Pharmacies, prescriptions and co-payments

• Prescription-only (verschreibungspflichtig): for example antibiotics or medicines for diabetes. You need a doctor's prescription, and they are sold only in pharmacies.
• Pharmacy-only (apothekenpflichtig): available without prescription, but only in a pharmacy, for example most remedies for colds and headaches. Ask the pharmacist for advice.
• Freely available (freiverkäuflich): products such as certain herbal juices or disinfectants, also sold in drugstores and supermarkets.

Statutory insurance generally does not pay for non-prescription medicines for adults, even if a doctor recommends them. Exceptions include children under 12, young people with developmental disorders up to 18, and certain medicines that are standard therapy for serious illnesses.

Since 1 January 2024, prescriptions for prescription-only medicines for people with statutory insurance are issued electronically. You can redeem them in three ways:

1. With your health insurance card: insert your eGK at the pharmacy; the pharmacy sees your open prescriptions.
2. With the official E-Rezept app of gematik, which shows your prescriptions and lets you send them to a pharmacy, for example to reserve a medicine.
3. With a printout: the practice can give you a paper printout with a code that the pharmacy scans.

You can redeem e-prescriptions at a local pharmacy or an online pharmacy of your choice. Some pharmacy apps also accept them via the CardLink procedure, using your health insurance card and smartphone.

Validity: an e-prescription can be redeemed for 28 days at your insurer's expense. After that it can be redeemed as a self-pay prescription until three months after it was issued. Each e-prescription can only be redeemed once.

Private insurance: privately insured people can receive e-prescriptions if their insurer already offers a digital identity (GesundheitsID); otherwise they receive a paper private prescription (Privatrezept). Privately insured people usually pay at the pharmacy and claim the cost from their insurer.

• Co-payment (Zuzahlung): 10 % of the price of each prescribed pack, at least 5 euros and at most 10 euros, but never more than the price of the medicine.
• No co-payment for children and young people under 18, and for some low-cost medicines that are priced at least 20 % below the official reference price; your pharmacy knows which ones.
• Annual cap (Belastungsgrenze): your total co-payments in a calendar year (for medicines, hospital stays, therapies and similar) are limited to 2 % of your gross annual household income, or 1 % if you are chronically ill. Keep your receipts and apply to your insurer for an exemption (Befreiung) once you reach the limit; ask your insurer how it wants the payments documented.
• Hospital stays have a separate co-payment of 10 euros per calendar day, which also counts towards the cap.

Ask the pharmacy for a receipt for the co-payment; you need it to prove that you have reached the annual cap.

Pharmacies take turns to stay open at night, on Sundays and on public holidays. To find the nearest one on duty:

• use the emergency pharmacy search of aponet.de, based on data from the Federal Chamber of Pharmacists, which lets you search by postcode and up to two weeks ahead,
• in Berlin, use the Notdienstfinder of the Apothekerkammer Berlin,
• or look at the notice in the window of any pharmacy, which lists the nearest pharmacies on duty.

Between 20:00 and 6:00, on Sundays and public holidays (and on 24 December from 14:00 if it falls on a weekday), the pharmacy may charge an emergency service fee of 2.50 euros.

If you need a doctor first, call 116117 or go to an on-call practice; see the guide on finding a doctor in Berlin.

Mail-order pharmacies in Germany need a licence and must be run from a physical pharmacy. Legitimate online pharmacies in the EU show a common EU logo that links to the national register kept in Germany by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM). Check the logo before ordering: counterfeit medicines can be ineffective, harmful or even life-threatening.

Pharmacies also offer extended medication reviews for people who take several medicines and help with using inhalers, and pharmacies may vaccinate adults with certain non-live vaccines. Ask your local pharmacy which services it provides.