Three clinics in Barcelona publish a price for a consultation in English — €70, €99 and €150. Every private hospital we checked publishes none at all.
You are in Barcelona, you feel ill, and the pages you have found either sell appointments or tell you to buy insurance. Almost none of them says what anything costs, where to go at eleven at night, or whether the health centre at the end of your street will see somebody who is not registered in Catalonia.
This guide answers those questions in the order they tend to arrive, and names the source behind each rule. It covers the public route, private clinics, out-of-hours urgent care, doctors who come to a hotel room, and what happens to the prescription afterwards — which is where visitors most often lose their money.
Can a tourist walk into a public health centre in Barcelona?
Yes, and you will be seen. The local public health centre is a CAP (centre d'atenció primària), and the standard day is Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 20:00. Take photo identification and, if you hold one, your European Health Insurance Card. What is less clear is whether you can book ahead, because Catalonia's appointment system runs through a residents' portal.
The legal position changed in 2018 and a good deal of what is still written online predates it. Article 3 ter of Ley 16/2003, as amended by Real Decreto-ley 7/2018, gives foreigners who are neither registered nor authorised as residents the right to health protection and healthcare “en las mismas condiciones que las personas con nacionalidad española” — on the same terms as Spanish nationals. Public funding for that care is then conditioned separately, and one of its three conditions is that there is no third party obliged to pay.
That distinction explains nearly everything else on this page. A tourist holding travel insurance fails two of the funding conditions at once, because the insurer is both the alternative cover and the liable third party. You will be treated. You may well be invoiced.
Barcelona's city council puts the number of CAPs in the city at 53, though its page carries no date. For a registered resident the route to a specialist runs through the assigned family doctor first, except in emergencies. Public dental care is narrow: diagnosis, prevention, and therapeutic work such as an extraction for infection or inflammation.
One administrative change worth knowing, because it will alter signage over time. In July 2025 the Catalan government approved the first phase of a primary care reform covering 27 teams, four of them in Barcelona, and the government's own bulletin states that the CAP label will be replaced by a new one, CSIR. No date has been published for when that becomes visible on buildings, so for now you will see both.
What does the public system charge a visitor with no cover?
Less clearly than anyone would like. CatSalut does publish prices, and they are real — €50 for a non-urgent consultation at a health centre, €75 for an urgent one. But the order that sets them describes them as reimbursement rates billed to a visitor's insurer or home state, not a price list for someone paying out of pocket. For a hospital emergency department there is no single price at all.
The instrument is ORDRE SLT/63/2020, de 8 de març, published in the Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya number 8134 on 15 May 2020, and still recorded as in force. Its primary care prices are these, with the wording as the order gives it.
| Line item, as the order words it | What it covers | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Atenció mèdica no urgent centre salut | Non-urgent consultation at a health centre | €50.00 |
| Atenció mèdica urgent centre de salut | Urgent medical attention at a health centre | €75.00 |
| Visita centre d'urgències d'atenció primària (CUAP) sense estada d'observació | Urgent primary care centre, without an observation stay | €105.00 |
| Visita centre d'urgències d'atenció primària (CUAP) amb estada d'observació | Urgent primary care centre, with an observation stay | €130.00 |
Three things have to be said alongside those figures, and pages that quote them without the caveats are misleading their readers.
All four are primary care prices. The €130 is an urgent primary care attendance that included an observation stay — not, as it is sometimes repeated, a hospital emergency admission.
Article 2 of the order limits its application to insured people from EU, EEA and Swiss schemes who are not resident in Spain, to people covered by bilateral conventions, to work accidents and occupational illness, and to care CatSalut has agreed to fund. Article 3 then states that these public prices “tenen la consideració de tarifes de reemborsament” — they have the status of reimbursement tariffs for cross-border care. They are the amounts billed onward under European coordination, which is not the same thing as a menu for a self-paying patient.
And in force does not mean current. Article 4 allows the prices to be revised annually by resolution of the CatSalut director, without a new order being published. The 2020 order still standing therefore proves nothing about the 2020 amounts still being the amounts.
For hospital emergencies the order takes a different approach entirely. It classifies attendances by severity under the Model andorrà de triatge, across five levels from immediate resuscitation down to non-urgent cases that could have been scheduled, and prices each band separately. There is no headline A&E figure to quote, and we are not going to invent one.
Two rules in that section are worth more to you than a price would be. Emergency attendance is billed whether or not you are admitted: “L'assistència a urgències es factura sempre”. And the emergency tariff covers the basic means and materials needed to determine treatment until the episode ends — so basic tests are inside the quoted figure rather than added to it, while anything beyond that is billed separately.
