24-Hour Pharmacies in Málaga and the Costa del Sol: Every Verified Address, and How the Duty Rota Really Works
Málaga city has exactly one pharmacy that never closes — Farmacia Caffarena, Alameda Principal 2 — and the whole Costa del Sol has only a handful more. Here is every verified address, and how the duty rota covers everywhere else.
It is late, something hurts, and the green cross on the corner has gone dark. If you type "24 hour pharmacy Málaga" into a search engine at that moment, you will meet lists that were last checked years ago: half a dozen city addresses labelled round-the-clock, forum threads from 2009, and directories that tag any pharmacy with long hours as "24h". Follow them and you can easily stand in front of three shuttered doors before finding help.
The reality is simpler and stricter. Málaga province runs on two systems: a very small number of pharmacies that genuinely never close, and a legally guaranteed rota — the farmacia de guardia (duty pharmacy) — that keeps at least one pharmacy reachable in every area, every night. This guide gives you the permanent addresses we could verify against each pharmacy's own website or an official body in September 2026, town by town from Málaga city to Estepona, and shows you how to read the rota for everywhere in between.
How do I find the pharmacy that is open right now?
Two reliable routes, in under a minute. First, the official rota: the Colegio de Farmacéuticos de Málaga publishes the province-wide farmacias de guardia listing through icofma.es, searchable by town and date. Second, any pharmacy door: Andalusian law obliges every pharmacy to display the current duty rota where you can read it from the street.
Those two sources beat everything else because they are the ones the pharmacies themselves answer to. Google Maps filtered to "open now" is a fair cross-check — it catches the permanent 24-hour pharmacies instantly — but its hours are crowd-edited and lag behind reality, which is exactly how out-of-date "24 horas" labels survive online. Aggregator websites are worse still: several currently list pharmacies in Benalmádena and central Málaga as round-the-clock that in fact close at 22:00 or midnight. When a night trip is at stake, trust the college listing or the sign on the door, and phone ahead if you must cross half the coast.
Which pharmacies in Málaga city are open 24 hours?
One, permanently: Farmacia Caffarena, at Alameda Principal 2 on the corner of Calle Larios — the most central address in the city, a few minutes on foot from the cathedral, the port and the Sol y Sombra nightlife strip. It states its own hours plainly: 24 hours a day, every day of the year. One other pharmacy comes close without crossing the line: Farmacia Camino de Suárez 33, north of the centre, open 8:00 to midnight, 365 days.
| Pharmacy | Address | Phone | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Farmacia Caffarena | Alameda Principal 2 (corner Calle Larios), 29005, city centre | 952 212 858 | 24 h, 365 days — confirmed on the pharmacy's own site |
| Farmacia Camino de Suárez 33 | Camino Suárez 33, 29010, north of the centre | 952 305 899 | 8:00–24:00, 365 days (not overnight) — trade-press listing; call ahead |
Now the correction, because it matters at 3 a.m. Widely-circulated English-language lists still name five or six Málaga city addresses as "24 hour" pharmacies — Maestranza by the bullring, Paseo de Reding, Calle Martínez Maldonado and others. Those entries date from many years ago. More recent local reporting has the Reding pharmacy closing at midnight and the Martínez Maldonado one closed altogether, and none of them publishes a round-the-clock claim today. Treat any city address other than Caffarena as unverified until you have phoned it or seen it on tonight's official rota.
What if Caffarena is across the city and you cannot travel? That is precisely what the duty rota exists for — the next section — and overnight there is always a guardia pharmacy assigned closer to you than you might expect.
How does the farmacia de guardia system work in Andalusia?
Two rules, both from the same law. Under Article 27 of Ley 22/2007, de 18 de diciembre, de Farmacia de Andalucía, pharmacies in Andalusia may set their own opening hours in a regime of "libertad y flexibilidad horarias" — which is why a private pharmacy like Caffarena or Berdaguer can choose to run all night — and, at the same time, the population must be guaranteed permanent pharmaceutical cover. The rota of duty shifts is how that guarantee is delivered where no volunteer stays open.
The same article obliges every pharmacy to display the current schedule and duty turns visibly to the public. In practice that means the printed or illuminated notice on the door of any closed pharmacy tells you which pharmacy covers tonight, with its address; the province-wide version of the same information sits behind the Colegio de Farmacéuticos de Málaga's official listing. Duty assignments change daily and differ between Málaga city, each coastal town and each inland district, so the rota is something you look up in the moment, never something you memorise from a blog.
The mistake we hear about most often from patients who tried the rota first: reading the address on the door sign but not the dates and hours next to it. A guardia shift has a start and an end — a pharmacy that covered last night may hand over at 9:00 or 22:00 today — so the same list that rescues you can also send you to a door whose turn has just finished. Read the whole line, and when in doubt ring the pharmacy before setting out.
