Where the figure comes from, and why the title says 2026
The number most media quote is not an estimate. The CGCOF collects it in its annual report, Estadísticas de colegiados y farmacias comunitarias (statistics on registered pharmacists and community pharmacies). The 2025 edition counts the pharmacies open on 31 December of that year and was made public on 30 June 2026 (CGCOF news item, in Spanish). That is why in November 2026 it is still the current figure: until the next edition comes out there is no more recent official count.
This matters for a practical reason. It is common to see "pharmacies in Spain 2026" with the 2023 or 2024 number pasted on top. The year-end 2022 count, which the same body published in 2023, was 22,220 (CGCOF news item, in Spanish); the difference from today is a few dozen premises. The Spanish pharmacy network barely moves, and that is a finding in itself.
The tables on this page come from the PDF report (CGCOF short version, in Spanish). The figures are the report's; those marked as derived are our own calculations from it.
A note on terms. "Provincial capital" means the capital city of each of Spain's 50 provinces, an administrative category.
The headline numbers
| Measure | Value at 31-12-2025 |
|---|---|
| Community pharmacies | 22,273 |
| Change vs 2024 | +0.19% |
| Inhabitants per pharmacy | 2,206 |
| Pharmacies per 10,000 inhabitants | 4.5 |
| In a provincial capital | 7,902 (35.5%) |
| Outside a provincial capital | 14,371 (64.5%) |
| Single owner | 86.9% |
| Pharmacists per pharmacy (average) | 2.5 |
| Pharmacies with the corrective index (VEC) | 602 (2.7%) |
One detail in this table counts for more than any other: 86.9% of pharmacies belong to one person. Spain is not a country of pharmacy chains. It is a country of more than 19,300 single-owner pharmacies (86.9% of 22,273), each with its own management software, suppliers and decisions. What that means for anyone selling technology to them, or wondering why parapharmacy is priced item by item, is developed in the page on pharmacy groups and cooperatives.
Map by autonomous community
This is the full table. Inhabitants per pharmacy, the share outside the capital and the VEC pharmacies are in the report; pharmacies per 10,000 inhabitants are derived by dividing 10,000 by inhabitants per pharmacy. Spain's regions are called autonomous communities.
| Region | Pharmacies | Inhab. per pharmacy | Pharmacies per 10,000 (derived) | % outside capital | VEC pharmacies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andalusia | 3,870 | 2,242 | 4.5 | 65.5% | 89 (2.3%) |
| Catalonia | 3,302 | 2,460 | 4.1 | 64.6% | 36 (1.1%) |
| Madrid | 2,948 | 2,413 | 4.1 | 38.5% | 7 (0.2%) |
| Valencian Community | 2,342 | 2,316 | 4.3 | 69.4% | 62 (2.6%) |
| Castile and León | 1,581 | 1,519 | 6.6 | 65.8% | 183 (11.6%) |
| Galicia | 1,384 | 1,962 | 5.1 | 79.6% | 7 (0.5%) |
| Castile-La Mancha | 1,287 | 1,652 | 6.1 | 81.4% | 96 (7.5%) |
| Basque Country | 841 | 2,666 | 3.8 | 63.0% | 0 |
| Canary Islands | 763 | 2,961 | 3.4 | 72.1% | 0 |
| Aragon | 720 | 1,895 | 5.3 | 52.5% | 52 (7.2%) |
| Extremadura | 662 | 1,591 | 6.3 | 84.7% | 26 (3.9%) |
| Navarre | 585 | 1,169 | 8.6 | 63.9% | 22 (3.8%) |
| Murcia | 581 | 2,731 | 3.7 | 67.3% | 0 |
| Balearic Islands | 469 | 2,665 | 3.8 | 68.0% | 6 (1.3%) |
| Asturias | 454 | 2,236 | 4.5 | 80.2% | 2 (0.4%) |
| Cantabria | 278 | 2,135 | 4.7 | 67.6% | 0 |
| La Rioja | 157 | 2,082 | 4.8 | 62.4% | 14 (8.9%) |
| Melilla | 25 | 3,483 | 2.9 | 0% | 0 |
| Ceuta | 24 | 3,482 | 2.9 | 0% | 0 |
| Spain | 22,273 | 2,206 | 4.5 | 64.5% | 602 (2.7%) |
Four regions (Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid and the Valencian Community) hold 56% of the pharmacies. The surprise comes when you look at density.
Density: who has a pharmacy around the corner
Navarre is off the scale: one pharmacy per 1,169 inhabitants, or 8.6 per 10,000, nearly double the average. Castile and León (1,519), Extremadura (1,591) and Castile-La Mancha (1,652) follow. At the other end, the Canary Islands (2,961), Murcia (2,731), the Basque Country (2,666) and the Balearic Islands (2,665) have more people per pharmacy, leaving aside Ceuta and Melilla.