What is genuinely not published anywhere we could reach: how and when the bill arrives, whether a card is taken at the desk, and what happens when the address on the file is foreign. The order consistently speaks of invoicing rather than collecting, which hints at a bill later rather than payment on the day, but that is an inference and we will not dress it up as a rule. Nor are the prices uniform by law: centres in the public network may adhere to them, and may also agree individual terms with particular payers, so the centre is the only place to confirm what it will charge.
If the wider question of paying for Spanish healthcare without cover is what brought you here, our guide to healthcare in Spain without insurance covers the national picture and the other regions.
Is an EHIC or GHIC enough in Barcelona?
It gets you state-provided care on the same terms as a Spanish resident, which is not the same as free. Present the card with photo identification at a public centre. It does not cover private treatment at all, it is not a substitute for travel insurance, and it does not cover care you travelled to Spain in order to receive.
CatSalut's own procedure for a visitor is short: show the European Health Insurance Card, or the provisional certificate that stands in for it, plus a passport or other photo identification. No prior registration step appears in that procedure, and the Catalan individual health card — the targeta sanitària — features only in the residency route, not in the visitor one. Planned treatment is different and needs form S2, arranged from your home country before you travel.
If you are a UK visitor, the UK government's position is published plainly: a GHIC or EHIC covers state healthcare and not private treatment, gives access on the same basis as a Spanish citizen, and excludes mountain rescue and medical repatriation. A lost card can be replaced with a Provisional Replacement Certificate from NHS Overseas Healthcare Services on +44 (0)191 218 1999, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Arriving without the documents is the failure case. CatSalut states that an EU visitor without them receives necessary care in an emergency but must pay for it, and that where the patient is admitted, they or responsible family members sign a payment commitment with the amount falling due at discharge. A non-EU visitor staying under three months without the right documents must cover the costs of care received.
Nationals of a number of countries with bilateral agreements — Andorra, Brazil, Chile, Morocco, Peru, Paraguay, Tunisia and Venezuela among them — have been reported to need a medical certificate issued in their home country, without which they pay upfront. That reporting dates from 2018, so treat it as a prompt to check your own country's agreement rather than as current detail.
Where do you go at night or on a Sunday?
To a CUAP (centre d'urgències d'atenció primària), an urgent primary care centre open 24 hours. CUAPs handle urgent problems of low and medium complexity, work alongside the hospital emergency services, and triage by severity rather than by order of arrival. Call 061 first if you are able to: the line runs 24 hours and has an interpreting service.
Barcelona's out-of-hours vocabulary is worth thirty seconds, because the words are not interchangeable and the city does not use all of them.
- CAP — the ordinary health centre, scheduled hours, typically Monday to Friday 08:00 to 20:00. A few teams also publish Saturday morning urgent cover, usually 09:00 to 14:00.
- CUAP — urgent primary care, 24 hours, with observation capacity and on-site bloods and imaging. This is the out-of-hours tier in Barcelona.
- Hospital urgències — for the most serious and most specialised cases.
- CAC and PAC — continuing-care centres and continuing-care points. Real categories in the Catalan system, and terms you may meet elsewhere in Catalonia, but not how Barcelona's own out-of-hours network is organised.
The eight facilities below publish 24-hour urgent care inside the city. We are not going to give you a total, because the official listings disagree about which of them count as CUAPs: the Institut Català de la Salut names four, while the city council's own equipment directory yields these eight. Addresses and phone numbers are as published by the source named; nothing here is dated by its source, so phone before you travel.
| Centre | Address as published | Area | Phone |
|---|---|---|---|
| CUAP Ciutat Vella – Peracamps | Plaça de Pieyre de Mandiargues, 1–5 | Ciutat Vella (el Raval) | 934 410 600 |
| CUAP Manso (inside CAP Manso) | Carrer de Manso, 19 | Eixample (Sant Antoni) | 935 517 283 |
| CUAP Horta | Carrer de Sant Gaudenci, 21, 08031 | Horta-Guinardó | 934 289 517 |
| CUAP Casernes de Sant Andreu | Carrer de Fernando Pessoa, 47–51, 08030 | Sant Andreu | 932 747 950 |
| CUAP Cotxeres (inside CIS Cotxeres) | Avinguda dels Quinze, 18–30 | Nou Barris | 932 438 988 |
| CUAP Sant Martí (inside CAP Sant Martí) | Carrer de Fluvià, 211 | Sant Martí | 933 070 812 |
| CUAP Gràcia (first floor of CAP Larrard) | Carrer de Larrard, 1 | Gràcia | Call 061 — see note below |
| Hospital Dos de Maig | Carrer Dos de Maig, 301, 08025 | Eixample (Sagrada Família) | 935 072 700 |
Two entries in that table are classified inconsistently by the authorities themselves. The Institut Català de la Salut files Larrard as an ordinary primary care team and Dos de Maig as a hospital, while the city directory lists urgent primary care at both. The likeliest explanation is mundane: each is a 24-hour urgent service operating inside a building whose official category is something else. We could not reach a source we trust for CUAP Gràcia's direct telephone number, so we have not printed one.
