Prescription costs UK 2026: £9.90, exemptions and the prepayment certificate

Unlike most Whito costs guides, this one carries real numbers, because prescription charges are set nationally and published. Every figure below is from Community Pharmacy England’s announcement of the 2026/27 charges, read at source on 5 October 2026.

The charge

The NHS prescription charge in England is £9.90 per item, frozen for 2026/27, the second year running without an increase. It is a charge per item, not per visit: three medicines on one prescription are three charges. Prescriptions are free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; everything on this page is about England.

Who does not pay

Large groups are exempt: among them people aged 60 or over or under 16, 16 to 18 year olds in full-time education, pregnancy and the year after birth with a valid exemption certificate, listed medical conditions with a medical exemption certificate, and people on qualifying benefits. The pharmacy checks the declaration on the back of the prescription; the full list is on the NHS website and any pharmacy can walk you through it.

The prepayment certificate: the trade’s best-kept sum

A prescription prepayment certificate, a PPC, covers unlimited items for a fixed price: £32.05 for 3 months and £114.50 for 12 months (2026/27). The arithmetic is short. At £9.90 per item, a 3-month PPC wins from four items in three months, and a 12-month PPC wins from twelve items in a year, one a month. Anyone on two or more regular medicines who pays for prescriptions is almost certainly overpaying without one. There is also an HRT PPC at £19.80 covering listed HRT medicines.

For pharmacies reading this

These questions, charge, exemption, PPC break-even, are asked constantly, nationally, and are answerable entirely from official figures. A pharmacy that answers them clearly on its own site, with its own name and location attached, is doing the cheapest honest marketing available in this trade. The figures change at most yearly; date the page and update it when they do.

Checking the numbers

Charges are set by the Department of Health and Social Care and published via the NHS and Community Pharmacy England. The figures above were read on 5 October 2026 and apply to 2026/27; if you are reading this later, check the NHS page for the current year’s values.

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