Yes, you can smoke at Uruguay’s airports, and the place to do it is outdoors before security. Uruguay is one of the world’s tobacco-control pioneers, so the terminal is smoke-free and your spot is the open air outside the building, landside, before you pass through the checkpoint.
The airport that matters here is Carrasco International Airport (MVD) in Montevideo, the country’s single iconic gateway.
How Uruguay Airport Smoking Works
Smoking in Uruguay is an outdoor-only affair. National law makes every enclosed public place and workplace 100% smoke-free — Decree 268/005 took effect in 2006, the first such ban in the Americas — which means there is no indoor smoking room and no airside smoking lounge anywhere in the terminal. Your smoking happens outside, on the landside curb before security.
That layout shapes the whole journey. You can step out for a cigarette while you are still landside, and once you pass the checkpoint you are committed to a smoke-free terminal until you land. Connecting passengers who want to smoke have to exit to the outdoor area and then re-clear security to get back airside, so build in extra time for that round trip.
Vaping follows the cigarette rule exactly: e-cigarette use is prohibited wherever smoking is prohibited, so the open-air forecourt is the only place for it and the terminal interior is off-limits. Uruguay also bans the sale and import of e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products, so you cannot buy or replace a device in the country.
The Hub
Carrasco International Airport (MVD) in Montevideo is Uruguay’s main gateway, a single architecturally celebrated Rafael Viñoly terminal. Smoking is on the open-air forecourt landside, outside the terminal doors on either the departures or the arrivals level, before security. The indoor and airside spaces are entirely smoke-free.
Tips for Smokers at Uruguay Airports
- Smoke outdoors before security at MVD, then time your final cigarette for just before you head through the checkpoint.
- Connecting at Carrasco? You must exit to the outdoor landside area and re-clear security to smoke, so allow extra time on a tight connection.
- Treat the whole terminal as smoke-free once you are airside and plan your trip around that.
- Vape only where you can smoke — the open-air forecourt; the sale and import of e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products are banned nationwide, so you cannot replace a device here.
Uruguay Airports Compared: Indoor, Outdoor & After Security
| Airport | After security | Indoor room | Outdoor area |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrasco International Airport (MVD) | – | – | Yes |