That points at something a visitor needs to know before setting out. Several of Barcelona's CUAPs are not separate buildings at all. Manso, Sant Martí and Cotxeres are 24-hour services inside a health centre, and Dos de Maig is one inside a hospital. If you are looking for a door marked CUAP, you are often looking for the CAP's door.
Public hospital emergency departments
The city council names four main hospitals: Clínic, del Mar, Santa Creu i Sant Pau, and Vall d'Hebron. The three we were able to verify against the hospitals' own publications are below. We could not open Hospital Clínic's own pages, so rather than copy its details from a directory we have left it out — which is itself worth noting, given what the l'Esperança record turned out to be worth.
| Hospital | Address | Emergency phone | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau | Carrer de Sant Quintí, 87 (emergency entrance; main entrance at 89) | 93 553 76 00 | Emergency access 24 h. Main entrance 06:30–22:00 |
| Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron | Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron, 119–129 | General 932 746 250 · Paediatric 934 893 371 | Four separate emergency entrances on a very large campus. Check the hospital's own route maps before travelling |
| Hospital del Mar | Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta, 25–29 (the city directory gives 23–31 for the same stretch) | 932 483 011 · 932 483 012 | Hours not published on the pages we could read |
There is also a 24-hour urgent care service at Hospital Plató, Carrer Plató 21, on 933 069 900, which the city directory records as privately owned. It is an option out of hours, but it is a private one and should be treated as the private route described below, not as public care.
Hospital Sant Rafael, at Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron 107–117, is part of the public network, but its own site publishes no emergency department and no emergency hours, so we would not send you there expecting one.
Children
This is the single most useful paediatric fact about Barcelona, and it catches families out. The area's flagship 24-hour children's emergency department, at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, is not in the city. It is at Passeig Sant Joan de Déu 2, 08950 Esplugues de Llobregat, on 93 253 21 00, open 24 hours all year. The hospital's site inside Barcelona, on Carrer Numància 9–13, is daytime only: 08:00 to 22:00, with admissions until 21:00.
So a parent in Barcelona with an unwell child at 23:00 has two realistic options: Vall d'Hebron's paediatric emergency door, on 934 893 371, or the journey out to Esplugues. Hospital Dos de Maig's urgent service excludes paediatrics and obstetrics. CUAP Gràcia is reported to take low and medium complexity cases for adults and children alike.
If what you need is a pharmacy rather than a doctor, the duty-pharmacy rota for the province is published live by the Col·legi de Farmacèutics de Barcelona, and our guide to 24-hour pharmacies in Barcelona explains how to read it and which pharmacies stay open.
Which Barcelona clinics publish a price for a consultation in English?
Exactly three, which is the most useful thing we can tell you about this market. English Doctor Barcelona publishes €70, Turó Park Clinics €99, and Doctors Barcelona €150. Every private hospital we checked — Teknon, Dexeus, barnaclínic+ and others — publishes no consultation price whatsoever.
| Clinic | Address | Phone | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Doctor Barcelona | Carrer de l'Arquitecte Sert, 16, LOC 1, 08005 (Vila Olímpica / Poblenou) | +34 699 556 326 · +34 662 291 191 | €70 general consultation; follow-ups also €70; €70–100 depending on specialist and complexity. Laboratory work billed separately |
| Turó Park Clinics | Plaça de Sant Gregori Taumaturg, 5, 08021. Weekend consultations at Carrer Francesc Pérez Cabrero, 19 | +34 932 529 729 | €99 GP consultation; €129 at weekends and on holidays; €125 urgent outside schedule; €89 follow-up; €79 for students with ID; €65 video consultation |
| Doctors Barcelona (trading name of MEDVISIT, S.L.U.) | Carrer Esteve Terrades, 37, Bajos 1a, 08023 | +34 689 327 144 | €150 consultation, or covered by some insurers |
Turó Park publishes the fullest tariff we found anywhere in the city, and two lines on it are worth singling out because visitors ask about both: a prescription renewal at €60, and a medical certificate from general medicine at €120. Its price list does not state whether the €120 certificate includes the €99 consultation or is charged on top of it, so ask before booking. Its home visits are €180 in the daytime on weekdays and €220 at night, at weekends and on holidays.
