What You Can Buy Over the Counter in Spain (And What Needs a Prescription)
In Spain the prescription rule is attached to the individual box, not to the drug or the dose. Two packs of ibuprofen 400 mg on the same shelf can have different legal status, and the packaging tells you which is which.
Spanish pharmacies have a reputation among visitors for handing over almost anything. Ask on a travel forum and someone will tell you they bought antibiotics in Benidorm without a word, or that the dose limits are a formality. That reputation is roughly fifteen years out of date, and following it is how people end up at a counter at eight in the evening being politely refused the one thing they came for.
The real system is stricter than the folklore and stranger than most guides admit. Spain does not classify medicines by active ingredient or by strength. It classifies each authorised product, one by one, and prints the answer on the box. That is why the pharmacy on the corner can sell you a pack of ibuprofen 400 mg while the pharmacy across the square declines the same dose in a different brand, with both of them following the law exactly.
This guide sets out what a Spanish farmacia (pharmacy) can hand over without a prescription, what it must refuse, and how to read a box before you queue. Every status below was checked against the Spanish medicines agency's own records, the pharmacists' national database or the European Medicines Agency in September 2026.
What can I buy without a prescription in Spain?
Broadly: simple analgesics at ordinary strengths, cough and cold remedies, most antihistamines, antacids and reflux remedies, rehydration salts, anti-diarrhoeals, antifungal creams, antiseptics and emergency contraception. Broadly not: anything antibiotic, anything inhaled for asthma, hormonal contraception taken daily, and the regular tablets for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, thyroid or mental health.
That division is not arbitrary. Under the decree governing how medicines are authorised in Spain, the medicines agency AEMPS classifies each product as subject or not subject to medical prescription, and a medicine goes in the non-prescription group only when it treats something that does not need a precise diagnosis and its safety data support use without medical supervision. Anything that can cause harm in normal use without that supervision, anything frequently misused, and anything injected stays on prescription.
Two structural facts surprise almost every visitor. The first is that supermarkets and convenience shops in Spain sell no medicines at all, not even paracetamol: dispensing is reserved to licensed pharmacies. The second is that a parafarmacia (drugstore), whatever colour its cross, is not a pharmacy. It sells cosmetics, supplements and baby goods and cannot dispense medicines. If there is no green cross and no one in a white coat behind a counter, you are in the wrong shop.
How do I tell from the box whether I need a prescription?
Look at the top right corner of either main face of the outer box, beside the six or seven digit national code. Prescription-only medicines carry a small printed circle in that position and the legend medicamento sujeto a prescripción médica. Products sold without a prescription carry no circle, and they must print the condition the medicine treats on the box, which prescription products do not.
The AEMPS sets out exactly where those markings go and what each one means, so this is a reliable test rather than a rule of thumb. Other symbols in the same corner flag narcotics and psychotropics, and the letters DH or H mean the medicine is restricted to hospital supply. A box carrying a cupón precinto, the detachable coupon used for public-system billing, is by definition a prescription medicine.
Two practical habits make the counter go faster. Ask by active ingredient rather than the brand name you know at home — ibuprofeno, paracetamol, loperamida — or simply show the empty box; our guide to medication names in Spain translates the common ones. And expect the pharmacist to ask what the symptoms are before handing anything over. That is not obstruction. Spanish pharmacists are expected to advise on minor complaints, and the question is part of the job.
The central oddity, with the receipts
In January 2025 the AEMPS published its evaluation of a generic ibuprofen 400 mg film-coated tablet and recorded the dispensing conditions as subject to medical prescription. Three weeks later, in February 2025, it published its evaluation of another ibuprofen 400 mg film-coated tablet from the same laboratory and recorded the dispensing conditions as sin receta — without prescription. A third 400 mg tablet, authorised in January 2026, is also without prescription. All three are on Spanish shelves right now.
So when a forum thread insists that 400 mg is fine and 600 mg needs a prescription, it is describing a pattern rather than a rule. The 600 mg part holds: every 600 mg ibuprofen we could trace in the agency's records is prescription-only. The 400 mg part is a coin toss that depends on which brand the pharmacy stocks.
