Our compliance desk clears prescription medicine parcels out of India every working week. Most go through without a query. The ones that get stopped almost never get stopped because of the medicine itself. They get stopped because of the file: a name spelled two different ways, a chemist's bill made out to the sender instead of the patient, a prescription with no registration number on it.

So this is not a marketing page. It is the way we actually work a medicine file, in the order we work it, with the reasons behind each document. If you are sending medicine to a parent in New Jersey, a spouse in Frankfurt or a student in Dublin, read the document section twice. That section is where the shipment is won or lost, long before the box reaches the airport.

The one rule everything else hangs off

India allows medicine to leave the country by courier for the personal use of a named patient. That is the whole basis of the permission. It is not a licence to send medicine as merchandise, to oblige a friend of a friend, or to move a quantity that looks like stock for resale.

Every document we ask for exists to prove the same three things, from three independent directions:

A doctor registered with a recognised Indian medical council prescribed this medicine to a specific patient
That patient is the person whose name and address appear as the consignee on the airway bill
The quantity in the box matches what that one patient will personally consume, and no more

Line those three up and the file is clean. Break any one of them and you have stopped sending medicine for personal use and started exporting pharmaceuticals, which is a different licensing regime entirely and not something any courier shipment can carry.

The document file: four items, no substitutes

1. Prescription, dated within the last 90 days

The prescription is the spine of the file. Ours has to be recent, and 90 days is the working cut-off, for a practical reason: the quantity you are allowed to send is itself capped at a 90-day supply, so a prescription older than that no longer describes treatment that is currently running.

What it must carry:

The practitioner's letterhead, with clinic or hospital name
The doctor's registration number and the state medical council that issued it. This is the single most commonly missing item. A prescription without a registration number is, to a customs officer, an unsigned piece of paper
The patient's full name, spelled exactly as it appears on the passport. Not a short form, not an initial where the passport has a full middle name
Medicine name, strength, dosage schedule and duration of treatment
Date, signature and stamp

If the patient has a long-running condition, ask the doctor to write one extra line: that this is a continuation of ongoing treatment. It costs nothing and it answers a question the officer at the other end would otherwise have to raise. Handwritten prescriptions are accepted, but if the handwriting is the usual doctor's handwriting, get a typed covering letter on the same letterhead as well. We have watched clean shipments sit for four days because nobody at destination could read the drug name.

Scan or photograph all four corners of the page. A crop that cuts off the letterhead or the stamp is treated as an incomplete document, not a nearly complete one.

2. Purchase bill from the pharmacy, in the patient's name

This is the document that trips up more senders than any other, and the fix takes ten seconds at the counter.

The bill must be a proper invoice from a licensed retail pharmacy, and it must be made out in the patient's name, not the sender's. When you buy the medicine, tell the chemist plainly: bill it to the patient. Give them the spelling from the passport. If the chemist has already printed it in your name, go back and have it reissued. Do not paper over it with a note.

Check the bill carries:

Pharmacy name, address, GSTIN and drug licence number
The patient's name as the buyer
Each medicine listed with batch number, expiry date, quantity and rate
A total that matches the value we will declare on the shipping bill

The logic is simple once you see it from the officer's side. The prescription says who the patient is. The bill says the medicine was lawfully dispensed against that prescription, to that patient, by a licensed pharmacy. If the buyer on the bill is a third party, the chain breaks and the consignment starts to look like a transaction rather than a personal supply.

3. Recipient's passport, both sides

We need the recipient's passport captured on both sides, meaning the photo and data page and the reverse page carrying the address and parent or spouse details. Indian passports print the address on the back page, and destination customs frequently want to tie the consignee address on the airway bill to something on the identity document.

The name on the passport, the name on the prescription, the name on the pharmacy bill and the consignee name on the airway bill must be four copies of the same string. Not four versions of the same person. A middle name present in one place and dropped in another is enough to hold a parcel.

For the United States this document does more than establish identity, and the reason is worth knowing. FDA's published position for foreign nationals is that a 90-day supply of a personal medication may be brought or shipped in, and it suggests the parcel travel with a copy of the visa or passport, a letter from the doctor and a copy of the prescription in English. The passport copy is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is part of the evidence set the reviewing officer is told to look for. (FDA, Personal Importation)

4. Sender's KYC: Aadhaar card or Voter ID

The sender is the exporter of record on the courier shipping bill, so the sender has to be identified as well. We accept an Aadhaar card (front and back, both sides) or a Voter ID card. A PAN card on its own does not work here, because PAN carries no address and the address is half the point.