The clinics that publish nothing are not being evasive so much as serving a different customer. A clinic built for foreign patients publishes a tariff because the decision is price-sensitive and made in a few minutes. A private hospital living on insurance contracts and medical tourism does not, because almost every patient arrives with an insurer or a quotation already in hand.
The question we are asked most often by people writing from Barcelona is not about price at all. It is whether a prescription from their own country will work at a Spanish pharmacy counter, usually asked by somebody who has already been turned away once.
Already know what you need?
If the request is a prescription or a certificate rather than an examination, a doctor licensed in Spain can review it online and issue a Spanish e-prescription valid at any pharmacy in the country.
Start a requestStandard €15 (24 h) · Express €20 (1 h) · Instant €30 (15 min)
Should you let the hotel call a doctor?
Only with a price agreed in writing first. A doctor sent to a hotel room in Barcelona is a private commercial service billing the guest, and the published rates run from €120 to €220 before any medicine. Several operators publish no figure at all and quote only by telephone or WhatsApp, which means the number is set at the moment you are least able to argue about it.
At least seven services visibly market a doctor to hotels, tourist apartments, student accommodation and boats in Barcelona. These are the rates each publishes on its own site.
| Service | Published price | Out-of-hours |
|---|---|---|
| MedinAction | €120, 10:00–20:00 | €140 after 20:00, at weekends and on holidays |
| International Doctor 24h | €130, described as Monday to Sunday, with conditions to check | Not separately published |
| DocturTeam | €150, clinic or home, within the urban area | States explicitly that there is no additional charge at night, at weekends or on public holidays |
| Doctor Home Visit Barcelona | €150 “all included” in Barcelona town; €50 per additional patient | Extra cost may apply; amount not published |
| MedVisit / Doctors Barcelona | €150, not separated from remote consultations | Not published |
| Turó Park Clinics | From €180, weekdays in the daytime | €220 at night, at weekends and on holidays. Home service for patients aged 14 and over |
| DHV24 | “From €50”, quoted by phone or WhatsApp | Not published. Its own coverage list does not name Barcelona city |
| Medical Care Barcelona | No prices published at all | None published |
The night and weekend premium, where a service charges one, is about €40 — MedinAction moves from €120 to €140, Turó Park from €180 to €220. That is roughly a fifth to a quarter on top. DocturTeam is the outlier that states it charges nothing extra out of hours, which is a genuine difference rather than marketing noise.
In every case where the page is explicit, the fee buys the doctor's attendance and nothing else. MedinAction says so in as many words: the cost of the prescription is not included in the price. No service we examined publishes a VAT position, a travel surcharge schedule, or any ceiling on what tests ordered during the visit will add.
We should be straight about what we did not find. We looked for documented overcharging by hotel-arranged doctors in Barcelona — in English and Spanish, through consumer protection bodies, the city council, the Generalitat and the press — and found none specific to the city. There is trade-press coverage of call-out doctors inflating prices for hotel guests generally, and a contested 2018 case involving an intermediary firm which denies the allegation. So this is not a warning about anybody's conduct. It is a warning about agreeing to buy something before being told the price.
The caution is structural rather than scandalous, and it is still worth taking. Asking reception to call a doctor means entering an unpriced private contract while unwell, in a language you may not speak, with a provider you did not choose. Ask for the figure first, in writing, including any out-of-hours supplement, and ask what happens if tests are needed.
How do you check that a doctor is actually registered?
Search the public register of the College of Physicians of Barcelona, at comb.cat. It holds what the college itself calls public data on registered doctors, is updated daily, and can be searched by registration number, first name, both surnames, specialty, comarca and town. No login is required to search it.
There is a trap, and it is a search-engine artefact rather than anything the college has done wrong. The page that surfaces first is the verification service built for employers — healthcare centres and organisations checking doctors they intend to hire — and it reads as though the register is closed to the public. It is not. The register you want is the Registre de metges col·legiats.
Three honest limits. The register covers the province of Barcelona, so a doctor registered with the Girona, Lleida or Tarragona college will not appear in it. The college's page does not describe what a search returns, so we cannot promise it confirms a specialty or a current standing. And the unambiguous identifier is the número de col·legiat, the registration number — with common Spanish surnames, a name alone can return several doctors, which is precisely why the specialty and district filters exist.
