Purchasing prescription medicines abroad

The most common reason for not being able to buy a medicine abroad is that the prescription was for a specific amount of medicine to be taken over a specific time period. In such cases, the prescription will say e.g., ‘2-year dose’. In order for you to be able to purchase a medicine abroad, the medicine must be prescribed either as a total amount or as packages.

If you have set a denial of consent to the sharing of your prescription data, you will not be able to use the prescription to purchase medicines abroad. Remember to cancel your denial of consent to the sharing of prescription data for your prescription in MyKanta before purchasing the medicine.

You cannot buy the following medicines abroad:

• narcotics
• central nervous system (CNS) agents
• medicines prepared by the pharmacy
• packages containing several different preparations
• patient-specific special permit products.

You cannot use an electronic prescription abroad to buy basic emollients, clinical nutritional products or supplements, for example.

In addition, prescriptions that can be re-dispensed periodically cannot be used abroad. In such cases, the prescription will read “iter semel”, “iter bis” or “iter ter”.

In Finland, you no longer need to give consent in order to purchase medicines abroad with an e-prescription. Issuing consent in MyKanta ended at the end of 2022.

It is not possible to collect medicines with an e-prescription on behalf of someone else at an overseas pharmacy. The reason for this is technical as it is not possible to share the required information electronically between countries.

Acting on behalf of someone else is not yet permitted. However, a minor can visit the pharmacy in person.

Dispensing the medicine from a foreign pharmacy is also possible if the guardian accompanies the child to the pharmacy.

If you wish to purchase a medicine from a foreign pharmacy, the quantity of the medicine must be given in the prescription as a clear, single value. If the prescription has been prescribed for a specific time period, the pharmacy cannot calculate the amount of the medicine remaining on the prescription. As a result, such prescriptions cannot be used to buy medicines abroad.

A prescription specified for a specific time period time will read e.g. “2-year dose”. You can check in MyKanta whether your prescription has been issued for a specified time period.

Doctors are instructed to write prescriptions in packages or as total amounts of medicine, so that there is no obstacle to dispensing abroad. If in the future, you need to purchase a medicine from a foreign pharmacy but the doctor has written the prescription for a time period, it is advisable to ask the doctor to prescribe the medicine in such a way that it is possible to purchase it abroad.

It may be that the package size of the product is expressed differently than in Finland. This may be the case with preparations in solution, for example. This may affect the calculation of the remaining amount of the product so that it is no longer possible to buy medicine with the prescription.

For example, if 20 vials of a medicine are prescribed in Finland, a foreign pharmacy may indicate the purchased amount in millilitres (40 ml), making it impossible to calculate the remaining amount (as 40 ml cannot be subtracted from 20 vials). As a result, the prescription may have been used in full after one purchase. In such situations, please ask for the prescription to be renewed.

Please contact the health care services in the country where you are located.