Marlboro vs. Parliament | Cigarette Brand Comparison

WARNING: Cigarettes are addictive.

Marlboro and Parliament come off the same production lines. Philip Morris USA makes both at its Richmond, Virginia plant, and both are premium brands owned by Altria. The differences are scale and construction: Marlboro is the largest cigarette brand in the United States, with 50 styles in the Oregon directory, and Parliament is a small premium brand with 8, built around the recessed filter it has used since Benson & Hedges introduced it in the early 1930s. This page sets the two side by side on the public record: ownership, size, styles, filter design and history.

Last verified September 11, 2026 against the Oregon (July 2026) and New Jersey (June 2025) state tobacco directories, Altria’s financial reports, Philip Morris’ own brand histories, and the sources listed at the end. Style counts are directory listings, which certify a style for sale in that state; they do not mean every store carries it.

Side by side

Fact	Marlboro	Parliament
US manufacturer	Philip Morris USA, Richmond, Virginia	Philip Morris USA, Richmond, Virginia
Parent	Altria Group	Altria Group
Launched	1924 as an unfiltered cigarette; relaunched nationally in 1955 with a filter and the flip-top box	1931, by the Benson & Hedges Company as a specialty brand sold in major cities; “the first cigarette with a filter mouthpiece” in 1932 (Philip Morris history)
Ownership path	Philip Morris throughout	Benson & Hedges until 1954, when it became a Philip Morris subsidiary; Philip Morris since
Price tier	Premium; 59.4% of the US premium segment in 2025	Premium; Altria’s “other premium” group with Virginia Slims
US market share	40.5% of retail sales in 2025, 39.5% in Q2 2026 (Altria, Circana/MSAi)	Not reported by brand; the “other premium” group was 2.1% of the category in the first half of 2026
Rank	No. 1 since December 1975	Not in the published top ten
Styles in the Oregon directory	50	8
Lengths	72 mm shorts, king (83 mm), 100s	King (79 mm), 100s
Packs	Box only in Oregon	Box only
Menthol styles	21 of 50	4 of 8
Filter	Standard cellulose acetate filter	Recessed filter: the tipping extends past the filter plug, leaving a hollow at the mouth end. Parliament 100’s launched in 1969 with a charcoal filter
Master Settlement Agreement	Philip Morris USA, original participant (1998)	Same
Pack	20 cigarettes	20 cigarettes

The lineups

Marlboro (50 styles)

Family	Styles	Menthol
Marlboro (red), 100’s, Eighty-Threes	3	No
Gold Pack, Silver Pack, Black Gold Pack (king and 100’s)	6	No
72’s shorts (Marlboro, Gold, Silver, Green Menthol, Black Menthol)	5	2 of 5
Blend No. 27, Red Label, Smooth, Southern Cut (king and 100’s)	7	No
Cowboy Cut (Marlboro, Gold, Menthol; king and 100’s)	6	2 of 6
Special Blend black pack (Marlboro and Menthol; king and 100’s)	4	2 of 4
Special Select red and gold packs (king and 100’s)	4	No
Menthol, Menthol Gold, Menthol Silver, Menthol Blue, Menthol Slate (king and 100’s)	10	Yes
Menthol Ice, Bold Ice, Smooth Ice, Midnight Menthol, NXT Menthol (king)	5	Yes

New Jersey lists 47, adding Gold Label and Gold Label 100’s and omitting the Cowboy Cut styles.

Parliament (8 styles)

Style as listed (Oregon)	Length	Menthol
Parliament White Pack Box	King (79 mm)	No
Parliament White Pack 100’s Box	100s	No
Parliament Blue Pack Box	King	No
Parliament Silver Pack Box	King	No
Parliament Menthol White Pack Box	King	Yes
Parliament Menthol White Pack 100’s Box	100s	Yes
Parliament Menthol Green Pack Box	King	Yes
Parliament Menthol Silver Pack Box	King	Yes

New Jersey lists the same 8. All eight have been in the Oregon directory since December 2003; Parliament Lights, introduced in 1979, is the style the pack-color names replaced after the June 2010 descriptor ban. Full pack listings: Marlboro and Parliament.

