Tobacco smoking costs the EU an estimated 98 to 130 billion Euros each year – just above 1% of the EU Gross Domestic Product in 2000. A large, robust and consistent evidence base indicates that coordinated, high impact and comprehensive approaches are the most effective way to reduce smoking initiation, prevalence and intensity. Despite this, policy makers and public health procurers often lack the data and financial justification to make the case for investment in tackling the scourge of tobacco. The CER project “EQUIPT” brings together expertise from multiple disciplines and aims to provide health care policy makers with bespoke information about the economic and wider returns that investing in evidence-based tobacco control including smoking cessation agendas can generate. Learning from a very recent UK experience, EQUIPT will co-create and test a “return on investment” (ROI) tool, designed for use by tobacco control advocates, policy makers and public health procurers. The first stage of the project will develop the existing ROI tool for use in four EU Member States – Germany, Spain, Hungary and the Netherlands. Following this, it will test the transferability of the ROI methods to other EU countries (including lower-income Member States) with a view to guiding comprehensive tobacco control policies. The innovation of this project is its focus beyond simply estimating the cost-effectiveness of individual interventions: instead it will evaluate comprehensive tobacco control in an approach that mirrors real practice, where various interventions are delivered concurrently. In combination with a structured dissemination plan involving key stakeholders, this will improve investment in effective tobacco control and cessation services, in turn reducing the incidence of major chronic diseases and improving quality of life at the population level. The resulting cost-saving across the EU has the potential to be enormous.