The embassy lists are a starting point, not a register
British visitors are often pointed at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's list of medical facilities and practitioners in Spain. It is worth knowing what that document actually is before you rely on it. The FCDO has consolidated its regional lists into one national file, last updated in June 2025, and the only Barcelona-specific entry in its revision history is dated April 2020. Catalonia has nine entries in it, all in Barcelona city.
We checked each of those nine against the businesses' own published details, and the list does not come out of it well:
- One address is simply wrong. The FCDO gives Doctors Barcelona at Passeig dels Til·lers 3. The business's own site gives Carrer Esteve Terrades 37. The telephone number matches, so it is the same practice at a different address — and a reader following the FCDO would travel to the wrong part of the city.
- Two website links are stale. The Teknon URL redirects, because the hospital now sits under the Quirónsalud brand. The Quirónsalud link lands on the national group site rather than the Barcelona hospital, and the entry names only the group brand.
- One table row is malformed in the page's own markup, so an ophthalmology clinic's details sit on the row of a general practice. A reader skimming could easily attribute one to the other.
- A hospital is listed with a mobile number in a format unlike every other entry.
- A specialist women's clinic appears in a general list, with a telephone number that does not match the one on its own switchboard, and its own published services include no general medicine at all.
- The two clinics that most clearly market English-language general practice, and the only two publishing a GP price, do not appear anywhere in it.
None of that makes the list useless, and the FCDO is candid about what it is: the lists are for information only, are not exhaustive, are not endorsed or recommended, and carry no liability. Read it that way. The register at the College of Physicians of Barcelona is the thing that actually tells you whether a doctor is licensed to practise.
What happens to the prescription — and the one rule that decides whether it works
A prescription issued in Spain has to reach the pharmacy in a form the pharmacy can dispense. A photograph, a scan, an email attachment or a message from the prescriber's phone is not that form, whatever you paid for the consultation. This is the question to settle before you book anybody, and almost nothing written for visitors mentions it.
The governing instrument is Real Decreto 1718/2010, on medical prescriptions and dispensing orders, in force since 21 January 2011. Private prescriptions sit in its Chapter V, articles 12 to 14: article 13 covers paper, article 14 covers electronic. Article 14 states expressly that a private electronic prescription can be dispensed at any pharmacy nationwide.
One detail in that regulation answers a worry visitors raise constantly. Article 3.2 requires the patient's Spanish identity or residence number — and where the patient has neither, it expressly contemplates a foreign patient's passport number instead. Not having Spanish papers is anticipated by the rules, not an obstacle to them.
There is a clock. First dispensing must happen within ten calendar days of the prescription date, on paper and electronically alike. After that the prescription expires, and in the electronic system it is deleted.
How a private electronic prescription reaches the counter in Catalonia
Spain's private electronic prescription registry, REMPe, was created by an inter-professional agreement signed in December 2019 under article 14.4 of that same regulation, driven by the national councils for medicine, dentistry, podiatry and pharmacy. In practice the patient presents a scannable code on a phone rather than a piece of paper, and the pharmacy dispenses through its own management software.
Catalan uptake figures are published by the College of Physicians of Barcelona, and the most recent we could find date from December 2023 — so read them as a direction of travel rather than today's position. At that point nearly all Catalan pharmacies were ready to dispense private electronic prescriptions and 82% had already done so, 40% of privately practising doctors and 21% of private dentists were using the system, and about 140,000 private electronic prescriptions had been issued in the first ten months of that year.
On where they can be dispensed, our sources are not perfectly aligned and we would rather say so. The regulation and the college's own service page support validity at any pharmacy in Spain. The college's December 2023 news item confines its claim to community pharmacies in Catalonia and says nothing about the rest of the country. The law points one way and the uptake data is simply silent, so the practical formulation is: any pharmacy connected to the system, and it is reasonable to ask at the counter.
The mistake we see most often is a patient arriving at a pharmacy with a photograph of a prescription on their phone, having assumed that an image of a valid document is itself a valid document.
Need a prescription a Spanish pharmacy will dispense?
Our doctors are licensed in Spain and issue Spanish private e-prescriptions through the national electronic system, not emailed documents.
See how it worksStandard €15 (24 h) · Express €20 (1 h) · Instant €30 (15 min)
If your situation is a repeat of medication you already take, rather than something new, our guide to refilling a prescription as a visitor in Spain covers what to bring and what a pharmacy can do without a doctor.