Where are the 24-hour pharmacies along the Costa del Sol?
Five pharmacies between Torremolinos and San Pedro Alcántara publish genuine round-the-clock hours, and we verified each against its own website or a consistent trade-press record this month. Benalmádena and Estepona, despite what several directories claim, have none — their longest regular openings end around 22:00, after which the rota takes over. Here is the coast, west from the airport.
| Town | Pharmacy | Address | Phone | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Torremolinos | Farmacia-Ortopedia Garvi 24h | Calle Pablo Bruna 1, opposite the San Miguel health centre | 952 370 685 | 24 h — confirmed on its own site |
| Benalmádena | None permanent | Longest opening: Farmacia El Higuerón, Av. Retamar (C.C. Altos del Higuerón), daily to 22:00 | 952 568 193 | After 22:00 use the rota, or Torremolinos / Fuengirola |
| Fuengirola | Farmacia Trébol Fuengirola | Paseo Jesús Santos Rein 23, 29640 | 952 750 977 | 24 h, 365 days — confirmed on its own site |
| Fuengirola | Farmacia Central 24 horas 365 días | Av. de los Boliches 74, 29640 | Not officially published | 24 h per multiple listings — check the door |
| Marbella (centre) | Farmacia Berdaguer | Av. Ricardo Soriano 4, 29601 | 952 773 187 | 24 h — confirmed on its own site; the city's first, since 1956 |
| Marbella (centre) | Farmacia Mingorance | Av. Ricardo Soriano 44, 29601 | 952 774 086 | Listed 24 h in trade press — call ahead |
| San Pedro Alcántara | Farmacia Internacional 24H | Av. Marqués del Duero 76, 29670 | 952 780 708 | 24 h — confirmed on its own site |
| Estepona | None permanent | Longest opening: Farmacia Usero, Av. Andalucía 168, daily to 22:00 | 952 791 435 | After 22:00 use the rota, or San Pedro Alcántara |
Two practical notes on this table. Puerto Banús and the Marbella urbanisations appear in some listings with late-night pharmacies of their own; none of those entries could be confirmed against a current primary source, so overnight in Banús your dependable options are the rota and the two verified Marbella addresses ten minutes away. And east of Málaga — Rincón de la Victoria, Torre del Mar, Nerja — no pharmacy publishes permanent 24-hour opening at all: the Axarquía coast runs entirely on the guardia system, which works exactly as described above.
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I land at Málaga Airport late — where is the nearest open pharmacy?
Do not plan around finding a dispensing farmacia inside the terminal when you land at night. Only a licensed community pharmacy can dispense medicines in Spain, and the two nearest that never close are a short taxi ride in either direction: Farmacia Garvi in Torremolinos, about ten minutes west of the airport, and Farmacia Caffarena on the Alameda Principal, about fifteen minutes into the city centre.
That choice usually decides itself by where you are sleeping. Heading into Málaga city: Caffarena sits on the main artery your taxi will pass anyway, so ask the driver to wait two minutes. Staying in Torremolinos, Benalmádena or further down the coast: Garvi is barely off the route, and beyond Fuengirola you also pass Trébol and Farmacia Central. If you take an arrivals-hall SIM and search "farmacia open now", remember the caveat from earlier — crowd-sourced hours mislabel several coast pharmacies as 24-hour — and prefer the addresses in the tables above.
What can the pharmacist sell me without a prescription?
Less than visitors from the UK, US or Australia expect, and the pharmacist has no discretion about it. Over the counter you can buy lower-dose painkillers such as ibuprofen 400 mg and standard paracetamol, cold and flu remedies, antacids, rehydration salts, loperamide for diarrhoea and many allergy products. A Spanish prescription is always required for antibiotics, salbutamol inhalers, the higher-dose painkillers (ibuprofen 600 mg, paracetamol 1 g) and any regular medication for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes or thyroid conditions.
The single most common late-night request we receive from the Costa del Sol is for exactly the things a pharmacist cannot hand over: antibiotics — usually for a urinary infection or a dental abscess that has ruined the evening. The pharmacy being open does not change the law; what changes the situation is getting a valid Spanish prescription onto your phone, which is the next section.
Two habits make any pharmacy visit here go faster. Ask by active ingredient rather than home brand name — ibuprofeno, paracetamol, loperamida — or simply show the empty box; our guide to medication names in Spain translates the common ones. And know that a parafarmacia, whatever colour its cross, sells cosmetics and supplements but cannot dispense medicines: for the real thing you need the word farmacia under a green cross. Prescription medicine prices are state-regulated and identical at every pharmacy, so nobody on this list charges tourist rates for the medicine itself — our Spanish medication price guide shows what the usual items cost.
