What is the best cheap cigar in the UK?

For value, Villiger Export at around £3.50 a cigar — short filler, but honest and consistent. For the best cigar that still counts as cheap, Camacho Machitos or Cohiba Wide Shorts at around £7.50 each are considerably better cigars for not much more money.

Can you get Cuban cigars for under £20?

Yes, in short formats. Cohiba Wide Shorts are around £7.50 a cigar and José L. Piedra Petit Cazadores around £10. Full-size Cuban cigars under £20 each generally mean buying a box of twenty-five from one of the lighter houses such as Hoyo de Monterrey or Fonseca.

Why are cigars so expensive in the UK?

Excise duty charged by weight, then 20% VAT applied on top of the duty-paid price. Both are included in the shelf price. It is also why smaller formats represent better value here than they do elsewhere — less tobacco means less duty.

Are cheap cigars worth buying?

At around £3 to £5 you are usually buying short filler, which burns hotter and faster than long filler but is perfectly enjoyable and ideal for a cold walk. Below that, machine-made cigars with homogenised binder are a different product and not really comparable.

Is it cheaper to buy cigars by the box?

Nearly always, and often substantially. The catch is storage: twenty-five cigars need somewhere at 65-69% humidity, so factor in an airtight container and a Boveda pack. A pack of five is the sensible middle ground while you are still deciding what you like.

Best Cigars Under £20 in the UK (2026)

What are the best cigars under £20 in the UK?

Under £20 a cigar in the UK you are choosing between small Cuban formats and full-size New World cigars. The Cuban options at this price are short — Cohiba Wide Shorts, José L. Piedra Petit Cazadores. The New World gives you a full robusto or corona for the money: Camacho Machitos, Guantanamera Cristales, Villiger Export.

The main points

Under £20, New World buys you a full-size cigar; Cuban buys you a short one
Small format does not mean weak — a Cohiba Wide Short is a proper cigar in 25 minutes
Every price here includes UK duty and VAT, which is most of what you pay
Buying a pack of five beats buying five singles nearly every time
Under about £5 a cigar you are usually into short filler, which burns faster and hotter

What £20 actually buys in Britain

Most of a UK cigar price is tax. HMRC charges excise duty on cigars by weight, and then 20 per cent VAT goes on top of the duty-inclusive figure. That is why a cigar costing eight pounds here might be four in Spain, and it is why a £20 ceiling is a real constraint rather than a generous one.

It also means weight is the enemy of value. A big cigar carries more tobacco, so it carries more duty. This is the single most useful thing to understand about buying at this price: choosing a smaller format is not settling for less cigar, it is refusing to pay duty on tobacco you were going to smoke in a hurry anyway.

The other consequence is that under £20 the geography splits cleanly. Cuban cigars at this price are short formats. New World cigars at this price are full-size. Both are worth having, for different evenings.

Cuban cigars under £20

The Cohiba Wide Shorts are the obvious recommendation and come in around seven pounds fifty a cigar in a pack of six. A short, fat format at proper Cohiba quality: grassy, creamy, unmistakably Cuban, done in twenty-five minutes. For anyone who wants to know what the fuss is about without spending forty pounds to find out, this is the entry point.

José L. Piedra Petit Cazadores are around ten pounds a cigar in a pack of five. Piedra is the everyday-smoking Cuban brand — rougher and earthier than the famous houses, with none of the polish, and much the better for a walk in the cold than a Cohiba would be.

For a full-size Cuban under twenty pounds a stick you are looking at box purchases of the lighter houses: Hoyo de Monterrey Le Hoyo du Maire and Fonseca KDT Cadetes both land around fifteen pounds a cigar bought by the box of twenty-five. That is a real commitment, but it is the cheapest route to a full-size Havana.

New World cigars under £20

This is where the value is. At the same money you get a full-size cigar with more consistent construction.

Camacho Corojo Machitos come in around seven pounds fifty in a tin of six. Nicaraguan, properly punchy, and small enough to work as a lunchtime cigar. The Connecticut version of the same thing is milder if you want gentler.

Guantanamera Cristales sit around eleven pounds fifty in a pack of five — Cuban-seed tobacco grown outside Cuba, which puts them somewhere between the two worlds and makes them a useful thing to try if you are working out which side you are on.

Villiger Export Rio 6 are the budget end at roughly three pounds fifty a cigar. Short filler rather than long, which means they burn faster and hotter, but for the money they are honest and nobody minds if one goes out.

La Galera Imperial Jade Chiquito Perfecto at around seventeen pounds sixty is the top of this bracket and smokes like a cigar that costs more.

Where the floor is

Below about five pounds a cigar you are almost always buying short filler: chopped leaf rather than whole leaves running the length of the cigar. It burns faster, runs hotter and gives a less even draw.

That is not a reason to avoid it. A short-filler cigar on a cold walk is a perfectly good thing and there is no sense taking a fifteen-pound Havana out in the rain. It is only a reason to know what you are buying, so you are not disappointed when it does not behave like a long-filler cigar.

The genuinely bad value at this price is the machine-made cigar sold in a garage. Those are a different product entirely, usually with homogenised binder, and they will put you off cigars rather than into them.

How to buy well at this price

Buy packs, not singles. A pack of five is nearly always cheaper per cigar than five singles, and it also means you get to smoke the same cigar more than once, which is the only way to actually form a view of it.

Buy a sampler if you have no idea yet. It costs less than a box and tells you far more.

And put whatever you do not smoke into an airtight box with a Boveda pack the day it arrives. A ten-pound cigar left in a drawer for a fortnight becomes a bad cigar, and that is a more expensive mistake than buying the wrong one in the first place.

The Best Cigars Under £20 in the UK