The name and address on the sender's KYC should agree with the pickup address on the booking. If you are shipping from a relative's house or an office, tell us at booking rather than letting the mismatch surface at the terminal.

Why the patient has to be the consignee

People ask this constantly, usually because the patient is elderly and a son or daughter wants the parcel delivered to their own address instead. We understand the instinct. It still does not work.

The permission to export is granted for a named patient's personal use. The consignee is the person the shipment is legally delivered to. If the consignee is someone other than the patient, then on paper the medicine has been dispensed to Patient A and sent to Person B, and no document in the file explains why. That is an unexplained transfer of prescription medicine across a border. Officers do not have to prove anything sinister about it; they only have to decline it.

If the patient cannot physically collect the parcel, ship it to the patient at the address where they actually live and arrange for a family member to receive it there. The consignee name stays the patient. The practical problem gets solved without touching the paperwork.

The medicine specification sheet, mandatory for the USA

For USA-bound shipments we require a medicine specification sheet in addition to the four core documents. It is one page, it travels in the document pouch, and it exists because the officer reading your parcel's paperwork is a customs officer, not a physician. A prescription tells a doctor everything. It tells a customs officer very little.

The sheet lists, for every single item in the box:

Medicine Name	Composition	Number of Units	Illness Being Treated
Glycomet GP 2	Metformin HCl 500 mg + Glimepiride 2 mg	90 tablets (3 strips of 30)	Type 2 diabetes mellitus
Telma 40	Telmisartan 40 mg	90 tablets (6 strips of 15)	High blood pressure (hypertension)
Thyronorm 75 mcg	Thyroxine Sodium 75 mcg	120 tablets (2 bottles of 60)	Underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism)
Rosuvas 10	Rosuvastatin Calcium 10 mg	90 tablets (9 strips of 10)	High cholesterol (dyslipidaemia)

Four columns, and each one is doing a specific job.

Medicine Name. The brand name exactly as printed on the strip or carton. Indian brand names mean nothing to a US officer, which is precisely why the next column exists.

Composition. The generic molecule and its strength, per unit. This is the column the officer actually reads. It is how a parcel of Glycomet becomes a parcel of metformin and glimepiride, which is recognisable anywhere in the world. Copy it off the strip, do not work from memory, and if a tablet is a fixed-dose combination list both molecules with both strengths.

Number of Units. Tablets, capsules, millilitres or pre-filled syringes. Count actual dose units, not packets. Ninety tablets is ninety tablets whether it arrives as three strips of thirty or nine of ten, and writing "3 strips" instead of "90 tablets" invites a physical count and a discrepancy report.

Illness Being Treated. One line, plain English, no abbreviations. Write "high blood pressure", not "HTN". Write "underactive thyroid", not "hypothyroidism" alone if you can give both. This column is what turns a box of unidentified pills into a documented course of treatment for a stated condition, and it is the column that does the most work for you.

Sign the sheet, and add one sentence stating that the medicines are for the personal use of the named patient and are not for sale or distribution. That written affirmation of personal use is one of the factors FDA's own guidance lists when it describes when a more permissive decision may be considered on a personal import, alongside a quantity generally not exceeding a three-month supply and either the name and address of the US-licensed doctor responsible for the treatment or evidence that the treatment began abroad.

We ask for this sheet on USA shipments because the US screens hardest. In practice, senders who prepare it for other destinations get fewer queries there too, so we now recommend it on every route.

Counting a 90-day supply the way a customs officer counts it

The quantity cap is not a weight and it is not a rupee value. It is a duration, and the arithmetic is unglamorous:

Total units divided by daily dosage equals supply days.

Ninety tablets at one a day is a 90-day supply and it is fine. The same ninety tablets at two a day is a 45-day supply, also fine, and you could have sent a hundred and eighty. Two hundred tablets at one a day is a 200-day supply and it is not going anywhere, whatever the box weighs.

Run the sum per medicine, not across the parcel. A single item over the line puts the whole consignment in question. Our booking flow does this calculation live from the unit count and daily dosage you enter and will stop you before payment if any line exceeds 90 days, which is deliberate: a shipment blocked at booking costs you nothing, a shipment blocked at destination costs you the medicine.

One warning on repeat sends. Sending a fresh 90-day supply to the same recipient every three weeks is arithmetically three shipments inside one 90-day window, and destination customs can see the history against that address. Space the shipments to the actual consumption rate.

