By C. Chai, director, UIC International B.V. Published 2026-08-21, last updated 2026-08-21. How we write these.
Two different checks sit behind a vape hardware order in Europe, and confusing them is how a wholesaler ends up either doing the wrong work or doing none. This page separates them and states plainly which one is ours.
The phrase "age verification" covers two jobs with almost nothing in common.
Consumer age verification controls the sale to the person who will use the product. It runs at the point of sale, it is about a date of birth, and where it exists it is set by national law in the market where that sale happens.
Trade verification controls who may hold an account at all. It runs before pricing is shown, it is about a legal entity rather than a person, and it establishes that the counterparty is a registered business buying for resale.
Empty Vapes does the second. We run no consumer checkout, sell no single units to individuals, and sell no e-liquid or cannabinoids. That is a description of the business, not a legal opinion.
Trade-only is a set of operational choices, not a badge. The ones that change behaviour:
The useful way to present a verification process is not a list of what you ask for, but of what each thing establishes and what it leaves open. Most checklists fail because nobody wrote the third column.
| What we ask for | What it establishes | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Registered company name and number | A registered legal entity in a named jurisdiction | Anything about who ultimately holds the product |
| VAT number, checked against VIES | A number the Commission's service returns as valid | That the user of it is authorised, or that the business is tax-compliant |
| Business delivery address | Goods consigned to commercial premises | That the premises hold any licence the market requires |
| Named signatory with authority | An accountable human is attached to the account | The age of anyone downstream of the buyer |
| Declared intended market | Which national regime the buyer says applies | That the buyer has registered in that market |
| Trade-only resale confirmation | The account is on trade terms, in writing | Any substitute for the buyer's own consumer-facing controls |
The VAT step is the only one leaning on an external service. The European Commission publishes VIES on-the-Web, a VAT number validation service. A screenshot of a result beats a note saying the number "looked right".
This is the section most suppliers leave out, and the one that protects you. A completed trade check tells you about a company. It tells you nothing about a shelf.
Once the goods leave your warehouse the controls that matter are the buyer's: point-of-sale checks, staff training, shelf placement, national registrations. A wholesaler cannot inherit those and should not pretend to. What it can do is refuse to be the weak link: approve accounts deliberately, keep the file, and decline the order that does not look like a trade order. See the supplier documentation guide and the guide on selling vape hardware to EU retail.
The corollary is worth saying out loud. If a buyer asks you to confirm that your check discharges their obligation, the answer is no. Saying so in writing beats a comfortable sentence that fails the first time anyone tests it.
A table of minimum ages by member state would be the most linkable thing we could publish, and we are not publishing one. We could not source every market at its own authority, and a table right for eighteen countries and wrong for nine is worse than none: the reader cannot tell which row they are on.
Two figures we did read at source, each stated by a national authority about its own market:
Both are about nicotine-containing vaping products in one national market. Neither is about empty hardware, neither is about anywhere else, and we will not build a European rule from two data points. For any other market, ask its authority in writing and file the reply. Our own trade terms run at 18+ or 21+ by market: a floor we set commercially, not a legal position asserted on your behalf.
One consequence gets discovered late. The moment you collect identity documents, dates of birth or a director's passport copy, you are processing personal data about an identified natural person. The instrument governing that in the EU is Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the General Data Protection Regulation. Its EUR-Lex record carries no end of validity.
We will not summarise the GDPR here: a paraphrase of a data protection regulation on a hardware supplier's site is exactly the kind of confident sentence that gets retracted. The practical point instead: decide what you are keeping and why before you build the upload form. A process built on the assumption that more evidence is always safer produces a document store nobody wanted, in a category where a breach is worse than most.
Four things. No minimum age for any market we did not source, which is most of them. No advice on your own consumer-facing obligations, which depend on your national law and your own adviser. No claim that a trade check satisfies any statutory duty. And no named age-verification vendor, because we have tested none. For the wider picture, start with the EU compliance pillar and the guide to starting a vape brand in Europe.
Trade guidance for B2B buyers, not legal advice. We sell empty hardware only (no cannabinoids, no e-liquid), B2B trade only, 18+ / 21+ per market; you are responsible for the fill and for finished-product compliance in your market. The buyer that brands the device and places the finished product on the market carries the national registrations, the consumer-facing controls and the age checks that go with them, and should take its own legal advice in each market it sells into.
Trade pricing is shown after a free account is approved, full specs, EU stock, and CE and compliance docs on request.
Create an accountGive us the hardware, the quantity and the market. We reply with a price, a specification and a lead time. A request for a quote is not an order.
Empty hardware only. No cannabinoids and no e-liquid. We sell to companies only.