What will the medicine itself cost?
On a private prescription, the full price. The Spanish co-payment system that lets a resident pay a few euros for the same box applies to publicly funded dispensing against a Catalan health card, and a visitor without that card falls outside it. CatSalut is explicit that publicly funded medicines require a CatSalut prescription together with the health card of the person named on it.
That co-payment system was rewritten recently, which matters here mainly because almost every English-language page describing it is now out of date. Real Decreto-ley 11/2026 amended the governing article with effect from 14 May 2026, replacing three income bands for working-age insured people with six, and three for pensioners with four.
| Annual income | Working-age insured: share of price | Monthly cap |
|---|---|---|
| Under €9,000 | 40% | €8.23 |
| €9,000 to under €18,000 | 40% | €18.52 |
| €18,000 to under €35,000 | 45% | €61.75 |
| €35,000 to under €60,000 | 45% | No cap |
| €60,000 to under €100,000 | 50% | No cap |
| €100,000 or more | 60% | No cap |
Pensioners pay 10% up to €100,000 of annual income, with monthly caps of €8.23, €13.37 and €18.52 across three bands, and 60% capped at €61.75 above that. A second instrument, Real Decreto-ley 12/2026, in force from 28 May 2026, left those bands alone but changed something small and easily missed: for certain reduced-contribution medicines the €4.98 maximum now applies per dispensation rather than per month.
What a visitor holding an EHIC or GHIC actually pays is the question we cannot answer with a single number, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The statute contains no provision written about European card holders at all. The 40% figure that circulates in travel articles belongs to a different group entirely — foreign nationals not registered or authorised as residents. UK government guidance still states 50%, or 10% for holders of a UK State Pension. The governing principle is that a card holder is treated under the same rules as a Spanish insured patient, and the rate actually applied depends on the code attached to the episode at the pharmacy. Expect to pay a share, and ask at the counter.
For what medicines themselves cost in Spain, our guide to medication prices in Spain lists common drugs with their Spanish brand names and prices.
Can you buy antibiotics without a prescription?
No. Antibiotics are prescription-only throughout Spain, and a pharmacist cannot legally hand them over without one. Published research has found that a minority of Spanish pharmacies do so anyway, which is why the belief persists in forums, but the law is unambiguous and it is a poor thing to build a holiday around. A Spanish pharmacist can do a great deal for you without a prescription — our guide to what you can buy over the counter in Spain sets out exactly what.
What none of these routes can do
Every option on this page has a boundary, and the honest version is more useful than the sales version.
Online and asynchronous care, including ours, cannot examine you. No remote service can look in an ear, listen to a chest, palpate an abdomen or take a temperature. Where the answer depends on an examination, a remote consultation is the wrong tool and a good one will tell you so rather than guess.
Certificates follow the same logic. A certificate that legally requires a physical examination — sports fitness, fitness to fly, a driving licence — cannot validly be issued by anyone without that examination, however convenient a remote option appears. For those, the in-person route is the only route, and Turó Park's €120 general-medicine certificate is the only published private certificate price we found in the city. For certificates that do not require an examination, our guide to medical certificates in Spain explains which is which.
There are also medicines no online service in Spain can provide. We cannot prescribe medicines requiring Spain's special narcotics prescription, which includes strong opioids and stimulants used for ADHD, and we do not prescribe benzodiazepines or Z-drugs online at all. If that is what you need, you need a doctor in a room with you, and in Catalonia continuity of a controlled medicine is a matter for a face-to-face consultation.
No prescription is guaranteed before a doctor has reviewed the case, and that applies to any service making the opposite impression. If our doctor concludes a prescription is not appropriate, you are not charged.
Not sure which route fits?
If you need a Spanish prescription or a certificate and not an examination, a licensed Spanish doctor can review your request and respond without an appointment.
Start a requestStandard €15 (24 h) · Express €20 (1 h) · Instant €30 (15 min) · Medical certificates €20
One thing worth clearing up before the questions, because it comes up in almost every message we receive about insurance: an invoice and a medical report are not the same document. A reimbursement claim usually needs the invoice with a diagnosis on it, while a formal report is a separate item a clinic will charge for separately.
Frequently asked questions
Can a tourist see a doctor at a public health centre in Barcelona?
Yes. Spanish law since 2018 gives visitors the right to care on the same terms as a Spanish citizen, and a CAP will see you. Funding is decided separately, so being seen is not the same as not being billed. Bring photo identification and your European Health Insurance Card if you hold one.
How much does a private GP consultation cost in Barcelona?
