Is MDMA Legal Anywhere? Countries, Trials and Prescriptions

Is MDMA legal anywhere?

MDMA is not legal for recreational use in any of the eight countries compared on this page, as of 2026-10-27.

Three different things get called “legal” in search answers. One is decriminalization, where possession is handled outside the criminal courts but the drug stays prohibited. One is non-enforcement, where police rarely act but the law is unchanged. The third is a medical route, where a named prescriber can use MDMA for a named condition. Decriminalization and non-enforcement create no lawful supply. Only the medical route does, and it exists in few places.

The table below sorts eight jurisdictions by these categories. For the same question about other substances, see Is Ketamine Legal? and Is Ibogaine Legal in the US?. For a place-by-place view of treatment, see where MDMA therapy is legal.

What countries is MDMA legal in? A country table

The table separates the recreational status of MDMA from its medical route in eight countries, each dated as of 2026-10-27.

Country	Recreational status	Medical route	Source
Australia	Illegal. MDMA stays Schedule 9 outside the PTSD use	Authorised psychiatrists, PTSD only, since 2023-07-01	Victorian Dept of Health
New Zealand	Not covered here	Two psychiatrists approved by Medsafe, severe PTSD, reported 2026-09-04	Euronews
Switzerland	Prohibited narcotic	Case-by-case federal permit since 2014	Aicher and Müller 2025
Canada	Possession needs a federal exemption (see Canada)	Special Access Program requests, case by case	Health Canada, 2023-02-27
United States	Illegal. Schedule I	No routine prescription; authorised clinical trials; FDA has not approved it	21 CFR 1308.11
United Kingdom	Illegal. Class A	None found	GOV.UK
Netherlands	Illegal. Possession of hard drugs is an offence at any time (details)	None found	Government of the Netherlands
Portugal	Personal possession decriminalized; more than a 10-day supply can indicate trafficking; still prohibited	None found	Policing and Society, 2026

“None found” means official pages list no medical route.

Is MDMA legal in Australia?

Australia lets authorised psychiatrists prescribe MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since 2023-07-01, under the Authorised Prescriber scheme.

The Victorian Department of Health describes the rules. The prescriber must be a psychiatrist with Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Authorised Prescriber approval, or a doctor in a clinical trial of MDMA for PTSD. Pharmacists cannot supply MDMA directly to patients, though they may supply authorised prescribers. Psychologists, therapists and counsellors cannot administer it. The prescriber must notify the Victorian department at least 7 days before prescribing. The page was last updated 2025-11-24.

MDMA remains Schedule 9, the prohibited class, for every other use. Approved clinical trials can study other conditions, but only with a Schedule 9 permit and ethics approval. The scheme covers treatment under a psychiatrist, not personal possession.

Is MDMA legal in Switzerland?

Switzerland allows MDMA only through a permit from the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) issued for one patient and one substance at a time.

Since 2014, doctors can apply for these exceptions under Article 8, paragraph 5 of the Narcotics Act. According to a 2025 review by Aicher and Müller, the BAG grants a permit when a serious illness is present, conventional therapies are exhausted and relief is plausible. Each permit is valid for one year and can be renewed. There is no right to a permit.

The review reports about 1,800 permits from 2014 to the end of 2024, covering MDMA, LSD and psilocybin together. It estimates about 100 physicians gave roughly 4,500 treatments. The figures come from BAG information passed to the authors and are not split by substance. Swiss permits are not tied to one illness, unlike Australia’s PTSD-only scheme.

Is MDMA legal in New Zealand and Canada?

New Zealand’s medicines regulator Medsafe approved two psychiatrists to prescribe MDMA for severe PTSD, according to Euronews on 2026-09-04.

Euronews reports that treatment happens in a controlled clinical setting, with no take-home doses and a minimum age of 18.

Canada has no general medical route; see Is MDMA Legal in Canada? for the detail. Health Canada’s 2023-02-27 notice says practitioners can ask the Special Access Program for MDMA when conventional treatments have failed, are unsuitable or are unavailable for a serious or life-threatening condition. Each request is judged case by case, and approval is not a statement that the drug is safe or effective. Patients cannot possess or transport the drug themselves under the class exemption.

Is MDMA decriminalized in Portugal or legal in the Netherlands?

Portugal has decriminalized personal possession of MDMA, but the Netherlands has not, and neither country has made MDMA legal.

In Portugal, since 2001, people found with drugs for personal use receive an administrative summons to a health-focused dissuasion commission instead of a criminal charge. A 2026 paper in Policing and Society notes that selling “always remained a felony crime”. Under a 2023 amendment (Law 55/2023), holding more than a 10-day supply signals possible trafficking, but exclusively personal possession stays an administrative matter.

In the Netherlands, the government says it is against the law to possess, sell or produce hard drugs at any time, and lists ecstasy among hard drugs. Its toleration policy covers only soft drugs, such as up to 5 grams of cannabis. The full picture is in Is MDMA Legal in the Netherlands?. Amsterdam’s reputation for tolerance does not extend to MDMA.

Is MDMA legal in the US, and what has the FDA decided?

MDMA is illegal in the United States under federal law and is not an FDA-approved drug, as of 2026-10-27.

Federal law lists MDMA as item (11) of the Schedule I hallucinogens, DEA code 7405. On 2024-08-08 the FDA signed a Complete Response Letter for the MDMA application, NDA 215455. It cited concerns about the reliability of the safety data and said the sponsor had not shown the treatment effect is durable. Marketing requires written approval. A Complete Response Letter is a non-approval for that review cycle. It is not a permanent ban on later applications.

No resubmission or new FDA decision date is on record, and the FDA’s psychedelic drugs page, dated 2026-10-05, does not mention MDMA. MDMA is unavailable by routine prescription. Authorised trials are the working route. The FDA’s expanded access pathway allows investigational treatment outside trials, but it needs separate FDA and DEA permissions, and no MDMA program is currently open to patients. For state-level psilocybin rules, see Are Magic Mushrooms Legal in California?.

What did the main MDMA therapy trial find?

The 2023 confirmatory Phase 3 trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD found a larger symptom drop than placebo, with open questions about blinding.

Mitchell and colleagues published the trial in Nature Medicine on 2023-09-14. It enrolled 104 adults with moderate to severe PTSD: 53 got MDMA-assisted therapy and 51 got placebo with the same therapy. Average change on the CAPS-5 clinician scale was -23.7 points for MDMA and -14.8 for placebo. The gap is 23.7 minus 14.8, or 8.9 points. Severe adverse events occurred in 5 of 53 (9.4%) and 2 of 51 (3.9%) participants. There were no deaths.

A published comment argues that most participants worked out which arm they were in and that expectations were not measured, so expectancy may have contributed to the result. Regulators weigh that kind of limit when they decide whether to approve a drug.

How do you reach legal MDMA treatment?

Legal treatment with MDMA today means a clinical trial or a regulated prescriber.

• Confirm the person offering treatment is a licensed clinician and the route is named in the table for your country.
• Ask whether it is a registered clinical trial, an Authorised Prescriber scheme or a permit, and ask to see the approval.
• Any retreat, website or clinic that sells MDMA directly sits outside these schemes.
• Check possession, travel and import rules locally before you move.

This site gives no dosing or sourcing information. Browse the guides for other substances or return to the home page for status by place.