The short version
In Spain, homeopathy is still a medicine in the legal sense, sold under a simplified registration and without a single authorised indication. In April 2026 the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) published a report that closes a long-running debate: no proven clinical efficacy in any condition, an effect that does not exceed placebo, and a main risk tied to skipping treatment that works.
A medicine under simplified registration
Spain registers homeopathic products through a special route set out in Real Decreto 1345/2007 and refined by Orden SSI/425/2018. Under this route, the manufacturer proves the product is safe, but does not have to prove it works. The direct consequence is that the law bans any therapeutic indication on the label.
The AEMPS register currently holds 976 homeopathic products. None carries an authorised indication. On paper they are medicines; in practice they are products with no approved use.
What the 2026 AEMPS report found
The report reviewed 64 systematic reviews of the international literature published since 2009. The finding is blunt: the effect of homeopathy matches placebo. Studies that reported a benefit rest on small samples, short follow-up and randomisation bias. The pattern AEMPS stresses: as trial quality and rigour rise, the claimed effect shrinks until it disappears.
Why it cannot work physically
Alongside the clinical data, the chemistry rules it out. At a 12 CH dilution, not a single molecule of the original substance remains, as a matter of arithmetic. To show the scale, AEMPS compares a 6 CH dilution to dissolving one sachet of sugar in the whole Mediterranean Sea. The "water memory" idea used to explain these solutions is, in the agency's words, a postulate with no empirical basis.
The real risk is not the pill
A sugar pellet is harmless by itself. The danger sits elsewhere: a patient picks homeopathy instead of evidence-based treatment, or delays it. In infection, cancer, asthma or depression, the lost weeks change the outcome. AEMPS also notes reports from other countries of serious reactions and poisonings from incorrect dosing. The Spanish Ministry of Health frames the main risk as abandoning or delaying therapy with proven efficacy.
Homeopathy is leaving the Spanish system
Public healthcare in Spain does not fund homeopathy. Homeopathic products fall outside the SNS pharmaceutical benefits package, which expressly excludes them (Real Decreto 1030/2006). The Ministry's 2018 plan against pseudotherapies set out to remove them from healthcare centres, so public hospitals do not offer homeopathy. University programmes have closed one after another. Barcelona shut its master's degree, running since 2004, in 2016; Zaragoza dropped the Boiron chair in 2014; Valencia, Cordoba and Seville ended their courses earlier, and UNED later removed its own.
The market is shrinking too. Per AEMPS data, around 314 products left the market in 2024, 97 percent of them from the Boiron laboratory. The register fell from roughly 1,290 items in March 2023 to today's 976.
How the rest of the world treats it
Spain follows its neighbours. France removed homeopathy reimbursement from public insurance in 2021, on a ruling by the Haute Autorité de Santé. Germany is preparing to end coverage in 2026. In the UK, a parliamentary committee recommended stopping NHS funding for homeopathy. In the US, the FDA treats these products as unapproved new drugs, and the FTC requires a clear warning that there is no scientific proof they work.
What it means in practice
If a doctor or pharmacist in Spain offers a homeopathic product, it is a medicine with no proven efficacy and no authorised indication, and the regulator says so itself. For a real complaint, choosing homeopathy means turning down treatment that has been tested in trials. The one honest use for homeopathy is a conscious placebo, where the person knows that is what they are buying.