The mistake we see most often in our own consultations follows directly from this. Someone buys a painkiller freely at one pharmacy on Monday, is refused the identical dose at another on Thursday, and concludes that the second pharmacist is being difficult or that the rules changed. Neither is true. They met two different authorisations for what looked like the same medicine.
Which painkillers will the pharmacy actually sell me?
Paracetamol at 500 mg and 650 mg, and ibuprofen at 400 mg or below in the brands authorised that way, are the dependable options. Aspirin is freely available. Ibuprofen 600 mg and paracetamol 1 g are usually prescription-only, though at least one 1 g paracetamol sachet was authorised without prescription in July 2026. Codeine combinations, tramadol and anything stronger require a prescription without exception.
| What you ask for | Status in Spain | What to expect at the counter |
|---|---|---|
| Paracetamol 500 mg / 650 mg | Without prescription | Handed over without discussion. Sold as paracetamol; common brands include Gelocatil, Termalgin and Efferalgan |
| Paracetamol 1 g | Depends on the product | Some presentations are authorised without prescription, others are not. Ask for two 500 mg tablets instead and the problem disappears |
| Ibuprofen 400 mg | Depends on the product | Verified both ways in AEMPS records within five weeks of each other in 2025. If refused, ask whether they stock a non-prescription brand |
| Ibuprofen 600 mg | Prescription | Consistently classified as prescription-only. The pharmacist cannot supply it on request |
| Aspirin | Without prescription | Standard analgesic doses sold freely |
| Metamizole (Nolotil) | Prescription | See the next section before you ask for it |
| Codeine combinations, tramadol, opioids | Prescription, some on special forms | Strong opioids need Spain's special narcotics prescription and cannot be issued through an ordinary consultation |
One note on packet sizes. Spanish packs tend to be smaller than British or American ones, and pharmacists are entitled to ask what the medicine is for, so buying a fortnight's supply of a painkiller in one go is not the routine transaction it is at a supermarket at home. Buy what the next few days need.
Should I take Nolotil?
Not on a whim, and not because someone at the hotel recommended it. Nolotil is the best-known brand of metamizole, a painkiller that is very widely used in Spain, is not marketed in the UK or the United States, and is prescription-only here. It works well for many people. It also carries a rare risk of agranulocytosis, a collapse in the white cells that fight infection, which can be fatal.
In October 2018 the AEMPS reviewed the Spanish situation after the national pharmacovigilance system received reports of agranulocytosis particularly in patients of British origin. The agency reminded prescribers that metamizole medicines require a prescription and set out conditions for safer use: short courses only, at the lowest effective dose, with extra caution in older patients — and explicitly, not to be used in patients in whom monitoring is not possible, giving transient populations as the example. Visitors on a two-week holiday are precisely that population.
A further AEMPS review reported in December 2023 concluded that the incidence of agranulocytosis among people starting metamizole is very low, in the range of one to ten cases per million users, and left the 2018 advice standing. Both things are true at once: the risk is small, and the agency's own guidance points away from prescribing it to someone who will be on a plane home before anyone could check a blood count.
Can I buy antibiotics without a prescription in Spain?
No. Every systemic antibiotic in Spain is prescription-only, and no amount of describing your symptoms at the counter changes that. The pharmacist is not applying a house rule: dispensing a medicine without a prescription where one is required is classified as a serious infringement under Spain's medicines law, and serious infringements carry fines running from roughly thirty thousand to ninety thousand euros.
The belief that Spain is casual about this has a real history, and the country has spent a decade dismantling it. A study run by the Spanish society of community pharmacy with the medicines agency, under the national antibiotic resistance plan, examined 5,577 antibiotic requests across 247 pharmacies. One in five people asking for an antibiotic had no prescription at all, and one in three of the private prescriptions presented did not meet the legal requirements. Both findings became arguments for tightening the counter, not loosening it.
Antibiotics are the single most common thing people contact us about after a pharmacy has turned them away, and the situation behind it is nearly always the same: a urinary infection that started on the second day of the holiday, or a dental abscess that has ruined an evening. The frustration is understandable. The fix is a prescription from a doctor licensed in Spain, not a different pharmacy.