Value, HSN code and the shipping bill

Personal medicine parcels from India move on a CSB-IV courier shipping bill, the non-commercial declaration used for personal effects, gifts and samples. It caps the declared value of the consignment at ₹25,000. That figure is a hard ceiling for this route, not a guideline.

Declare the value that appears on the pharmacy bill. Not less. Under-declaring to duck a duty is the fastest route to a seizure, and it also destroys the one thing your file had going for it, which was that four documents all told the same story. If the prescribed course genuinely costs more than ₹25,000, the answer is two consignments spaced to the dosage, not a creative invoice.

Most Indian pharmaceutical formulations in retail dose form sit under HSN 30049099. It is an eight-digit field on the declaration and it is mandatory. Where a specific molecule has its own tariff line, we use that instead, and if you are unsure, put the composition in front of us and we will classify it.

What we will not carry, at any price

A short list, and there is no negotiating on it. If your medicine is on it, no volume of documentation changes the outcome:

Anything falling under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. That sweeps in opioid painkillers such as tramadol and codeine combinations, and a large share of sedatives and sleep medication. A valid prescription does not create an exception
Habit-forming drugs under Schedule X of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945
Unapproved, investigational or counterfeit product, including anything bought outside a licensed pharmacy
Medicine needing cold chain, where the route cannot hold temperature end to end. Insulin, most biologics and several eye preparations fall here. A parcel that arrives warm is a parcel of waste, and no insurance covers efficacy
Medicine banned or unapproved at destination, even where it is sold openly across an Indian counter

Also worth saying plainly, because it protects you: we check the file for completeness. We do not ring the prescribing doctor to authenticate the prescription, we do not assess whether the treatment is medically appropriate, and we cannot certify that a given molecule is admissible into a given country. Confirming the recipient may lawfully receive the medicine remains the sender's call, and where there is any doubt the destination regulator is a phone call away and worth the call before you buy the medicine, not after.

Packing the box so it survives inspection

Assume the box will be opened. Pack for the officer, not for the shelf.

Original strips and cartons only. The batch number and expiry printed on the foil are what let an officer match the box to your pharmacy bill. Loose tablets in a pill organiser are undocumented tablets
Do not cut a strip to make things fit. A part strip loses the printed batch and expiry
Keep the manufacturer's outer carton wherever it exists, with the composition panel intact
Liquids and syrups: cap sealed with tape, then two sealed polythene bags, then bubble wrap. One leaked bottle can contaminate the whole consignment and give the officer a reason to write the shipment off
Document pouch on the outside of the box: prescription, pharmacy bill, passport copy, KYC and the specification sheet. Second set inside. Officers should not have to break your packing to find your paperwork
Nothing else in the box. No sweets, no dry fruit, no small gift for the grandchild. A medicine consignment with food in it becomes a mixed consignment and picks up a second set of import rules, and the biosecurity rules at several destinations are stricter than the medicine rules

Send Medicine to USA

The hardest screen on our network and the one most people ask about. FDA regulates the admissibility, CBP handles the border, and shipments are reviewed against FDA's personal importation guidance rather than waved through.

Bring the full file plus the medicine specification sheet, the written personal-use affirmation, and either the name and address of the recipient's US-licensed treating doctor or a line from the Indian doctor confirming the treatment started in India and is being continued. Quantity: 90 days, and FDA states the 90-day figure explicitly for foreign nationals having medication sent to them. Prescription in English, or an English translation attached to the original.

Controlled substances sit with DEA, not FDA, and we do not carry them on this route in any form. Transit runs 5 to 8 working days, plus clearance. Expect the file to be read properly, and prepare it accordingly.

Send Medicine to UK

MHRA sets the medicines position, Border Force clears the parcel. Personal-use imports are workable and the UK is one of our more predictable European lanes, provided the recipient is named consistently across every page.

Send the four core documents. A short covering letter from the treating doctor, or a UK prescription if the recipient has a GP there, closes off most queries. Quantity: 90 days.

On money, the UK thresholds are published and worth knowing: import VAT applies to gifts valued over £39, and customs duty comes into play above £135. A 90-day course of ordinary generics often sits under the duty line but over the VAT line, so tell the recipient to expect a small VAT and handling charge rather than be surprised by it. Controlled drugs require the Home Office and are off our list. Transit 5 to 7 working days.

Send Medicine to Germany

BfArM is the federal authority for medicines, Zoll clears the consignment, and German customs are exacting in the good sense: if the file is right they are quick, and if it is not they will tell you exactly which line is wrong.

Core documents, 90-day quantity, and one addition that repays the effort: a German translation of the Indian prescription. It does not need to be sworn, a clean typed translation stapled to the original is enough, and it noticeably shortens clearance at Frankfurt and Leipzig.

