The Vatican Pharmacy, and why the supermarket and petrol pumps aren't for you

Lots of people are surprised to learn the Vatican has its own pharmacy, supermarket and even petrol pumps. It makes sense for a state, even one of 0.44 km². The catch is that only the pharmacy is any use to you as a visitor, and with conditions. Here’s how it works, who it sells to and why the supermarket and petrol pumps are off-limits.

Can anyone buy at the Vatican pharmacy?

Yes, with a prescription. The Vatican Pharmacy isn’t reserved for residents, but it isn’t a walk-in shop either. First you need a pass from an office right by St Anne’s Gate, with your ID and the prescription on paper. Electronic prescriptions aren’t accepted, which is worth knowing if you’re from a country where nearly everything has gone digital.

My approach would be simple. Turn up at St Anne’s Gate on Via di Porta Angelica with your passport and the original prescription. The pharmacy itself reckons on a ten-minute walk from Ottaviano-S. Pietro on metro line A, and from Termini you just take that line towards Battistini. By bus, the 40, 62, 64 and 81 all stop nearby. This gate has nothing to do with the Museums entrance or the basilica queue, so don’t waste time in either.

One more thing if what you need isn’t sold in Italy. The pharmacy runs an ordering service and will ship, within Italy only, medicines that aren’t on the Italian market. If you’re in Rome for a few days, I’d ask there before giving up. For specific questions it answers on +39 06 698 89806 during opening hours.

The Brothers of St John of God run it, reporting to the state’s health service, and it reached a century and a half in 2024. As well as selling medicines and toiletries, it makes some preparations of its own.

Vatican Pharmacy opening hours

Weekday hours run from 08:30 to 18:00, Saturday is mornings only and Sunday it stays shut. Summer hours are shorter. In 2026, from 13 July to 29 August, it opened Monday to Friday from 08:30 to 15:00, with Saturday mornings unchanged at 08:30 to 13:00. If you’re travelling in those weeks, my advice is to go in the morning rather than leaving it until the afternoon.

St Anne’s Gate opens onto Via di Porta Angelica, on the edge of Prati, and it’s where you’ll see the Swiss Guard. It’s the same entrance you use for the office issuing papal blessing parchments.

No prescription? The parapharmacy on the square

For things that don’t need a prescription, sun cream, plasters or something for sore feet after the Museums, there’s a simpler option. The pharmacy itself mentions a parapharmacy in the Charlemagne Wing, under the square’s porticoes. You don’t go through the Permit Office. It opened on 16 December 2024, just before the Jubilee began, and sells personal care items, cosmetics and medical supplies, which covers most of what a traveller runs short of. How everything under the colonnade fits together is on my page about Bernini’s colonnade.

The Annona supermarket

The Vatican does have a supermarket, the Annona, but it’s for Governorate and Holy See employees. It closed for works and reopened under the TIGRE-ANNONA name, run by an Italian company, according to Vatican News. Some websites claim outsiders can shop there with a card, but that isn’t an official source, so I wouldn’t count on it. For actual shopping, the Vatican gift shops open to the public are what you want.

And the petrol pumps?

They exist, but here the source is no longer official. According to Sky TG24, in August 2026 the Vatican had seven pumps, three inside the state, three in extraterritorial areas of Rome and one at Castel Gandolfo, only for authorised staff with a card. No Vatican page confirms it, so I pass it on with that caution, and in any case it’s nothing a tourist can use.

A century and a half with the same order

The story starts on 2 March 1874. That day Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, on the pope’s behalf, asked the Fatebenefratelli for a pharmacist for the Vatican, and the order sent Fra Eusebio Frommer, a German friar. In 1892 the brothers set up their first permanent community there, which also nursed the pope and senior clergy.

The premises have moved more than once. In 1917 it went to a larger space by St Anne’s entrance, and in 1929, the year of the Lateran Pacts, the decision was taken to move it to the Palazzo del Belvedere, where it opened on 7 February 1930. Refurbishments followed in 1964, 1987 and 2019, and since 2016 it has been run by Fra Thomas Binish Mulackal and Fra Marcin Cegla. What strikes me most is the continuity. Few things in the Vatican have stayed in the same hands for so long.

For a traveller the conclusion is simple. If you need a prescription medicine, the Vatican Pharmacy is an official option open to all, with a paper prescription and ID. For everything else, the colonnade parapharmacy. Why so tiny a state needs all this is covered in is the Vatican a country?, and what to carry in what ID to bring.

Other Vatican services open to all

If what you want is to use something run by the state as a visitor, the Vatican Post is easiest. There’s a branch on the square, open all week, and one inside the Museums that rests on Sundays, both keeping 08:30 to 18:30. In both you can buy Vatican stamps and send postcards with its postmark, as I explain in Vatican post office and stamps. It’s by far the Vatican service visitors use most.