A pharmacy in Germany is called an Apotheke. Apotheken are easily identified by a large, red A on the outside of their locations. There are thousands of Apotheken in Germany and German law requires that an Apotheke be owned and operated by a pharmacist. An individual pharmacist is only allowed to own up to three locations. Consequently, there are not any large drugstore chains that are found throughout countries like the USA. In fact, a “drug store” in Germany (Drogerie) sells toiletries and other consumer items, but not medicines.

Generally, every pharmacist who wants to work in Germany needs a licence issued by the regional authorities called “Approbation”. Pharmacists with a foreign pharmaceutical diploma or certificate need to have it recognised prior to starting to work. There is a responsible authority for the recognition in every federal state. The responsible authority will check the equivalency level of the qualification. If there are significant divergences in the qualification, the responsible authority might propose measures to compensate the gaps. Within the member states of the European Union (EU) and the states of the European Economic Area (EEA) the diplomas of pharmacists are mutually recognized if they fulfill the requirements regulated by the EC Directive 2005/36/EC.