Iranian Pharmacies

In Germany, medicine comes from a pharmacy and nowhere else. A supermarket does not sell it, and neither does a drugstore (Drogerie), which despite the shelves of vitamins and skin creams is not a pharmacy. Whole categories that you used to pick up over the counter at home need a prescription here. But a German Apotheke is not only the place that hands over the box. Its actual job is to walk you through the leaflet inside it, to check what you are taking against everything else you are taking, and, when getting out of the house is the problem, to bring it to your door.

In an emergency, or if there is a risk to life, call 112. Outside surgery hours the medical on-call service answers on 116 117. This page is only a directory and is not an emergency service.

What the Verified badge does and does not say

Verified says one thing only: a real person stands behind this profile and manages it themselves. YabInfy does not check anyone's certificates, licences, experience or competence, and the badge is not for sale. This trade does have a public route to check, though: the state chamber of pharmacists (Landesapothekerkammer) keeps the register of its members, and a pharmacy on top of that needs an operating permit from the responsible regional authority, whose name differs from one Bundesland to the next.

How a prescription now reaches the counter, and who pays

Statutory prescriptions in Germany went electronic in 2024. The old pink slip has been replaced by the E-Rezept, and the route is this: the doctor files the prescription on a server, you hand over your insurance card at the pharmacy, and the card pulls it back down. The card itself stores nothing, it is only the key, so without it the pharmacy has no way to see that a prescription exists. The official app and a printed slip with a QR code are the two other routes to the same prescription.

The colour of the paper still tells you who pays, which matters wherever paper survives:

• The statutory prescription, now mostly electronic: the fund covers most of the price and leaves you a share.
• The private prescription, on blue paper: you pay in full at the counter, then send the receipt to your private insurer or your employer's scheme.
• The green slip: not a prescription but a recommendation. The cost is entirely yours, though some funds refund part of it under particular schemes.

Your share of a statutory prescription is a percentage of the price with a legal floor and a legal ceiling, so in practice a few euros per item and never more than the medicine itself costs. Children are exempt, and adults whose payments pass a yearly threshold can apply to their fund for an exemption card, though only your own fund can tell you the figure and whether you qualify. One item catches people out even so: where a medicine costs more than the reimbursement ceiling set for it, the difference is added on top of your share, and an exemption card does not cover that part.

Why the name on the box is not the name you expected

Statutory funds sign discount contracts with manufacturers, and the pharmacy is usually obliged to dispense whichever product your fund has the contract with. So the box can arrive in a different name, colour and shape while the active substance inside it is the same one and nothing about the treatment has changed. If that form is hard for you to swallow, or you react to one of the other ingredients, say so at the counter rather than at home. There is sometimes an alternative, but it can carry an extra charge or need a note from the doctor.

What the counter does besides dispensing

• Reading the leaflet with you. The dense German booklet inside the box is the longest text anyone expects you to read. A pharmacist can tell you which parts apply to you, and asking costs nothing.
• Checking interactions. This only works if the pharmacy knows everything you take: what another doctor prescribed, what you bought without a prescription, and what you brought back from Iran. Take the whole list, not half of it.
• A written medication plan. Anyone taking several prescribed medicines long term has a right to a medication plan on paper. Issuing it is the doctor's job, but a pharmacy can keep it up to date. Ask your own fund what the conditions are.
• Pharmacy services the funds now pay for. Statutory insurance has for some years funded a set of services delivered by the pharmacy itself, including a full review for someone taking several medicines at once. Whether a particular pharmacy offers them is a question to ask.
• Delivery, the Botendienst. Many pharmacies bring medicines to the door, which counts for a lot when you or the person you care for cannot get out. The radius, the conditions and any fee are set by the pharmacy.
• Compounding and supplies. Some pharmacies make up individual preparations (Rezeptur), supply prescribed medical aids, or vaccinate adults. None of it is everywhere.

Nights, Sundays and public holidays

German pharmacies run a rota, so at any hour of the night and on every holiday one near you is open. Finding it needs no search: every pharmacy posts the rota notice on its own door, including while it is shut, and that notice names the one open today and until when. A small extra charge is normally added to an out-of-hours dispensing.

Medicine carried or posted from Iran

This is a customs and licensing question far more than a medical one, so ask before you rely on it.

• Carrying medicine in your luggage for your own use in a reasonable quantity is generally accepted, but reasonable has a definition and some categories need paperwork travelling with them. Ask German customs (Zoll) for the rule that applies on your travel date, not what worked for someone two years ago.
• Posting medicine in from outside the EU is a different matter and is generally not allowed for prescription medicines. A parcel can sit in customs and never arrive.
• A German pharmacy cannot approve or substitute a box that is not labelled in German, but it can tell you whether an authorised equivalent exists here. For something with no German authorisation there is a route for ordering an individual import, which runs on a prescription, and whether your fund pays is a separate question for the fund.
• Do not assume that something sold freely in Iran is sold freely here.

Why it helps when the counter speaks Persian

Instructions for taking a medicine are the kind of sentence that is either fully understood or not understood at all. Worse, the exchange runs in both directions: the pharmacist asks you questions, and a half answer makes the check worthless. What else are you taking, what has caused you trouble before, who is this actually for. In broken German most people do the shortest thing available, which is to nod and leave.

There is a second reason. The leaflet in the box is in German only, and machine translation goes wrong at exactly the places that matter. A regular pharmacy that understands you also builds up a picture of what you collect over time, and that is what turns the interaction check from a formality into something real.

What to ask when you go in

This page has no sub-categories, so every pharmacy sits in one undivided list. That means the page cannot tell you which one delivers, which one compounds, or when someone who speaks Persian is on shift. Asking is the only way:

• Whether they deliver, how far, and what it costs.
• Whether the medicine you take continuously is in stock or has to be ordered, and how many days an order takes.
• Which hours a Persian speaker is at the counter, since in a pharmacy this usually depends on the shift.
• Whether they do medication plans and medication reviews.
• Whether they supply prescribed medical aids as well.
• Whether they record your exemption card once or want to see it every time.
• YabInfy checks none of this, so ask for it yourself, and ask to see the document where it matters.

What distance decides here, and what it does not

Distance means two things here. For a one-off purchase the nearest pharmacy will do. For anything that runs for months the value is in going back to the same one: a pharmacy that knows your record keeps your repeat items in stock. Delivery moves the question again, because once the medicine comes to you, what matters is whether your address falls inside the area they cover rather than how many streets away they are. The cities on this list are set out at the foot of the page.

Choosing from this list

A review here tells you what one person saw from the customer side: how long the queue was, whether anything was explained or the box was simply handed over, whether an order arrived when promised. What a review cannot judge is the pharmacist's professional judgement, because most of that work is invisible from where you stand. The absence of the Verified badge on a profile is not a signal about the work in either direction. Every business keeps its number and address behind the "Show contact details" button.

On privacy: neither the owner of a pharmacy nor any other user can see that you opened this page or a profile, or that you took down a number, because YabInfy stores and shows none of that anywhere. The one exception is a review you write, which is public under the name you choose. If what you want to write points at the medicine you take, write only as much of it as the story actually needs.

For doctors, dentists and specialists, Doctors and dentists is the right place, and for physiotherapy, home care and related treatment, Allied health. The FAQ explains how this site works, and if you run a pharmacy yourself, add your business.