How do I get a prescription at 2 a.m. in Málaga?
Three routes, and all of them end at the same open pharmacy. Hospital urgencias will treat and prescribe at any hour — free into the public system with a GHIC or EHIC at Hospital Regional Universitario in the city or Hospital Costa del Sol outside Marbella — at the cost of a night in a waiting room. A private clinic or hotel-call doctor will see you faster, typically for €50–120 before any tests. Or an online consultation with a doctor licensed in Spain puts a valid e-prescription on your phone without leaving your accommodation.
The online route works at night because Spain's e-prescription system does. A physician reviews your case and, where clinically appropriate, issues a private electronic prescription; under Real Decreto 1718/2010 a Spanish prescription is dispensable at any pharmacy in the country, so the code on your phone works at Caffarena's counter at 4 a.m. exactly as it would at your corner pharmacy at noon. At PrescribeMe that review starts at €15 with a 24-hour turnaround, €20 within the hour, or €30 within fifteen minutes — and if the doctor concludes a prescription is not appropriate, you are told why and not charged. If the problem is that your medication is sitting at home in another country, our guide to forgotten or lost medication in Spain walks through the fastest fixes.
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Will my UK, US or EU prescription work here?
UK and US prescriptions: no. A Spanish pharmacy cannot legally dispense against them, open or not, and no amount of explaining at the counter changes that — the medicine has to be re-prescribed by a doctor licensed in Spain. EU and EEA cross-border prescriptions are the exception: they are accepted when they carry the required details, including your full name and date of birth, the prescriber's details and the medicine's active ingredient, and a paper copy travels far better than a foreign e-script no Spanish system can open.
A misunderstanding we correct almost daily for long-stay visitors: the idea that a UK repeat prescription can be "transferred" to a Spanish pharmacy the way it moves between branches at home. It cannot. What actually happens — with us or with any Spanish doctor — is a fresh clinical assessment here, after which the doctor issues a new Spanish prescription for the same treatment where that is appropriate. For anyone wintering on the coast, our guide to repeat prescriptions in Spain for long stays covers how to keep a regular medication running without gaps.
When is a pharmacy the wrong place to go?
When the problem is the person, not the medicine. Chest pain, stroke signs such as one-sided weakness or slurred speech, severe breathing difficulty, heavy bleeding, confusion or a serious allergic reaction are emergencies: call 112, or 061 — Andalusia's dedicated health emergency line — and both handle English across Málaga province. No pharmacist, and no online doctor, is the right answer to any of those.
For urgent but not life-threatening problems, the public hospitals' urgencias departments run around the clock: Hospital Regional Universitario de Málaga on Avenida Carlos Haya in the city (switchboard 951 290 000) and Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol on the A-7 at km 187 outside Marbella (951 976 669). For health information that is not an emergency — including where to find urgent care near you — the Junta de Andalucía's Salud Responde line, 955 545 060, answers 24 hours a day. Our wider guide to seeing a doctor in Spain maps the public, private and online routes in detail.
What online care — including ours — cannot do
An honest boundary line, because a page like this should have one. No online service can examine you: nobody can listen to your chest or press on your abdomen through a screen, and a condition that needs hands-on assessment belongs at a clinic or urgencias, where a good online doctor will send you rather than prescribe blind. Prescriptions are never guaranteed — at PrescribeMe a physician reviews every request and decides on clinical grounds, and when the answer is no, you are told why and not charged.
Spanish law also puts certain medicines beyond any ordinary consultation. Drugs on Spain's special narcotics prescription — strong opioids, ADHD stimulants — cannot be issued through a standard consultation, online or in person, and as a matter of policy we do not prescribe benzodiazepines or Z-drug sleeping tablets online. A website promising those remotely, or promising any prescription before a doctor has looked at your case, has told you everything you need to know about it.
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Frequently asked questions
Is there a pharmacy open 24 hours in Málaga?
Yes, one that never closes: Farmacia Caffarena at Alameda Principal 2, on the corner of Calle Larios in the city centre, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Every other pharmacy in the city keeps ordinary or extended hours, with overnight cover provided by the rotating farmacia de guardia system, so check the official rota before crossing town at night.
How do I find tonight's farmacia de guardia in Málaga province?
Use the official duty listing published through the Colegio de Farmacéuticos de Málaga at icofma.es, which links to the province-wide lookup by town, or read the rota notice that every pharmacy must display on its door under Andalusian pharmacy law. Google Maps with "open now" works as a quick cross-check, but the college listing is the authoritative source.
Is there a 24-hour pharmacy in Marbella, Fuengirola or Torremolinos?
