General information
This guide is based on publicly available information from official sources, including the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Services Australia, Healthdirect and other Australian Government health and pharmacy bodies. It is general information, not personal medical advice, and may change over time. With any medicine, always read the label and use only as directed, and if symptoms persist see your doctor or health care professional. Check anything that affects you with your pharmacist or GP. In an emergency, call 000.
A community pharmacy is the local, public-facing pharmacy you visit on a main street, in a shopping centre, or in a medical precinct. It dispenses Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and private prescriptions, sells over-the-counter medicines, gives vaccinations, and offers a growing list of health services. Australia has about 6,000 community pharmacies, according to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, and state and territory law generally requires them to be owned by registered pharmacists. For a wider view of how to choose one for your situation, see our guide to finding a pharmacy in Australia.
What is a community pharmacy?
What sets a community pharmacy apart is who it serves and what it can hand over the counter. It is open to the general public, and it can supply Schedule 2 medicines, which are on pharmacy shelves, and Schedule 3 medicines, which are kept behind the counter, all sold without a doctor's prescription (Scheduling of medicines and poisons, healthdirect).
It is not the same as a hospital pharmacy, which dispenses only for that hospital's own patients, or a compounding-only or wholesale pharmacy, which prepares or supplies medicines rather than serving the public. A community pharmacy holds any premises licence its state or territory requires, employs at least one registered pharmacist, and takes part in the PBS under the Community Pharmacy Agreement, the funding agreement between the federal Health Minister and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia that covers dispensing fees and funded services. The current Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement runs from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2029 (Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement, health.gov.au).
Who is allowed to own a pharmacy?
Australia regulates pharmacy ownership more tightly than almost any other kind of shop, through two layers of rules.
The first is who may own one. State and territory pharmacy law generally requires a community pharmacy to be owned by registered pharmacists, either directly or through a company wholly owned by pharmacists, with limited exceptions; in Victoria, for example, some friendly societies can own pharmacies (Guidance on pharmacy business ownership, Victorian Pharmacy Authority). On top of that, a pharmacist must apply for the federal approval to dispense PBS medicines under section 90 of the National Health Act 1953 (Establish a new pharmacy, health.gov.au). Together these mean a supermarket, a listed retail chain, or an overseas investor cannot hold a pharmacy's PBS approval. The reasoning is clinical: the person accountable for the business is the same person accountable for the dispensing inside it.
The second layer is where a new pharmacy may open. The Pharmacy Location Rules, set by the federal Health Minister, decide where a new PBS-approved pharmacy may open, and the Australian Community Pharmacy Authority (ACPA) assesses each application against them. One rule requires a new pharmacy to be at least 1.5 km in a straight line from the nearest approved pharmacy, other rules cover shopping centres, large private hospitals and large medical centres, and under every rule the premises cannot be directly accessible from inside a supermarket (Pharmacy Location Rules Applicant's Handbook, health.gov.au). The handbook describes the rules as consistent with the National Medicines Policy aim of equitable, timely, safe and affordable access to medicines.
| Type of pharmacy | Who it serves | What makes it different |
|---|---|---|
| Community | The general public | The everyday pharmacy, for prescriptions, over-the-counter medicines, and services like vaccinations |
| Hospital | A hospital's own patients | Serves admitted, emergency, and clinic patients only, stocks high-cost specialty medicines, and sells nothing to the public |
| Online | The public, by delivery | A community pharmacy with online ordering and delivery, tied to a licensed physical pharmacy |
General information drawn from publicly available sources, which can change. Check anything that affects your situation with your pharmacist.
Our find a pharmacy guide covers how to choose between the three.
What services can you expect?
Almost every community pharmacy offers a core set of services: PBS and private dispensing, over-the-counter Schedule 2 and Schedule 3 medicines, and pharmacist advice. Many also offer adult flu vaccinations, blood pressure checks, and take-home naloxone, which the federal Take Home Naloxone program makes available free to people who may experience or witness an opioid overdose (Take Home Naloxone program, health.gov.au).
Staying with the same pharmacy over time means someone who can look across everything you take and catch a problem between medicines, which is what makes a medicines review or a weekly pack work well.
Beyond that, the list varies by pharmacy, by state, and by the pharmacist's training. Many pharmacies also offer dose administration aids (the weekly blister packs, see our Webster packs and dose administration aids guide), a MedsCheck or a Home Medicines Review, travel vaccinations, opioid dependence treatment, a needle and syringe program, or compounding. Under state-based pharmacist prescribing programs, a pharmacist may in some states treat an uncomplicated urinary tract infection or continue a contraceptive prescription, with the scope set by each state health department. What you can get depends on which state you are in and which pharmacy you walk into, so it is worth using the service filter on Pharmacy Finder to see what is offered near you.
Who regulates and represents community pharmacies?
Three national bodies stand behind community pharmacy, and they are easy to mix up. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia represents pharmacy owners as businesses; it negotiates the Community Pharmacy Agreement with the government and developed the accreditation program that more than 95% of community pharmacies hold, the Quality Care Pharmacy Program (QCPP), which the Quality and Safety Pharmacy Program (QSPP) replaces from 1 October 2026 (What is QCPP, qcpp.com; QSPP). The Pharmacy Board of Australia, which sits under the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), does something quite different: it registers and regulates individual pharmacists as practitioners. The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) is the third, representing pharmacists as professionals rather than owners. In short, the Guild speaks for the businesses, the Board regulates the people, and the PSA supports the profession.
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Frequently asked questions
In everyday Australian speech, yes. "Chemist" is the informal word for the place and "pharmacy" the formal one, while the pharmacist is the registered professional working inside it. Our pharmacist versus chemist guide explains why both words remain in use.