Turned away at the pharmacy counter?
A doctor licensed in Spain can review your case online and, where it is clinically appropriate, send a Spanish e-prescription to your phone — valid at any pharmacy in the country.
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Cold, allergy, stomach and travel medicines
This is where Spain is genuinely easy. Cough and cold remedies, decongestants, throat lozenges, most antihistamine tablets, antacids, rehydration salts, loperamide for diarrhoea, motion sickness tablets, antifungal creams and antiseptics are all sold without a prescription, and the pharmacist will often suggest something more suitable than what you walked in asking for.
Two traps inside that easy category. Antihistamines follow the same product-by-product logic as painkillers: some tablets of a given antihistamine are authorised without prescription and others, at the identical dose, are not, so a refusal is not a judgement about you. And combination cold products that include a decongestant can be handled more cautiously than the plain versions, particularly if you mention high blood pressure or heart problems, which the pharmacist may well ask about.
Omeprazole is the one that catches British and American visitors out. In both countries a small pack for heartburn sits on a supermarket shelf. In Spain the 20 mg generics are classified as prescription medicines in the agency's evaluation records, so the reflux tablets you take casually at home are a prescription item here. Antacids and alginate suspensions remain freely available, and for a few days of holiday indigestion they usually do the job.
Contraception and the morning-after pill
Emergency contraception is available without a prescription and has been since 28 September 2009, when Spain moved the levonorgestrel pill to non-prescription status with no age restriction. The newer ulipristal product, ellaOne, effective up to 120 hours after unprotected sex, is likewise dispensed without a prescription under its European authorisation. You can walk into any Spanish pharmacy and ask for it.
The regular daily contraceptive pill is a different matter: it requires a prescription. The clearest evidence of that is the campaigning — Spanish primary care doctors and community pharmacists have publicly asked for progestogen-only pills to be made available without one, which they would not need to do if the pills already were. Some pharmacies will hand over a repeat pack to someone who produces an old box, and some will not; that is discretion, not entitlement, and it is a poor thing to build a trip around.
Practical points if you are caught short. Condoms are sold everywhere, including vending machines and supermarkets, and are not medicines. Emergency contraception works better the sooner it is taken, so the pharmacy tonight beats a doctor tomorrow. And an individual pharmacist may decline to dispense it on conscience grounds, which is legal in Spain — in that case go to another pharmacy rather than arguing, and the duty pharmacy list will tell you what is open.
My regular medication has run out
Then you need a Spanish prescription, and it is worth knowing that early rather than at the counter. Inhalers, blood pressure tablets, statins, thyroid replacement, diabetes medication, antidepressants and anticoagulants are all prescription-only in Spain, and a Spanish pharmacy cannot dispense any of them against a foreign script, an old box or a photograph of your repeat slip.
| What you take at home | In Spain | What actually helps |
|---|---|---|
| Salbutamol reliever inhaler | Prescription | Listed as a prescription medicine in the pharmacists' own national database. See our inhaler prescription page |
| Blood pressure, cholesterol, thyroid, diabetes tablets | Prescription | Bring the box or a repeat slip listing generic names and doses; a doctor here can usually continue a stable treatment |
| Omeprazole and similar reflux tablets | Prescription | Antacids are available meanwhile |
| Antidepressants and most regular psychiatric medication | Prescription | Continuity matters; do not ration what you have without advice |
| Sleeping tablets and anxiolytics | Prescription, with extra controls | Not prescribable online by any legitimate Spanish service. Plan these before you travel |
| Strong opioids, ADHD stimulants | Special narcotics prescription | Outside ordinary consultations entirely; bring an authorised supply with the paperwork |
If your supply is simply running low rather than gone, act at the halfway point rather than the last strip. Our guides to repeat prescriptions for long stays and forgotten or lost medication in Spain cover what evidence of your existing treatment helps a Spanish doctor say yes quickly.