Germany is the one country on this list where controlled medication is not automatically a dead end, because a certificate issued under Article 75 of the Schengen Implementing Convention and completed by the treating physician covers narcotic and psychotropic medication in a patient's possession. Read that carefully though: that instrument is built for a patient travelling with their own medicine, not for a parcel arriving by courier from a third country. We still do not carry NDPS-scheduled items out of India. It is mentioned here because senders find it online and assume it applies to shipping. It does not.

Transit 5 to 7 working days.

Send Medicine to France

ANSM regulates, Douane clears. France is straightforward on ordinary prescription medicine for a named patient and firmer than most on anything that looks like it might be resold, so keep the quantity visibly personal.

Core documents, 90 days. A French translation of the prescription is worth the small cost, particularly for parcels routing through Roissy. Where the recipient has a French treating doctor, an EU-format prescription from that doctor alongside the Indian one is the strongest version of this file. Transit 5 to 7 working days.

Send Medicine to Netherlands

Medicines fall under the CIBG and the health inspectorate, and Dutch customs are among the most consistent in Europe to deal with. English prescriptions are accepted without translation, which makes this one of the easier lanes out of India.

Core documents, 90 days. Anything within the Dutch Opium Act is out, and that list is broader than people expect, so check the molecule before you buy it. On charges: consignments between private individuals valued up to €45 attract relief, and above that import VAT applies, since the EU removed the old €22 VAT exemption on 1 July 2021 and now collects VAT on imported goods regardless of value. Transit 5 to 7 working days.

Send Medicine to Italy

AIFA regulates medicines, the Agenzia delle Dogane clears the parcel. Italian officers ask for the indication, the illness being treated, more often than any other customs service we deal with, which is exactly why the specification sheet from the USA section is now on our recommended list for every route.

Core documents, 90 days, plus that specification sheet. An Italian translation helps at Milan Malpensa. Transit 6 to 8 working days, and build in a buffer around the August shutdown and the Christmas fortnight, when clearance queues at Italian gateways lengthen noticeably.

Send Medicine to Spain

AEMPS regulates, customs sits under the Agencia Tributaria. Spain treats personal medicine imports sensibly, and the friction on this lane is almost always language rather than law.

Core documents, 90 days, with a Spanish translation of the prescription. Attach it to the original rather than replacing it. Barcelona clears faster than Madrid on our numbers. Transit 6 to 8 working days.

Send Medicine to Ireland

The HPRA regulates medicines and Revenue handles the border, and Revenue publishes its relief rules for low-value and gift consignments in unusually plain language, which makes cost estimation easy for once.

Core documents, 90 days. English prescriptions need no translation. Ireland is a strong lane for us on the student and healthcare-worker corridor, and the recurring problem there is not customs but the address: campus accommodation and hospital residences move people between blocks. Get the exact current delivery address and a phone number the recipient answers. Transit 5 to 8 working days.

Send Medicine to Switzerland

Read this section before you buy anything. Switzerland is not in the EU, runs its own customs, and Swissmedic applies the tightest personal-import quantity limit on this entire list.

Swissmedic's published position is that a private individual may import only a small quantity of medicine for their own personal use, and specifically no more than a one-month treatment requirement, and not on behalf of a third party. That is one month, not the 90 days the rest of this list allows. Senders routinely get this wrong because they read a general European guide and assume it carries over. It does not, and the excess is what gets held.

So: core documents, quantity capped at one month of treatment, the prescription stating the daily dose and duration explicitly so the month is provable on paper, and the patient as consignee with no exceptions, since importing on someone else's behalf is precisely what the Swiss rule excludes. Transit 6 to 8 working days. If the recipient needs a longer course, the realistic route is a Swiss prescription filled locally, and we would rather tell you that now than after a seizure notice.

Send Medicine to Belgium

The federal medicines agency regulates and Belgian customs clear at Brussels and Liège, both of which are efficient express gateways. Belgium behaves much like the Netherlands in practice.

Core documents, 90 days, English prescription accepted. Same EU position on charges: relief on private-to-private consignments up to €45, import VAT above that regardless of value. Note also that since 1 July 2026 the EU applies a temporary flat customs duty of €3 per item on low-value consignments up to €150 arriving from outside the EU, aimed at business-to-consumer distance sales rather than parcels between private individuals, so ask us to confirm how your specific consignment will be treated before you assume either way. Transit 5 to 7 working days.

