Is Memantine legal in Austria?

Legal status

Not a designated drug in Austria, and controlled instead as a prescription medicine. The placement is the Rezeptpflichtverordnung: memantine appears in part 2 of Annex A to the prescription regulation marked RP, a prescription requirement. No narcotic, psychotropic or NPS designation was found for it anywhere in the instruments read. A marking in that annex binds the product rather than the molecule in every context. The medicines act supplies the surrounding structure, with §7 on authorisation and its exceptions and §59 confining supply to pharmacies subject to its own carve outs.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Austria answers this row through the medicines act rather than through the drug instruments, neither of which carries an entry, so the SMG ceilings including the life term in §28a(5) are simply not in play, in a country with no capital punishment. Memantine is a dementia medicine with a prescription requirement, and the SMG scale does not reach it in any tier. AMG §84(1) provides fines of up to EUR 25,000 and up to EUR 50,000 on repetition for its own list of offences, and §83(1) provides up to EUR 7,500 and up to EUR 14,000 on repetition for the dispensing breaches it names. Separately from that, and carried forward from this site's published Austria entry rather than re-derived from the Suchtmittelgesetz in this pass, the published penalties are these. Austrian practice is depenalised and not legalised, and the published entry says so in those terms. There is no legal minimum quantity, and possession of any amount for personal use is punishable under section 27, up to six months in prison or a fine. Under Therapie statt Strafe at section 35, small quantity personal use is typically provisionally suspended from prosecution on one to two years of probation where the person accepts counselling or treatment. Consumption itself is not criminalised, but the possession that precedes it is. Above the Grenzmenge, the threshold quantity, the offence becomes dealing or trafficking under sections 28 and 28a, up to one to three years, escalating to ten to fifteen years for commercial or organised cases. Every figure in this paragraph is a penalty range or a fine and none of them is a quantity threshold. This row is placed outside that regime, so they are recorded as Austria's published drug penalties and not as this substance's exposure.

If prescribed or medical

Austria's traveller rule is the authorized purpose rule and there is no other. SMG §5(1) allows a Suchtmittel to be acquired, possessed, produced, processed, carried, imported, exported, offered, transferred or procured only for medical, dental, veterinary or scientific purposes and only as that Act provides, and professional licensing, medical dispensing and travel exemptions each remain subject to their own particular provisions rather than to any general allowance. Because this substance carries no narcotic and no psychotrope designation, SMG §5(1) does not govern it and neither the psychotrope medicine exception nor the psychotrope travel certificate is in play. The medicines regime applies instead: AMG §7 sets the authorisation requirements with their exceptions and §59 confines the supply of medicines to pharmacies except where §§57 and 58 or the following provisions say otherwise. Memantine's RP marking is the whole of the control, so the question at a border is whether the supply was dispensed on prescription and not where it sits on a drug schedule.

Documentation

Carry the pharmacy documentation for the supply, which is what establishes that the medicines regime was complied with. Memantine carries no Austrian drug designation, only a prescription requirement, so the dispensing record is the whole of the answer. The prescription regulation was read on 18 September 2026 at the consolidation listing BGBl II 282/2025 as its latest amendment, through page 49 and including the exception and warning annexes.

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