BACKGROUND-AIM:
Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of cancer and NCDs in Europe. With rising use of e-cigarettes and novel smokeless products, countries need robust surveillance to track consumption, guide regulation, and assess progress toward prevention goals. Despite existing monitoring systems, Europe lacks a unified understanding of how countries define, measure, and report tobacco use.

METHODS:
Within the Joint Action PreventNCD, Work Package 8 aims to strengthen European monitoring systems for cancer and other NCDs. A structured Country Fact Sheet was developed to document monitoring capacities. National experts from 16 countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine) completed the sheet, detailing tobacco monitoring systems, definitions, reference values, and target populations. Data were validated by national representatives and analysed thematically to identify commonalities, gaps and areas for improvement.

RESULTS:
All participating countries monitor tobacco use using national or international surveys, including the European Health Interview Survey and the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study. Thirteen align with the WHO definition of tobacco products, and 11 apply reference values for smoking status. Most countries collect data on adults (14) and youth (13), while only Italy monitors elderly populations. International frameworks allow accounting for dual use (cigarettes + e-cigarettes), but they rarely capture multi-product use involving smokeless nicotine products. Most surveys follow 4–5-year cycles, limiting detection of rapidly changing patterns in novel products, though some countries conduct annual or bi-annual surveys. Despite broad implementation, several gaps remain. Participation in international monitoring systems is inconsistently reported, reducing cross-country comparability and benchmarking. Reference values and definitions vary, with three countries not reporting any national benchmarks. Regional data collection is rare, and the coverage and classification of emerging products is uneven. Finally, data granularity for key sub-populations, such pregnant individuals, remains limited.

CONCLUSIONS:
Tobacco monitoring systems across participating countries are well established, yet heterogeneity in definitions, frequency, target groups, and coverage of emerging products limits comparability. Greater standardization, expanded monitoring of vulnerable groups and alignment with frameworks such as the European Health Data Space could strengthen consistency. Integrating new data sources alongside traditional surveys reduce self-reporting bias and provide more timely insights into changing patterns. Strengthening regulation of novel products requires robust evidence, but reliance on 4–5-year monitoring cycles limits timely detection of emerging trends. More frequent and harmonized data collection is therefore essential to support evidence-based policy-making.