A note on countries we will talk you out of

Some destinations restrict prescription medicine arriving by post from outside the European Economic Area far more tightly than their neighbours, and the Nordic states are the clearest example. Ask us before you buy the medicine rather than after. It is a two-minute conversation that occasionally saves a five-figure prescription, and where a lane genuinely does not work we will say so instead of taking the booking.

What "held in customs" actually means

Transit time and clearance time are two different clocks, and conflating them causes most of the anxiety we field on the phone.

Transit is the flying and trucking: 5 to 8 working days to the destinations above. Clearance is the paperwork at the far end, and it is either hours or days depending entirely on how good your file is. A complete file usually clears alongside the rest of the aircraft's manifest. An incomplete one goes to a queue, and that queue is worked by people asking for exactly the document you left out.

When a parcel is held, the outcome is decided by response speed. The officer wants one thing. If the recipient replies the same day with a legible scan, the parcel moves. If the request sits in an inbox for a week, the parcel sits too, and on medicine that matters because the expiry date does not pause for correspondence. Tell your recipient before you ship that a message from the carrier needs answering that day.

Nine reasons files come back from our desk

In rough order of frequency:

Pharmacy bill made out to the sender rather than the patient
Doctor's registration number missing from the prescription
Name mismatch across passport, prescription, bill and airway bill, most often a dropped middle name
Only the front of the passport or the Aadhaar card submitted, when both sides are required
Quantity works out past 90 days once you divide units by daily dosage
Prescription older than 90 days
Declared value under the pharmacy bill total, or over the ₹25,000 CSB-IV ceiling
Cropped or unreadable scans, letterhead or stamp cut off at the edge
Strips cut down to fit the box, taking the printed batch and expiry with them

Every one of these is fixable in a day before pickup. None of them is fixable once the box is airside.

Questions we get every week

Can I send medicine to a friend rather than a relative?

Yes, provided the friend is the patient named on the prescription and the buyer named on the pharmacy bill, and is the consignee. The relationship between sender and recipient is not the test. Whether the recipient is the patient is the test.

The prescription is from a hospital, not a private doctor. Is that a problem?

No, and hospital prescriptions are often better documented. Check that the treating doctor's own registration number appears on it, not only the hospital's registration. Discharge summaries help as supporting paper but do not replace a prescription.

Can I send medicine for two people in one box?

No. One patient, one consignee, one file. Two patients means two shipments, because a single consignment cannot carry two separate personal-use permissions.

Do I need to send the original prescription or is a copy enough?

A clear copy travels with the shipment. Keep the original with you, because if a query comes back you may need to produce it. Never put your only copy of a document in a parcel.

Will the recipient pay duty?

It depends on the destination and the declared value. In the UK, import VAT applies to gifts above £39 and duty above £135. Across the EU, import VAT applies regardless of value since July 2021, with relief for private-to-private consignments up to €45. Tell your recipient a small charge is likely so they clear it promptly instead of ignoring the notice.

What happens if customs refuses the parcel?

Depending on the destination and the reason, it is either returned or destroyed, and duty on a return leg is not recoverable. This is why we would rather reject a file at our desk than let it fly on hope.

My medicine needs refrigeration. Can you carry it?

Not where the route cannot hold temperature end to end, which covers most cold-chain items on these lanes. We will tell you no rather than deliver you a warm box of spoiled medicine.

Before you book

Run this list once. If all seven are true, your file will almost certainly clear.

Prescription dated within 90 days, on letterhead, carrying the doctor's registration number and council
Pharmacy bill in the patient's name, showing the pharmacy's drug licence number, with batch and expiry per item
Recipient's passport captured on both sides, legible to the edges
Sender's Aadhaar (both sides) or Voter ID, address agreeing with the pickup address
Medicine specification sheet: medicine name, composition, number of units, illness being treated, signed, with a personal-use declaration
Units divided by daily dosage lands at or under 90 days per item, or one month for Switzerland
One name, spelled identically, on all four documents and on the airway bill

Bring us the file and we will do the rest: classification, the CSB-IV declaration, carrier selection and the follow-up at destination if a query lands. If something in your file will not survive the far end, we would rather have that conversation with you now, on the phone, than send you a photograph of a seizure notice in three weeks.

This guide reflects how our compliance desk works medicine files as at August 2026, and general regulatory practice on these routes. Rules change, and they change by destination. It is not medical or legal advice. Where a specific molecule is involved, confirm admissibility with the destination country's medicines authority before you purchase, and talk to us before you book.

How to Ship International Prescription Medicine to USA & Europe from India