What it costs, and why the prices move
Over-the-counter medicines in Spain are inexpensive by northern European standards, but their prices are not fixed and do vary between pharmacies. Prescription medicines funded by the public system carry government-set maximum prices and cost the same everywhere. The advertised non-prescription products, marked EFP on the box, sit outside public funding and set their own prices, which is why the same cold remedy can cost noticeably more on a seafront promenade than three streets inland.
How far those prices can move is not theoretical. A widely used anti-diarrhoeal sold without prescription went from €2.81 for a twenty-capsule pack in 2012 to €8.95 by 2019, an increase the health ministry eventually intervened to stop. Nothing prevents that, because free pricing is exactly what non-funded status means.
So the practical advice inverts what most travellers assume. For prescription medicines, shop nowhere: the price is the price, and our Spain medication price guide shows what common items actually cost. For over-the-counter products in a tourist area, it is worth walking away from the beachfront, and worth asking for the generic rather than the brand you recognise.
Will my UK, US or EU prescription work?
UK and US prescriptions: no. A Spanish pharmacy cannot lawfully dispense against them, and the medicine has to be re-prescribed by a doctor licensed in Spain. Prescriptions from other EU and EEA countries are the exception and are accepted when they are written in the cross-border format, which means they identify the prescriber and the patient fully and name the medicine by active ingredient rather than brand.
Once you hold a valid Spanish prescription, geography stops mattering: under Real Decreto 1718/2010, the decree governing prescriptions and dispensing orders, it can be dispensed at any pharmacy in the country. The code on your phone works the same in a village farmacia as in the biggest pharmacy in Madrid.
The misunderstanding we correct most often is the idea that a prescription can be transferred to a Spanish pharmacy the way it moves between branches at home. It cannot, and no pharmacist has the discretion to make it so. What actually happens is a fresh assessment here, followed by a new Spanish prescription where that is clinically appropriate.
One more thing worth knowing before you search for a workaround: Spanish law allows distance selling only of medicines that do not require a prescription, and only through authorised pharmacies. A website offering to post prescription medicines to you in Spain without a prescription is not a shortcut anyone has found. It is operating outside the law.
Getting a Spanish prescription without a waiting room
Three routes, and they suit different problems. The public system is free at the point of use for medically necessary care if you hold a GHIC or EHIC, at a centro de salud (health centre) rather than a private clinic. A private clinic will see you faster for a fee. An online consultation with a doctor licensed in Spain handles the large middle category of problems that need a decision rather than an examination.
| Route | Typical cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Public health centre with GHIC or EHIC | €0 for the consultation; pharmacy co-payment on medicines | EU and UK card holders; anything needing examination |
| Private clinic in person | Typically €50–120 before tests | Problems needing hands-on assessment or same-day tests |
| Hospital urgencias | Free with a card into the public system; otherwise billed | Urgent problems only |
| Online consultation (PrescribeMe) | €15 within 24 h · €20 within 1 h · €30 within 15 min | Documented, stable problems: continuing regular medication, common infections, certificates |
Our wider guide to how prescriptions work in Spain covers validity periods and the difference between public and private scripts. Whichever route you take, bring the same things: the name of the medicine by active ingredient, the dose, how long you have taken it, and who monitors it at home.
Need the box the pharmacy could not sell you?
Tell a Spanish-licensed doctor what you take and what happened. Where prescribing is appropriate, your e-prescription arrives on your phone and works at any pharmacy in Spain.
Get a prescription onlineStandard €15 (24 h) · Express €20 (1 h) · Instant €30 (15 min) · No prescription, no charge
What a pharmacist and an online doctor cannot do
A Spanish pharmacist can advise on minor complaints, recommend a non-prescription product, and often spot when what you are describing needs a doctor. What they cannot do is diagnose an infection, dispense a prescription medicine without a prescription, or accept a foreign one. Asking them to is asking them to risk a fine measured in tens of thousands of euros.
Online care has its own honest boundary, and ours is worth stating plainly. No online service can examine you. Nobody can listen to your chest, press on your abdomen or look inside an ear through a screen, and a problem that needs any of those belongs at a clinic or at urgencias, where a responsible online doctor will send you rather than prescribe blind.