The recessed filter

Parliament’s defining feature, in Philip Morris’ own brand history, is its “recessed” filter: the paper tipping extends beyond the filter material so the filter sits back from the lips. Benson & Hedges introduced Parliament in 1931 in “plain and cork tip” versions and, per the Philip Morris company history, made it “the first cigarette with a filter mouthpiece” in 1932, more than twenty years before filters became standard across the industry in 1954. Parliament 100’s, launched nationally on November 10, 1969, added a charcoal filter. It is a construction difference, not a health feature: the National Cancer Institute’s Monograph 13 (2001) found that filter design differences that change machine-measured yields do not translate into lower exposure for the person smoking. Marlboro uses a conventional cellulose acetate filter, introduced with the 1955 relaunch as the cork-tipped “Selectrate” filter.

History

Marlboro. Philip Morris introduced Marlboro in 1924 as an unfiltered cigarette and for thirty years it was a minor brand. In 1954 and 1955 the company repositioned it “as a cigarette brand for men,” in a flip-top box with the red roof design and a cork-tipped filter, and went national in 1955; “Marlboro Country” advertising followed in 1963. Altria’s timeline records it as the world’s best-selling cigarette from 1972 and the top US brand from the end of 1975. It is made, with every other PM USA cigarette, at the Richmond Manufacturing Center opened in 1973.

Parliament. Benson & Hedges, then an independent New York tobacconist, introduced Parliament in 1931 as a specialty brand for major metropolitan markets. A king size arrived in early 1954, the same year Benson & Hedges became a Philip Morris subsidiary, which gave the brand “a full field sales force” for the first time. Parliament 100’s followed in 1969 and Parliament Lights in 1979. It has been a Philip Morris brand for over seventy years and is reported today inside Altria’s “other premium” group rather than by name.

Regulation

Philip Morris USA signed the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with 46 states and is listed as a participating manufacturer in every state directory checked. The 21 menthol Marlboro styles and 4 menthol Parliament styles are subject to the sales bans in Massachusetts (June 1, 2020) and California (December 21, 2022); the federal menthol proposal was withdrawn January 21, 2025. Both brands received FDA substantial-equivalence orders in the 2018 and 2019 review rounds. No FDA warning letter specific to either brand was found. Texas, where Saucey delivers tobacco, has no menthol restriction.

FAQs

Are Marlboro and Parliament made by the same company? Yes. Philip Morris USA makes both in Richmond, Virginia, along with Virginia Slims, L&M and Basic.

What is the actual difference? The filter. Parliament has the recessed filter; Marlboro has a standard one. Beyond that, Marlboro has 50 styles across three lengths and Parliament has 8 across two.

Which is older? Marlboro, 1924 to Parliament’s 1931. As a filtered cigarette, Parliament is older: 1932 against Marlboro’s 1955.

Which sells more? Marlboro, by a wide margin: about four in ten US cigarettes. Altria does not report Parliament’s share, but the whole “other premium” group it belongs to is about 2%.

Is the recessed filter safer? No claim of that kind is on the record. Filters and filter ventilation change machine measurements, and the National Cancer Institute found those measurements do not predict what a person takes in.

What do they cost? Both are premium brands from the same maker, so the gap between them is small; the gap between states is large, because tax is most of the price. See How Much Does a Pack of Cigarettes Cost?

Sources

• Oregon Department of Justice, Tobacco Brand Directory, July 21, 2026; New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Tobacco Directory, June 30, 2025
• Philip Morris, Parliament brand history and company history (internal documents, Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising); Altria, Our Heritage; Philip Morris USA, Our Offices and Facilities
• Altria, 2025 full-year results, January 29, 2026, and second-quarter 2026 results, July 30, 2026 (SEC EDGAR)
• FDA Center for Tobacco Products, substantial-equivalence review documents, 2018 and 2019 (fda.gov/media/117667 and 129432); National Cancer Institute, “Light” Cigarettes and Cancer Risk (Monograph 13 summary)
• Public Health Law Center, Proposed Menthol Rules Withdrawn, February 7, 2025; Mass.gov, 2019 Tobacco Control Law; California Department of Public Health, SB 793 fact sheet