In January 2021, Scotland became the first country in the world to legally guarantee free period products to anyone who needs them. Not just students. Not just people on low incomes. Everyone. The law has now been running for several years, the model has been studied by governments around the world, and a growing number of countries are expanding access to other women’s health essentials including HRT and contraception. Here is where things stand.
What Scotland Actually Did
The Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021 came into full force in August 2022, placing a permanent legal duty on local authorities and education providers to make period products available free of charge to anyone who needs them. The key word is anyone. There are no income checks, no forms to fill out, no quantity limits. The law requires products to be obtainable reasonably easily and in a way that respects the dignity of the person collecting them, which in practice means no queuing at a desk to ask a stranger for a tampon.
Products are available at more than 700 venues across Scotland, from community centres and libraries to pharmacies and GP surgeries. A free app called PickupMyPeriod helps people locate their nearest distribution point. The range of products includes disposables and reusables, with the Scottish Government required to offer a reasonable choice, including menstrual cups and washable pads.
The financial investment behind the Act is not small. The Scottish Government has committed more than 47 million pounds since 2018 to support access programmes, including around 6.1 million pounds per year to local authorities and educational institutions, and a separate 2.4 million pounds directed specifically at low-income families through third-sector food distribution partners.
How Scotland Got There
The path to the 2021 Act began in 2017 with a 56,000-pound pilot in Aberdeen that tested whether community-based distribution was workable. It was. Scotland then became the first country to provide free products to all students in schools, colleges and universities in 2018, driven by data showing that one in ten girls in the UK had been unable to afford period products and were missing school as a result.
The push for a universal law came from Monica Lennon, a Member of the Scottish Parliament, who argued that targeted provision for low-income groups was not enough and that access to period products should be treated as a right rather than a form of welfare. Her bill passed with unanimous support in November 2020. The fact that it cleared parliament without a single opposing vote says something about both the quality of the groundwork laid by campaigners and the political moment Scotland was in.
Some of the most effective groundwork was done far from Holyrood. The On the Ball campaign, founded by three female football fans in 2018, pushed Scottish football clubs to install free product dispensers in their stadiums. By targeting a traditionally male-dominated and highly visible space, the campaign made the case that this was not a niche issue and that provision was affordable and practical at scale. The social enterprise Hey Girls ran a buy-one-give-one model, donating a pack of products for every pack sold commercially, building both supply chains and public familiarity with the idea.
Who Else Is Moving on This
Scotland remains the only country with a universal legal mandate covering all citizens, but the direction of travel elsewhere is clear. New Zealand introduced free period products in all schools in June 2021, explicitly framing it as an education issue. England followed with free products in all state schools and colleges in 2020. France began distributing free organic products in high schools in 2020 and extended the programme to universities in 2021.
In Australia, the Capital Territory passed legislation in 2023 guaranteeing free access in schools, libraries and hospitals. Victoria has expanded provision to community sites including courts and train stations. Northern Ireland passed its own Period Products Act in 2022. Kenya began distributing free products in public schools in 2018, the same year it removed sales tax on period products entirely.
In the United States the picture is more fragmented, with provision varying by state. Illinois has moved furthest, mandating free products in schools, colleges and shelters through a series of bills passed in 2021. Several other states have removed or reduced the sales tax applied to period products, including California, New York and Florida, though as of late 2025, the majority of US states still tax them.
The Tampon Tax Problem
The classification of period products as non-essential or luxury goods for tax purposes remains one of the most concrete barriers to access in many countries. Kenya abolished the tampon tax in 2004, the first country to do so. Canada followed in 2015, India in 2018, and the United Kingdom in 2021. But in 2022, more than 63 percent of jurisdictions in the Americas region still applied some form of sales tax to period products, with rates in some countries reaching 22 percent.
The fiscal argument against removal is straightforward: for California alone, eliminating the tampon tax is estimated to cost 55 million dollars per year in lost revenue. What tends to get less attention in those calculations is what period poverty costs in terms of school attendance, workforce participation, and long-term health outcomes for people who manage their periods with inadequate or unhygienic alternatives.
The Broader Picture: HRT, Contraception, and the Cost of Being Female
Scotland’s law has helped shift how policymakers think about women’s health costs more broadly. A growing number of countries are now applying similar logic to other stages of reproductive life, extending the principle that biological necessity should not be a financial burden.
Ireland announced in Budget 2025 that HRT would be free for all women experiencing menopause from June 1, 2025, as part of a 35 million euro women’s health package. The move is estimated to save women up to 840 euros a year. Australia went further in February 2025, committing 573 million Australian dollars to subsidise contraceptives and HRT, listing several treatments on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for the first time and reducing costs to a standard prescription fee. British Columbia began providing free contraceptives in April 2023, and by late 2024, the Canadian federal government was in negotiations to extend universal contraception and HRT coverage nationwide. The United Kingdom introduced an annual HRT certificate in April 2023, capping the cost of all HRT prescriptions at 19.30 pounds per year. Spain introduced three to five days of paid menstrual leave in 2023 for people experiencing severe period pain.
What connects all of these measures is the same argument Scotland made in 2021: that the costs associated with female biology are not personal spending choices but public health matters, and that distributing them collectively produces better outcomes than leaving them entirely to the individual.
What Is Still Standing in the Way
Despite the progress, period poverty remains a significant problem globally, affecting an estimated 500 million people. In many low-income countries, the absence of basic sanitation infrastructure is as much of a barrier as cost. Around half of schools in low-income nations do not have adequate toilet facilities or water for students to manage their periods safely. Providing free products without the infrastructure to use them privately and hygienically addresses only part of the problem.
Cultural stigma remains a separate and in some places deeply entrenched obstacle. In parts of Nepal, the practice of Chhaupadi still isolates menstruating people from their households during their period. In many societies menstruation is treated as something shameful or unclean, which makes it harder to build the kind of public and political consensus that Scotland managed to achieve.
The Scottish model is replicable, as the countries following its lead are demonstrating. But replication requires political will, sustained public funding, and a willingness to treat menstrual health as infrastructure rather than welfare. That shift in framing, from private hygiene to public necessity, is ultimately what made Scotland’s law possible, and what is still missing in many places where it would matter most.
Editorial Note
This article draws on the Scottish Government’s policy memorandum for the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021, published spending data, and policy announcements from the governments of Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France and the United States. Figures relating to tampon tax prevalence are drawn from published 2022 regional survey data. Cost comparisons for reusable versus disposable products are based on published academic research. 4up.eu does not receive advertising revenue from manufacturers of menstrual or pharmaceutical products.
4up.eu | March 2026.