Three clinics in the city publish a figure: €70 at English Doctor Barcelona, €99 at Turó Park Clinics and €150 at Doctors Barcelona. Turó Park charges €129 at weekends and €125 for an urgent appointment outside its normal schedule. Every private hospital we checked publishes no consultation price at all.
Where do I go if I am ill at three in the morning in Barcelona?
To a CUAP, a 24-hour urgent primary care centre, or to a hospital emergency department for anything serious. Call 061 first if you can: the line runs around the clock, has an interpreting service, and will tell you which centre to use. For a life-threatening emergency, call 112.
Does my EHIC or GHIC cover a private clinic in Barcelona?
No. Both cards cover state-provided healthcare only. Spanish reporting has put it plainly: private centres do not accept the Spanish public health card. If you see a private doctor, or one sent to your hotel, you are paying privately and claiming back from your travel insurer afterwards.
Will a Spanish pharmacy accept a prescription from my own country?
Sometimes, and not reliably. UK government guidance states that a UK prescription can be used to obtain medicines in Spain, but we found no Spanish source confirming it, and a pharmacy may refuse. A prescription issued in Spain by a doctor licensed here removes the question entirely.
Is a prescription sent to me by email or WhatsApp valid in Spain?
No. A campaign backed by Barcelona's medical, dental and pharmacy colleges stated in July 2026 that scanned prescriptions sent by email or messaging apps are not valid, nor are messages from a prescriber's mobile phone, nor photocopies of paper prescriptions. Ask any service whether it issues through Spain's private electronic prescription system.
Can I buy antibiotics over the counter in Spain?
No. Antibiotics are prescription-only throughout Spain. Published research has found that a minority of Spanish pharmacies dispense them anyway, but the law is clear and no visitor should plan around that gap. A pharmacist can sell you a great deal without a prescription, but not an antibiotic.
How do I check that a doctor in Barcelona is properly registered?
Search the public register of the College of Physicians of Barcelona at comb.cat. It is updated daily and searchable by name, surname, registration number, specialty and district. Note that the page search engines surface first is the employer verification service, which reads as closed to the public. It is not the register.
Can PrescribeMe issue a medical certificate or sick note?
Yes, for €20, where a doctor judges it appropriate without an examination. Certificates that legally require a physical examination, such as sports fitness, fitness to fly and driving, cannot be issued remotely by anyone, and for those the in-person route is the only valid one.
Sources
Every figure, address, telephone number and legal reference on this page was checked against the source below on 27 October 2026. Where sources disagreed, we have said so in the text rather than choosing silently.
- Portal Jurídic de Catalunya — ORDRE SLT/63/2020, de 8 de març, approving CatSalut's public prices (DOGC 8134, 15 May 2020). Supports the four primary care tariffs, their status as cross-border reimbursement rates under articles 2 and 3, the annual revision power in article 4, the five-level triage banding of hospital emergency prices, and the rules that emergency attendance is always billed and that the tariff covers basic workup only. Accessed 27 October 2026. portaljuridic.gencat.cat
- CatSalut — De fora cap a Catalunya. Supports what an EHIC or provisional certificate holder presents, the absence of a registration step for visitors, the S2 requirement for planned care, and the position of visitors arriving without documents. Accessed 27 October 2026. catsalut.gencat.cat
- CatSalut — resolution of 30 September 2016 on urgent care in SISCAT centres. Supports the order of priority for billing and the declaració responsable route that bills CatSalut instead of the patient. Accessed 27 October 2026. catsalut.gencat.cat
- Boletín Oficial del Estado — Ley 16/2003, consolidated, as amended by Real Decreto-ley 7/2018. Supports the right to care on the same terms as Spanish nationals, the three separate funding conditions, and the fact that the superseded 2012 regime's emergency-only rule no longer applies. Accessed 27 October 2026. boe.es
- Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto 1718/2010 on medical prescriptions, consolidated text. Supports the private prescription rules in articles 12 to 14, nationwide dispensing of a private electronic prescription under article 14, the contemplation of a foreign patient's passport number in article 3.2, and the ten-day first-dispensing window. Accessed 27 October 2026. boe.es
- Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto-ley 11/2026, de 12 de mayo, amending the pharmaceutical contribution. Supports the six working-age bands, the four pensioner bands and the monthly caps, in force 14 May 2026. Accessed 27 October 2026. boe.es
- Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto-ley 12/2026, de 26 de mayo. Supports the change making the €4.98 reduced-contribution maximum apply per dispensation rather than per month, in force 28 May 2026. Accessed 27 October 2026. boe.es
- Comunidad de Madrid — pharmaceutical contribution guidance. Corroborates every band and cap independently, states the €4.98 maximum applies per package rather than per month, and records that the new percentages were being applied transitionally as at September 2026. Accessed 27 October 2026. comunidad.madrid
- Col·legi de Metges de Barcelona — Registre de metges col·legiats. Supports the public, daily-updated register, its searchable fields, and the distinction from the employer verification service. Accessed 27 October 2026. comb.cat
- Col·legi de Metges de Barcelona — private prescription service page and news of 14 December 2023. Supports dispensing of private electronic prescriptions in Catalonia and the December 2023 uptake figures. Accessed 27 October 2026. comb.cat
- Consejo General de Colegios Oficiales de Farmacéuticos — private electronic prescription. Supports REMPe's creation in December 2019 under article 14.4 of Real Decreto 1718/2010. Accessed 27 October 2026. farmaceuticos.com
- Barcelona's dental, medical and pharmacy colleges, campaign item of 15 July 2026. Supports the rule that scanned, emailed, messaged and photocopied prescriptions are not valid. Accessed 27 October 2026. b-one.dental
- GOV.UK — healthcare for UK nationals visiting Spain. Supports what a GHIC or EHIC does and does not cover, the Provisional Replacement Certificate telephone number, and the UK position on prescription charges. Accessed 27 October 2026. gov.uk
- GOV.UK — Spain: list of medical facilities and practitioners. Supports the nine Catalonia entries, the June 2025 and April 2020 dates, and the defects described, including the Doctors Barcelona address. Accessed 27 October 2026. gov.uk
- Ajuntament de Barcelona — health emergencies, and public healthcare pages. Supports the CAP, CUAP and hospital distinction, 061's interpreting service, the 53 CAP figure, the referral rule and the advice to phone before travelling to a centre. Accessed 27 October 2026. barcelona.cat
- Ajuntament de Barcelona equipment directory. Supports each CUAP address and telephone number given above, and is the source of the Hospital de l'Esperança emergency record still showing “permanent” hours. Accessed 27 October 2026. guia.barcelona.cat
- Institut Català de la Salut, Barcelona Ciutat centre directory. Supports the four ICS-listed CUAP names, the classification of Larrard as a primary care team and Dos de Maig as a hospital, and the absence of any centre called Numància from its primary care list. Accessed 27 October 2026. docencia.pbcn.ics.gencat.cat
- Govern de Catalunya — bulletin of 1 July 2025 on the primary care reform. Supports the 27 pilot teams, the four in Barcelona, and the replacement of the CAP label by CSIR. Accessed 27 October 2026. govern.cat
- Govern de Catalunya — note of 19 October 2015 on the reorganisation of urgent care in Gràcia. Supports the move of urgent care away from Hospital de l'Esperança. Accessed 27 October 2026. govern.cat
- L'Independent de Gràcia, 12 April 2024. Supports the summer closure of the Esperança site and its absorption into Hospital del Mar. Accessed 27 October 2026. independent.cat
- Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Hospital del Mar and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu — each hospital's own emergency pages. Support the emergency addresses, telephone numbers and hours given above, including the paediatric arrangements. Accessed 27 October 2026. santpau.cat · hospital.vallhebron.com · sjdhospitalbarcelona.org
- Turó Park Clinics price list and home doctor page; English Doctor Barcelona; Doctors Barcelona. Support every private clinic price, address and telephone number given above. Accessed 27 October 2026. turoparkmedical.com · englishdoctorbarcelona.com · doctorsbarcelona.com
- MedinAction, DocturTeam, Doctor Home Visit Barcelona, International Doctor 24h, DHV24 and Medical Care Barcelona — each service's own published rates. Support the home and hotel visit prices, the out-of-hours supplements, and MedinAction's statement that the prescription is not included in the price. Accessed 27 October 2026. medinaction.com · docturteam.com
- Crónica Global, 1 May 2018. Supports the statement that private centres do not accept the public health card, and the bilateral-agreement countries noted. Accessed 27 October 2026. cronicaglobal.elespanol.com
- CatSalut — pharmaceutical care. Supports the requirement of a CatSalut prescription together with the named person's health card for publicly funded medicines. Accessed 27 October 2026. catsalut.gencat.cat
- AMR Insights, reporting a Spanish simulated-patient study on antibiotic dispensing without prescription. Supports the statement that a minority of Spanish pharmacies dispense antibiotics without one. Accessed 27 October 2026. amr-insights.eu