before it arrives. If stress is one of your triggers, insurance for mental health is also worth knowing about.

Create vape-free spaces

Setting rules about where and when you vape can help weaken the link between a place and the urge. Health New Zealand gave an example: no vaping with a hot drink or on a work break. The NHS suggests picking or creating vape-free places, then slowly expanding them.

Some boundaries are already stipulated in the law. You generally may not vape in the following places:

• In a workplace, except in a designated vehicle or room
• On school premises
• Indoors at licensed premises
• In a car on a road carrying a child, which carries a $50 fee

8. Don't swap vaping for smoking

If you're using vaping to help you quit cigarettes, don't go back and forth between the two. Health New Zealand says to switch completely to vaping as soon as you can, because even one or two cigarettes are still harmful.

Once you're confident you won't go back to smoking, it's worth stopping vaping too.

Health New Zealand's position is that "the best thing for your health is to be both smokefree and vapefree". Cancer Society New Zealand doubles on this.

Nicotine vaping is not risk-free, but it is less harmful than smoking, and that comparison is for people who already smoke and are trying to quit smoking. Health New Zealand's own view is that young people and people who don't smoke shouldn't use any nicotine products, vapes included.

9. What to do if you slip up

Health New Zealand says it's not a failure if you slip back, and it may take several tries to stop vaping completely. Each attempt is a chance to find the strategies that work for you. If it happens, get back to your plan and call Quitline again on 0800 778 778 if you'd like support.

If you've been vaping to stay off cigarettes, the NHS says that a slip back into vaping beats a slip back into cigarettes.

What quitting vaping does to your insurance

Quitting vaping can reduce what you pay, but nothing happens automatically. Every insurer on Policywise's panel counts vaping as smoking on the same 12-month look-back.

Most providers need you to ask, usually with a non-smoker declaration or form. On at least one health plan, though, there's no way to update it at all once you've joined.

A few things worth knowing before you ask:

• Life insurance and trauma insurance are where quitting most often shows. Smoker status is usually priced in, as a base rate or a standalone discount.
• Health cover varies, which is part of why it's worth asking if health insurance is worth it. On some health cover, quitting may not change what you pay at all, and with at least one, it's only available when you first join.
• No provider was found to clearly exempt nicotine-free vaping.

Telling your insurer is a duty as well as an opportunity. You must disclose anything that could affect its decision to cover you, and a non-disclosure can leave a policy cancelled back to the beginning. Premiums are individually underwritten, so nobody can promise you a saving.

Policywise's guide to insurance for smokers and vapers covers how long you must be smoke-free for non-smoker rates and how to change your status. Policywise compares health insurance and life insurance across insurers, and can help if you ever need to make a claim.

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