Spanish law also puts certain medicines beyond an ordinary consultation. Drugs requiring Spain's special narcotics prescription — strong opioids, ADHD stimulants — cannot be issued that way, online or in person, and as a matter of policy we do not prescribe benzodiazepines or Z-drug sleeping tablets online. Any site promising those remotely has told you what it is.
And no prescription is guaranteed anywhere. At PrescribeMe a physician reviews every request and decides on clinical grounds; when the answer is no, you are told why and you are not charged.
Unwell in Spain and not sure which door to use?
Our Spanish-licensed physicians work in English, across the whole country, and will tell you honestly when the answer is a clinic rather than a prescription.
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Frequently asked questions
Can I buy antibiotics without a prescription in Spain?
No. Every systemic antibiotic in Spain requires a prescription, and dispensing one without it is a serious administrative offence for the pharmacy, not a favour the pharmacist is withholding. Spain's own regulator found that a fifth of people asking for an antibiotic at the counter had no prescription. If you need one, the routes are a public health centre, a private clinic, or an online consultation with a doctor licensed in Spain.
Is ibuprofen 600 mg available over the counter in Spain?
No. Every ibuprofen 600 mg presentation authorised in Spain is classified as subject to medical prescription in the medicines agency's own evaluation reports. The 400 mg strength is where it gets confusing: some 400 mg products are authorised without prescription and others are not, so the pharmacy may sell you one brand and refuse another at the same dose.
How can I tell if a medicine needs a prescription in Spain?
Look at the top right corner of either main face of the box, next to the six or seven digit national code. Prescription-only medicines carry a small circle there and the legend medicamento sujeto a prescripcion medica. Non-prescription boxes carry no circle and must print the condition the medicine treats. The box is the authority, not the dose.
Can I buy the morning-after pill in Spain without a prescription?
Yes. Levonorgestrel emergency contraception has been sold in Spanish pharmacies without a prescription since September 2009, with no age restriction, and ellaOne, the ulipristal version effective up to 120 hours, is also dispensed without one. Individual pharmacists may decline on conscience grounds, in which case another pharmacy will supply it.
Do I need a prescription for the contraceptive pill in Spain?
Yes, for the regular daily pill. Spanish medical and pharmacy societies have campaigned to make progestogen-only pills available without one, which tells you plainly that they are not. Some pharmacies do hand over a repeat pack informally, but you cannot plan a trip around that, and a Spanish prescription costs less than a wasted afternoon.
Can a Spanish pharmacy sell me my inhaler without a prescription?
No. Salbutamol reliever inhalers are listed as prescription medicines in the Spanish pharmacists' own medicines database, and the same applies to steroid preventer inhalers. Bring enough for the trip, and if you run short, a doctor licensed in Spain can review your case and issue a Spanish prescription without you attending a clinic.
Why did one pharmacy sell me something that another refused?
Usually because the two pharmacies stock different brands of the same drug, and the prescription rule in Spain attaches to the individual authorised product rather than to the active ingredient. Two packs of ibuprofen 400 mg can legitimately have different legal status. Occasionally it is discretion rather than law, and you should not count on it.
Can I order prescription medicine online in Spain?
Not lawfully. Spanish law permits distance selling only of medicines that do not require a prescription, and only through authorised pharmacies listed by the health authorities. Any website offering to post prescription medicines to you in Spain without a prescription is operating outside that framework, whatever its branding suggests.
Is paracetamol 1 g prescription-only in Spain?
It depends on the product. Several 1 g presentations are authorised without prescription, including sachets approved in July 2026, while other 1 g tablets are prescription-only. The 500 mg and 650 mg strengths that visitors usually want are widely available without one. Read the box rather than the dose.
