Is Modafinil legal in Uruguay?

Legal status

Controlled. The national list is the Anexo I enacted by article 6 of Decreto 198/025 of 25 September 2025, which substitutes the whole consolidated list rather than adding to it, published in the Diario Oficial of 3 October 2025 and carried there only as page images, which have now been read: 526 entries across its three annexes, made under article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294. The annex entry read for this row is "modafinilo" in the Sicofármacos section with the control column reading Nacional and the list column empty. The annex prints entry names in capitals; they are given here in lower case. The entry is a national control and not a convention schedule, so the offence route is the one question this row cannot settle. The version horizon, stated outright because an absence without one expires silently and says nothing about having expired: the annexes were read as at 25 September 2025, the date of the decreto that enacts them, from the Diario Oficial page images of 3 October 2025, and 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. The replacement of the whole annex that the earlier cell could not rule out has happened and has been read, and so have the three generic groups made under article 8. This does not rule out a later individual entry or a later decreto. The annex this row rests on is the current one and it was read from the source, not inferred. Article 6 of Decreto 198/025 does not add to the 2020 annex, it substitutes its own Anexo I for the whole consolidated list, and article 8 adds a control with no counterpart 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. The official site carries those annexes only as Diario Oficial page images, 174 carillas of the edition of 3 October 2025, number 31.766, and they have been read: Anexo I Estupefacientes at carillas 7 to 12, Anexo II Sicotropicos at 12 to 21 ending in the three generic groups, Anexo III Tablas I and II at 22 to 24, 526 entries in all. The optical character recognition of those pages is not sound enough to search: it carries only about 400 of the 526 entry names and none of the fourteen on carilla 24, so the entries were read off the page images by eye and every statement here about what the annex prints rests on that reading [Certain as to what the annexes print].

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]. Article 31 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 punishes unauthorised import, export, transit, distribution, transport, possession not for one’s own consumption, storage and offering for sale of the article 30 substances with two to twelve years of penitenciaría, and three to twelve years where an organised criminal group commits them. Article 30 punishes unauthorised production with two to ten years. Article 32 punishes organising or financing with four to twenty years, article 33 punishes organising an illegal shipment abroad with three to ten years, and article 34 punishes supply or facilitating consumption with two to ten years. Article 37 punishes an attempt with the penalty of the completed offence [Certain]. 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]. Article 30 reaches, besides the article 1 lists and the precursor tables, "los que determine el Poder Ejecutivo según la facultad contenida en el artículo 15", those the Executive determines under article 15, and article 15 is the power to modify or widen the lists and tables. Decreto 66/018 used that power in terms when it widened the national roll of substances with psychopharmacological action [Certain]. Whether a substance controlled only nationally, with an empty list column in the annex, is inside articles 30 and 31 or only inside the administrative regime of Decreto 454/976, whose article 110 provides ministerial sanctions up to closure of the establishment, I could not settle from the official text [Likely]. The ranges above are the country’s published penalties for the drug offences of Decreto-Ley 14.294. They are the country’s penalties and they are not this row’s proven exposure. 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 then rewrote both offence articles used here: its article 6 rewrote article 30 and its article 7 rewrote article 31, and it is that article 7 that put the personal consumption exemption and the forty gram marijuana figure into article 31. Article 30 was rewritten again by article 12 of Ley 19.513 of 2017, and article 31 by article 13 of that Ley and finally by article 68 of Ley 19.889 of 9 July 2020, which is the text in force [Certain].

If prescribed or medical

Decreto 454/976 regulates psychopharmaceuticals separately from narcotics: article 109 has the Executive fix the roll of controlled psychopharmaceuticals, and dispensing runs on the official prescription form through authorised pharmacies with a prescription book and monthly returns to the ministry. Article 111 prohibits outright the circulation in transit through national territory of narcotic or psychopharmacological substances coming from and destined for abroad [Certain]. No allowance for a traveller carrying a personal supply of a scheduled substance was found in the reachable official text, so that question is deferred rather than answered.

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.