At provincial level the contrast is greater. The report singles out Zamora with 1,061 inhabitants per pharmacy and Las Palmas with 3,141: three times as many people per counter.
None of this should be read as "too few pharmacies" in one place and "too many" in another. The report does not explain the inequality, but the pattern fits the territory: regions with a dispersed population have the fewest inhabitants per pharmacy, and the report notes that VEC status exists precisely to keep pharmacies open in small settlements. That reading is ours, not a conclusion of the CGCOF.
There is another curious figure, this time within a single region. In Madrid, pharmacies in the capital serve 1,887 inhabitants each; those in the rest of the region serve 3,255. Catalonia shows something similar (1,780 in provincial capitals against 2,833 outside). In the most populated regions, in other words, it is outside the capital that each pharmacy serves more people. In Aragon, Extremadura or Castile and León it is the other way round: the capital has more inhabitants per pharmacy than the rest.
How many are rural?
Nobody publishes an official count of "rural pharmacies", and it pays to distrust anyone who gives one with precision. What exists are two approximations that measure different things.
Outside a provincial capital: 14,371 (64.5%). This is the broadest measure and also the most misleading. It includes a pharmacy in Getafe or Badalona, both thoroughly urban, just as it includes one in a village of 300 people. It still works for comparing territories: Extremadura (84.7%), Castile-La Mancha (81.4%), Asturias (80.2%) and Galicia (79.6%) have the highest share outside the capital, and Madrid (38.5%) the lowest.
VEC pharmacies: 602 (2.7%). This is the narrowest measure. The margin-correction index is applied in the pharmacy's favour when its income is low and it serves settlements in municipalities of up to 1,500 registered inhabitants, or others the competent authority designates as areas at risk for coverage. Here we are talking about the pharmacy that survives thanks to support. There are 70 fewer than the year before (672 in 2024), a fall of 10.4%.
The geography of VEC pharmacies is highly concentrated: Castile and León holds 183 of the 602, or 30.4%. Within that region, Soria has 27.9% of its pharmacies in this situation, Zamora 21.2% and Segovia 17.3%. In Teruel it is 21.6% and in Cuenca 22.9%. By contrast, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Murcia and the Basque Country have none.
Put differently, "emptied Spain" (the depopulated interior) and the "rural pharmacy at risk" are not the same as "pharmacy outside the capital". Between 2.7% and 64.5% lies a wide band of pharmacies in large villages or mid-sized towns that are not in danger but do not have the volume of a Madrid avenue either. How the decision to invest in technology changes depending on which of those worlds you are in is covered in urban and rural pharmacy.
Five useful readings of these numbers
- The market is stable. +0.19% a year means about 40 more pharmacies net. Anyone planning five years ahead can count on almost the same universe of premises.
- Each pharmacy is small and independent. With 86.9% single ownership and 2.5 pharmacists on average, decisions are made on site. Groups and cooperatives influence, but they do not decide for the majority.
- Density does not measure competition. The ratio is an average for a whole region: it cannot tell a street with three pharmacies in a hundred metres from a village with just one. The same number can mean a fight for every patient or a guarantee that the village has a pharmacy.
- Tourism is not in these figures. Inhabitants per pharmacy use the population register; the Balearic and Canary Islands receive millions of visitors who do not appear in it. To understand how a pharmacy works when its population multiplies in summer, see pharmacy in a tourist area.
- Small does not mean no technology. What changes is the criterion: in a pharmacy with few items whose prices rarely change, a handwritten sign is still reasonable, and in one with hundreds of parapharmacy products it is not. The guide to electronic shelf labels for pharmacies tries to help you decide without getting carried away by the vendor's enthusiasm. And if you are more interested in what to do with the customer who is already inside, how to raise the average basket without pushing sales covers exactly that.
What this data does not say
It is worth being honest about the limits, because pharmacy figures are often quoted beyond what they can bear.
- There is no turnover by region. The report counts premises and professionals, not sales. A Madrid pharmacy and a Soria pharmacy add up the same in the table.
- The provincial capital is an administrative border, not an urban one. Pontevedra, for example, has only 9.4% of its pharmacies in the capital, and that does not make it a more rural province than Teruel.
- The data is as of 31 December 2025. Closures and openings in 2026 have not been published yet.
If you need this information for a paper or a report, cite the CGCOF report rather than this page: it is the primary source and carries the provincial breakdowns that do not fit here. And if you see a different figure circulating, check the cut-off date before assuming someone got it wrong.
Where to go next
If you are interested in how this connects with pricing rules, see the guide to pharmacy price regulation. And for everything we publish on day-to-day management of the counter and the shelf, the blog index groups it by topic.
