Yes, you can smoke at La Aurora International Airport (GUA) — outdoors, in the open air outside the terminal building, before you clear security. Guatemala’s smoke-free law bans smoking in enclosed public places, and the terminal here carries no designated smoking room, so the landside area is the place to light up.
La Aurora sits about 6 km south of Guatemala City and is Guatemala’s busiest airport, handling around 5 million passengers a year through a single terminal.
Outside the Terminal: Before Security
The place to smoke at La Aurora is outdoors, landside, outside the terminal building before the security checkpoint. Departing passengers smoke here before check-in, and arriving passengers smoke after clearing customs and stepping outside.
Inside the Terminal: Smoke-Free
Guatemala’s Decreto 74-2008 bans smoking in any enclosed public space and any enclosed workplace, and it names public transport among the spaces the ban covers; the terminal at La Aurora falls under that ban with no designated indoor smoking room. The law does carve out one narrow exception for hotel and motel guest rooms — nothing at an airport terminal.
After Security: Not Listed by the Airport
Travellers described an open-air terrace up a short flight of steps beside a restaurant next to the airport’s cigar shop, past security, with outdoor seating, in August 2021 and April 2022. Both accounts agree on the location; the airport lists no such facility and nothing more recent describes it, so do not plan a layover around it. A departing or connecting passenger should count on the landside area before security.
Vaping
La Aurora publishes no separate rule for e-cigarettes. Guatemala’s smoke-free law defines smoking as burning or lighting a tobacco product, so it does not extend to e-cigarettes, and the only vaping-specific rule in force — a 2025 health ministry order — covers Ministry of Health facilities, not airports; the open-air landside option before security applies to vaping too.
Summary
| Area | Smoking | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal interior | No | Smoke-free under Guatemala’s Decreto 74-2008 |
| After security / airside | Not listed | Travellers described a terrace near the cigar shop in August 2021 and April 2022; the airport lists no facility |
| Outdoor (landside) | Yes | Outside the terminal, before security |
| Vaping / e-cigarettes | Same as smoking | No airport rule published; Guatemalan law does not cover e-cigarettes |
For Guatemala’s airport smoking rules and vaping law, see our Guatemala airport smoking guide.