Yes, in all three. Marbella has Farmacia Berdaguer at Avenida Ricardo Soriano 4 and Farmacia Internacional at Avenida Marqués del Duero 76 in San Pedro Alcántara. Fuengirola has Farmacia Trébol at Paseo Jesús Santos Rein 23 and Farmacia Central at Avenida de los Boliches 74. In Torremolinos, Farmacia Garvi at Calle Pablo Bruna 1 is open around the clock.
Is there a 24-hour pharmacy in Benalmádena or Estepona?
No. Neither town has a pharmacy that stays open around the clock; the longest regular opening in each runs to about 22:00. After that, cover passes to the rotating duty pharmacy, so check the official rota, or travel to the nearest permanent 24-hour pharmacy: Torremolinos or Fuengirola from Benalmádena, San Pedro Alcántara from Estepona.
Can I buy antibiotics in Málaga without a prescription?
No. Antibiotics always require a Spanish prescription, and a pharmacy cannot legally sell them without one, however sympathetic the pharmacist. The same applies to salbutamol inhalers, higher-dose painkillers and regular medication for blood pressure, thyroid or diabetes. If you need one at night, the routes are hospital urgencias, a private clinic, or an online consultation with a doctor licensed in Spain.
Will my UK or US prescription work at a Costa del Sol pharmacy?
Generally no. Spanish pharmacies cannot dispense against UK or US prescriptions; you need the medicine re-prescribed by a doctor licensed in Spain. EU and EEA cross-border prescriptions are the exception and are accepted when they carry the required details, including the active ingredient. Under Real Decreto 1718/2010, any valid Spanish prescription can then be dispensed at any pharmacy in the country.
What number do I call for a medical emergency on the Costa del Sol?
Call 112, the free Europe-wide emergency number, or 061, Andalusia's dedicated health emergency line — both work across Málaga province and handle English. For health information that is not an emergency, such as finding urgent care, the Junta de Andalucía's Salud Responde line on 955 545 060 operates 24 hours a day.
The duty pharmacy looks shut — why is the shutter down?
Overnight, many duty pharmacies serve through a hatch or a small window with the main shutter lowered for security, which makes them look closed from across the street. Walk up, look for the doorbell or the lit guardia sign, and ring. If nobody answers within a few minutes, re-check the rota: duty shifts change over and the listing tells you the exact hours.
Sources
- Farmacia Caffarena — the pharmacy's own site, confirming its 24-hour service in central Málaga. Accessed 26 September 2026. farmaciacaffarena.net
- Farmacia-Ortopedia Garvi 24h — the pharmacy's own site: address (Calle Pablo Bruna 1, Torremolinos), phones and 24-hour opening. Accessed 26 September 2026. farmaciagarvi.es
- Farmacias Trébol — group site for Farmacia Trébol Fuengirola: address, phone, "24 hours, every day of the year". Accessed 26 September 2026. farmaciastrebol.com
- Farmacia Berdaguer — the pharmacy's own site: address, phone, 24-hour service and its history as Marbella's first 24-hour pharmacy. Accessed 26 September 2026. farmaciaberdaguer.com
- Farmacia Internacional 24H — the pharmacy's own site, San Pedro Alcántara. Accessed 26 September 2026. farmaciainternacional24h.com
- Ilustre Colegio Oficial de Farmacéuticos de Málaga — official farmacias de guardia page, linking the province-wide duty lookup. Accessed 26 September 2026. icofma.es
- Junta de Andalucía, BOJA — Ley 22/2007, de 18 de diciembre, de Farmacia de Andalucía (Article 27: opening hours, duty service and the obligation to display the rota). Accessed 26 September 2026. juntadeandalucia.es
- Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto 1718/2010 sobre receta médica y órdenes de dispensación: Spanish prescriptions dispensable at any pharmacy nationwide. Accessed 26 September 2026. boe.es
- Junta de Andalucía — Urgencias y emergencias sanitarias: 061, when to use it, and the Salud Responde information line (955 545 060). Accessed 26 September 2026. juntadeandalucia.es
- Servicio Andaluz de Salud — centre pages for Hospital Universitario Regional de Málaga and Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol: addresses and telephones. Accessed 26 September 2026. sspa.juntadeandalucia.es
- Redacción Médica, "Guía de farmacias 24/12h de España" — trade-press listings used for Farmacia Camino de Suárez 33, Farmacia Central Fuengirola, Farmacia Mingorance, Farmacia El Higuerón (Benalmádena) and Farmacia Usero (Estepona) hours and phones. Accessed 26 September 2026. redaccionmedica.com
- GOV.UK — Healthcare for UK nationals visiting Spain: GHIC/EHIC scope in the public system. Accessed 26 September 2026. gov.uk
- Aena — press release: Málaga–Costa del Sol Airport closed 2025 with 26,760,549 passengers, an all-time record. Accessed 26 September 2026. aena.es