Accuracy and disputes
Every fact on VapeRecord is a dated statement of what a public source showed when we checked it. It is never a verdict on a product, a shop or a company.
Last updated
What a record says
A record joins what public registers publish about a product: its MHRA notification, identifiers (ECID or GBID), submitter, dates and, where a retailer or supplier has supplied it, the barcode. Each fact carries the date of the extract it came from and a link to that source.
The MHRA list is a register of notifications. A notification is not an approval, and the MHRA does not approve products. We never describe a product as approved, certified, legal or illegal.
Evidence states
Each product line has one state per market (Great Britain and Northern Ireland). These are the only labels we use.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Notification matched | A row on the live MHRA list for this market matches this identity, and it was still published at the as-of date. |
| On the pre-2021 UK list | Found only in the MHRA list of UK notifications published before 31 December 2020. |
| In the dataset | Present in a public register we ingested other than MHRA, such as Companies House for a company. |
| Submitter-stated | A brand or company site states the identifier and we hold a snapshot. There is no register row. |
| Fields missing | The identity matched, and one or more duty or stamp fields are empty or in conflict. |
| Withdrawn by MHRA | Listed on an official MHRA withdrawn list, with that list's date. Never inferred from absence. |
| No longer on the list | Missing from 3 consecutive full extracts and not on any MHRA withdrawn list. |
| Single-use design | On MHRA's withdrawn-disposables list, or the line's attributes say single-use. Sale has been banned since 1 June 2025. |
| Above a product limit | The line exceeds a TRPR limit: tank above 2 ml, refill container above 10 ml, or nicotine above 20 mg/ml. |
| Not notifiable | Nicotine is 0 mg/ml, so MHRA notification does not apply. Duty and the age of sale still do. |
| No notification in dataset | A nicotine line with no matching row in the extract taken on the as-of date. |
| Not matched | A stock-check line we could not match with confidence. It is an action for the retailer, not a finding. |
| Under review | A dispute, a claim, or a conflicting barcode mapping is open. |
| Not applicable | The rule does not apply to this row. |
A stock check adds a separate stamp field to each line of a retailer's own file. It never changes the notification state, and it never says a stamp is genuine: authenticity belongs to the official HMRC verification app.
| Stamp field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Stamp recorded | The retailer recorded a stamp at goods-in. Authenticity belongs to the official verification app. |
| Sell by 31 March 2027 | Declared as unstamped stock made or imported before 1 October 2026. |
| Stamp not recorded | No stamp evidence yet. From 1 April 2027 the line shows the rule row vds-2027-04-01 beside it. |
Absence is not a finding
Two states describe silence in a source. They always appear with a fixed sentence, for example:
- No matching notification was in the MHRA extract checked on 1 October 2026. That is not a determination that the product is unlawful.
- This notification was on the MHRA list until 1 October 2026 and has not appeared since. It is not on an MHRA withdrawn list we hold.
The live MHRA register only shows published notifications, so a withdrawal looks like an absence. We mark a notification as withdrawn only when it appears on an official MHRA withdrawn list, with that list's date. A notification missing from three consecutive full extracts, and on no withdrawn list, is shown as no longer on the list.
Sources and how often we check
- MHRA e-cigarette notification database. Read daily, with a full extract every seven days. MHRA's historical files (the pre-2021 UK list, the Northern Ireland list and the withdrawn disposables list) are checked daily and stored when they change.
- GOV.UK and HMRC guidance and legislation.gov.uk. The source of every duty rate and stamp date we use. Each rule is stored with its citation and the date we read it, and a change is recorded as a new rule, never an edit to an old one.
- Companies House. Company names, numbers and status.
- Claims. Details a retailer or supplier states about itself are labelled as stated by that organisation until they are checked.
MHRA, GOV.UK and Companies House information is public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Dispute a record
Every public record has a dispute link. You can also email [email protected] with the page address and what you believe is wrong.
- We acknowledge a dispute within 2 business days.
- Within 5 business days we either correct the record or mark it Under review while we check.
- Corrections stay in the record's change history, with the date and the reason.
We cannot change what a regulator publishes. If the source itself is wrong, we will say so on the record and point you to the regulator.
What we never do
- Sell vaping products, take paid placements, rank shops for a fee, or carry affiliate links.
- Publish a retailer's stock file, or say which retailer stocks which product.
- Use a language model to decide a state, a match or a duty figure. Those are fixed rules with tests.