Is Nicotine legal in Italy?

Legal status

Not scheduled. A search of the closed tables I to IV and the table of medicinal products under article 14 of DPR 309/1990 returned no operative entry for nicotine, and the dossier records that negative in the compilation's own terms as nessuna voce operativa. Article 14 assigns substances by enumeration, so an unlisted substance stays outside the DPR 309/1990 scheme until a ministerial decree adds it. This is a proposition about one statute and it is not a clearance: the dossier states in terms that a verified result never means safe or legal in every context. Tobacco and nicotine product law is the regime the dossier points to here, and it operates entirely outside DPR 309/1990.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Italy has no death penalty, and for nicotine there is no article 73 ceiling to state either, because what this row established is a negative: a search of the closed tables I to IV and the table of medicinal products under article 14 of DPR 309/1990 returned nessuna voce operativa. Articles 73 and 80 of DPR 309/1990 attach to table entries, and the 30 year cap in article 78 of the Penal Code only enters a calculation an entry has already started, so none of those numbers describes this substance. The administrative route in article 75 is equally inapplicable, since it too runs on the tables. Tobacco and nicotine product law is the regime the dossier points to here, and it operates entirely outside DPR 309/1990.

If prescribed or medical

Italy's country level rule, in the dossier's own terms, is that a traveller certificate list or a prescribing summary is not a substitute for the statutory tables, and that acquisition or possession for personal use runs under article 75 of DPR 309/1990 as an administrative matter rather than under the trafficking article. Attached to nicotine, that rule meets an absence: the closed tables carry no operative entry for it, so there is no narcotics placement for a certificate or a prescription to be measured against. Any documentation requirement that does apply comes from the medicines, food or product safety rules the dossier points to, and not from DPR 309/1990. No Italian traveller procedure for nicotine was established here, and the absence of a table entry is not itself a permission.

Documentation

Carry nicotine on the footing that DPR 309/1990 is not the instrument that reaches it, and hold whatever the applicable medicines or product rules require instead, because the narcotics tables impose nothing on it. The instrument is DPR 309/1990, its enumerating provision is article 14, and the Ministry of Health compilation of the tables and its ministerial amendment index were searched on 18 September 2026 without producing a placement for this row. Classification changes by decree published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale rather than by a travel or prescribing summary, and the amendment horizon checked includes the 2026 update that added the nitazene class. The negative was established by searching the closed tables I to IV and the table of medicinal products under Italian names, international non proprietary names and abbreviations, and the search was carried through to the last section of the compilation.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Italy’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.