Sources
- AEMPS — Information and symbols on medicine labelling: where the prescription symbol and national code appear on the box, and which legends are used. Accessed 28 September 2026. aemps.gob.es
- AEMPS — Questions and answers on Real Decreto 1345/2007: classification of medicines as subject or not subject to medical prescription, and the advertised-medicine (EFP) category. Accessed 28 September 2026. aemps.gob.es
- AEMPS CIMA — Public evaluation report, Ibuprofeno Combix 400 mg: dispensing conditions recorded as sin receta, February 2025. Accessed 28 September 2026. cima.aemps.es
- AEMPS CIMA — Public evaluation report, Ibuprofeno Pharma Combix 400 mg: dispensing conditions recorded as subject to medical prescription, January 2025. Accessed 28 September 2026. cima.aemps.es
- AEMPS CIMA — Public evaluation report, Ibuprofeno Alterpharma 400 mg: dispensing conditions recorded as sin receta, January 2026. Accessed 28 September 2026. cima.aemps.es
- AEMPS CIMA — Public evaluation report, Ibuprofeno Codramol 600 mg: dispensing conditions recorded as subject to medical prescription. Accessed 28 September 2026. cima.aemps.es
- AEMPS CIMA — Public evaluation report, Paracetamol UPSA 500 mg and 1 g sachets: dispensing conditions recorded as sin receta, July 2026. Accessed 28 September 2026. cima.aemps.es
- AEMPS CIMA — Public evaluation report, Omeprazol 20 mg generic: dispensing conditions recorded as subject to medical prescription. Accessed 28 September 2026. cima.aemps.es
- AEMPS — Safety note MUH (FV) 15/2018, metamizole and agranulocytosis: prescription status, cases notified in patients of British origin, and the recommendation against use where monitoring is not possible. Accessed 28 September 2026. aemps.gob.es
- Ultima Hora — reporting of the AEMPS review concluding an agranulocytosis incidence of one to ten cases per million metamizole users and maintaining the 2018 recommendations, December 2023. Accessed 28 September 2026. ultimahora.es
- AEMPS and the General Council of Pharmacists — antibiotic campaign note: the SEFAC/AEMPS study under the national antibiotic resistance plan finding that 20% of patients requesting an antibiotic did so without a prescription. Accessed 28 September 2026. aemps.gob.es
- AEMPS — note AEMPS 8/2018: one in three private antibiotic prescriptions presented at pharmacies did not comply with the rules; 5,577 requests recorded across 247 pharmacies. Accessed 28 September 2026. aemps.gob.es
- European Medicines Agency — ellaOne public summary: emergency contraception within 120 hours, dispensable without a medical prescription. Accessed 28 September 2026. ema.europa.eu
- Agencia SINC — report of the Ministry of Health measure making the morning-after pill available in Spanish pharmacies without a prescription from 28 September 2009. Accessed 28 September 2026. agenciasinc.es
- Público — reporting on Spanish primary care and community pharmacy societies calling for progestogen-only contraceptive pills to be dispensed without prescription, evidencing their current prescription status. Accessed 28 September 2026. publico.es
- General Council of Official Colleges of Pharmacists — explanation of advertised medicines (EFP), their exclusion from public funding and their free pricing. Accessed 28 September 2026. farmaceuticos.com
- BOT PLUS (General Council of Official Colleges of Pharmacists) — Ventolin record showing dispensing conditions of medical prescription. Accessed 28 September 2026. farmaceuticos.com
- General Council of Official Colleges of Pharmacists — distance selling of medicines: permitted only for non-prescription medicines through authorised pharmacies, under article 3 of Real Decreto Legislativo 1/2015. Accessed 28 September 2026. farmaceuticos.com
- Iberley (legal database reproducing the consolidated text) — articles 111 and 114 of Real Decreto Legislativo 1/2015: dispensing without a required prescription as a serious infringement, and the fine bands for serious infringements. Accessed 28 September 2026. iberley.es
- Salud y Fármacos, reproducing El País — the health ministry blocking a price rise on a non-funded anti-diarrhoeal, and its increase from €2.81 in 2012 to €8.95. Accessed 28 September 2026. saludyfarmacos.org
- Boletín Oficial del Estado — Real Decreto 1718/2010 on medical prescriptions and dispensing orders: a valid Spanish prescription is dispensable at any pharmacy in the country. Accessed 28 September 2026. boe.es