Is Kratom legal in Uruguay?

Legal status

Not placed, and the finding now rests on the current list rather than a superseded one. kratom is not named in the national list enacted by Decreto 198/025 of 25 September 2025: anchored searches on kratom, on mitragyna and on mitrag across all 526 entries returned no entry, and neither the plant, the genus nor either of its two alkaloids is named anywhere in the three annexes. The weakness the earlier cell disclosed is now closed and the closure is stated plainly. Article 6 of Decreto 198/025 does not add to the 2020 annex, it replaces the whole consolidated list, and article 8 creates a control with no counterpart anywhere in Decreto 265/020: "Quedan sujetas a control todas aquellas sustancias que se encuadren dentro de los grupos genericos incluidos en el ANEXO II", all substances falling within the generic groups of its Anexo II. Those annexes are published only as Diario Oficial page images, and they have now been read: the edition of 3 October 2025, number 31.766, carillas 7 to 24, fetched one page image at a time from the Diario Oficial image service, read by eye off the page and checked against a Spanish optical character recognition pass, with the eye preferred wherever the two disagreed. Anexo I, Estupefacientes, carries 173 entries at carillas 7 to 12. Anexo II, Sicotropicos, carries 278 entries at carillas 12 to 21 and ends with three generic groups, Feniletilaminas and Catinonas sinteticas, each classed Sicotropicos Lista I, and Derivados de Fentanilo, classed Estupefacientes Lista I. Anexo III carries 75 entries in Tablas I and II at carillas 22 to 24. 526 entries in all. The name column was transcribed by eye and every search below was run against that transcription, not against the optical character recognition text, because the recognition text is not a sound basis for an absence: measured against the transcription, it carries only 396 of the 526 names, 9 of the 29 on carilla 22 and none of the 14 on carilla 24, where it captured the CAS and control columns and dropped the substance column altogether. A search run against it alone would return a false zero for about a quarter of the list [Certain, re-derived here; an independent count by the coordinator using a different normaliser returned 400 rather than 396, and both figures are floors because a misspelling counts as a miss]. This row was tested against each of the three generic groups in turn and is caught by none of them, being a plant, and Anexo II describes chemical nuclei rather than botanical material. [Certain as to what the annexes print.] This is a bounded, dated finding of absence and not an epistemic failure, which is why it opens positively. The b176 cell reached the same outcome but rested it on the Anexo I of Decreto 265/020, a list the same decreto has since replaced, and disclosed that the generic groups had never been read. That disclosure is discharged here. One question is not closed by it: article 6 of Decreto 198/025 extends control to the listed substances' derivatives "segun las definiciones de estos", and no such definitions are printed in any of the three annexes, whose own notes reach only isomers, salts and the products containing them [Certain as to both wordings]. Nothing listed stands close enough to this substance for that limb to bite [Likely]. The version horizon, stated outright because an absence without one expires silently and says nothing about having expired: the list read is the one enacted by Decreto 198/025 of 25 September 2025, published in the Diario Oficial of 3 October 2025, which is the current consolidated national list and replaces the Anexo I of Decreto 265/020 that the earlier cell searched. The power that moves it is article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 in the wording given to it by article 2 of Ley 17.016, and article 8 of Decreto 198/025 subjects substances to control by generic group rather than by name. The annexes were read as at 25 September 2025, the date of the decreto that enacts them and the last amendment the text in hand incorporates. This does not rule out a later individual entry, a later replacement of the annexes, or a later generic group.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Article 26 of the Constitution provides that "A nadie se le aplicará la pena de muerte", no one shall have the death penalty applied to them, and no limb of Decreto-Ley 14.294 provides a capital sentence [Certain]. Uruguay’s published penalties for the drug offences of Decreto-Ley 14.294 are two to ten years of penitenciaría for unauthorised production under article 30, two to twelve years under article 31 for import, export, transit, distribution, transport, possession not for one’s own consumption, storage and offering for sale, three to twelve years where an organised criminal group is involved, two to six years under article 35 for the lower convention tiers, four to twenty years under article 32 for organising or financing, and four to fifteen or five to twenty years under article 36 for the listed aggravations, subject to the scope note below. Those are the country’s penalties and they are not this row’s exposure, because this substance could not be placed in any list. Article 36 has to be read with its own scope rather than recited flatly. Its numeral 1, supply to a person under twenty one, and its numeral 6, using a home as a place of sale or storage, are limited in terms to "las sustancias a que se refiere el artículo 1° de la presente ley", and this row is outside article 1, so on the face of the text those two numerals do not reach it. Numerals 4 and 5 speak of "el delito" generically and are not so limited, so the four to fifteen year band and the five to twenty year band where the victim dies may still apply through them [Certain as to the wording]. The two amending Laws matter to this row and are named here because the articles quoted above are theirs. Ley 17.016 of 22 October 1998 article 2 gave article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 the wording under which the list that places this row was made, and its article 3 gave articles 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35 the wording those articles descend from; article 5 of the same Ley added the chapters that carry the precursor and chemical tables [Certain, read from the amendment notes on the consolidated text and from Ley 17.016 itself]. Ley 19.172 of 20 December 2013 rewrote article 30 by its article 6 and article 31 by its article 7, and that article 7 is the source of the personal consumption exemption quoted above. It does not touch article 35, which descends from article 3 of Ley 17.016 and was last rewritten by article 72 of Ley 19.889 of 9 July 2020 [Certain]. The b176 cell recorded that this substance could not be placed in any list, and disclosed that the generic groups of Anexo II had never been read. Both annexes have now been read: kratom is absent from the 526 entry name column of the list in force and is caught by none of the three generic groups, being a plant, and Anexo II describes chemical nuclei rather than botanical material. So the ranges above remain the country's published penalties and are still not this row's exposure, and that conclusion now rests on the list in force rather than on the one it replaced.

If prescribed or medical

No schedule placement was established for this row, so no controlled medicine route attaches to it in the official text I read. Article 111 of Decreto 454/976 prohibits outright the circulation in transit through national territory of narcotic or psychopharmacological substances coming from and destined for abroad, which is a country level rule and not a rule about this substance [Certain]. The traveller question is deferred: no personal medication allowance was found in the reachable official text.

Documentation

Carry any prescribed medicine in its original packaging with the prescription and declare it at the border. Legal cannabis access in Uruguay is a separate regime restricted to registered Uruguayan citizens and accredited permanent residents and it does not extend to this substance, see the cannabis row.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Uruguay’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.