Smokers are more likely than non‐smokers to harbour Porphyromonas gingivalis, they are more susceptible to destructive periodontal disease and smokers may, ultimately, benefit from tobacco‐specific preventive and treatment strategies. A Mariner transposon insertion library for P. gingivalis ATCC 33277 was exploited to define 256 genes as essential for P. gingivalis survival in a tobacco‐rich environment. Genes whose products play roles in protein transport and catabolism, nicotinamide processing, protection against oxidative stress, drug resistance, and transcriptional regulation have all been identified as essential for CSE survival. Many of these tobacco‐essential genes are also requisite for epithelial colonization and abscess formation, suggestive of a core stress‐related P. gingivalis genome. Single‐gene deletions in several of the TnSeq‐implicated genes led to significantly reduced P. gingivalis fitness upon competition with the parent strain, under conditions of cigarette smoke extract‐induced stress (1,000 ng/ml nicotine equivalents). This study identifies, for the first time, a subset of P. gingivalis genes required for surviving the plethora of insults present in cigarette smoke. Such conditionally essential genes may delineate bacterial persistence strategies and represent novel therapeutic foci for the prevention of P. gingivalis infection and related diseases in smokers and in general.