Where is Marijuana Legal? Map of Countries 2026

Marijuana status in 44 countries: possession, threshold, penalty, and medical program, each from the regulation text. We check where the number exists and where it does not.

This overview answers four questions for each country: whether possession is punishable, if there is a quantity threshold, what the penalty is for exceeding it, and whether a medical program operates. Each answer comes from the text of the regulation or the official stance.

The most common misunderstanding concerns not the severity of penalties, but the existence of a threshold. In several countries in this overview, the number the reader looks for simply does not exist, and lists that provide it add it from outside sources.

What is the difference between legalization and decriminalization?

Legalization and decriminalization are two different things, and confusing them is the most common mistake in Polish texts about cannabis law. Legalization means that the act ceases to be prohibited altogether. Decriminalization means only that it ceases to be a crime and becomes a misdemeanor or administrative offense.

The difference has practical consequences. After decriminalization, the substance is still subject to seizure, the case still proceeds, and the sanction still exists, only under a different procedure and with a different set of penalties.

In this overview, both situations appear side by side. Czechia, Germany, Canada, and Malta have excluded some acts from prohibition, so we speak of legalization within strictly defined limits. Croatia, Slovenia, Portugal, and Italy have moved possession outside criminal law but have not legalized it.

There is also a third group, the hardest to describe with one word. Belgium and Norway have not changed the laws but changed enforcement practices, and such a change can be reversed without parliament involvement.

Therefore, the table does not have a column with a one-word status. Any such abbreviation would be untrue for about half the countries, and the reader still needs answers to four separate questions.

Where is marijuana legal at the national level?

At the national level, legalization of possession by an adult has been implemented in four countries in this overview: Czechia, Germany, Canada, and Malta, each under its own conditions and limits. Additionally, Luxembourg and Uruguay have narrower constructions with additional requirements.

In Czechia, the legal threshold depends on the age of 21 and is 100 grams at home and 25 grams outside. In Germany, the limits are 25 grams outside the home and 50 grams at home, with three live plants allowed.

Canada allows 30 grams equivalent in public places, and Malta 7 grams on person for those over 18. Luxembourg went furthest in narrowing: legal use is only at home and only from home cultivation.

Separately stands the Netherlands, usually described as the most liberal country. Cannabis remains prohibited by law there, and coffeeshops operate on a tolerance basis, so formally it is not legalization.

The rest of the overview divides into countries with decriminalization and those where possession remains a crime. Details for each are in the table below.

How to read the country table?

The most important thing when reading this table is that the legal threshold, misdemeanor threshold, and crime threshold are three different numbers, and in some countries all three exist simultaneously. The threshold column gives the first one, if it exists in that country at all.

Czechia is the best example of three levels. Below the legal threshold, the act is not prohibited; above it, it becomes a misdemeanor; and only above the next limit does it become a crime described in the criminal code.

The second trap concerns thresholds that look like the legality limit but are not. In Cyprus, 30 grams triggers a presumption of trafficking, and in Austria the so-called Grenzmenge only divides regulations among themselves and does not separate legal from illegal.

The third thing is the unit of measure. Italy counts 500 milligrams of active substance, not the weight of the dried herb; Hungary six grams of active content in both forms combined; and Canada thirty grams equivalent with a separate conversion table.

The penalty column gives the shortest possible answer and necessarily simplifies. Full ranges, including circumstances that increase them, are described on each country’s page.

Table: marijuana status in 44 countries

Below is the marijuana status in 44 countries, sorted alphabetically by Polish name. Four columns answer four questions readers usually come for, and each cell is an abbreviation from the regulation text or official stance, never from secondary sources or tourist sites.

Empty space does not appear even once, but the value “none” appears often and means something specific. It means that the regulation of that country does not contain a quantity threshold, not that we failed to check it.

Poland stands in the table as a reference point, as readers compare every country to it. It has no link because this cluster does not create a separate page for it, and we write about the Polish legal status in several other posts.

Two topics cross this table horizontally and have their own studies. The first is the status of HHC, described in a separate post about whether HHC is legal and safe, as in some countries on this list it is controlled separately from cannabis itself.

The second is transporting medical cannabis across borders, which we dedicated a separate guide on traveling with medical marijuana. The table does not answer this question, as transport rules can be completely different from possession rules in the same countries.

Country Possession Quantity threshold Penalty Medical program
Australia adult exempted in the Capital Territory 4 plants per property, dried herb mass in implementing act up to 50 penalty units and six months law creates space, path led by federal agency
Austria punishable in any amount no legality threshold, Grenzmenge only divides regulations imprisonment or fine none, prescribing dried herb prohibited
Belgium illegal, lowest prosecution priority 3 grams or one plant simplified protocol, no seizure of substance no dried herb program, one registered medicine
Bulgaria crime, cannabis in schedule I none, code uses evaluative terms from one to six years, for smaller amounts fine up to 1000 lev none, schedule I excludes medical use
Croatia misdemeanor, not a crime none, intent to distribute decides fine from 5,000 to 20,000 kunas or up to 90 days arrest operates since 2015, no disease list
Cyprus crime, no legality threshold 30 grams and 3 plants, but these are trafficking presumptions up to eight years, up to two for first offense by young offender operates, has own Pharmaceutical Cannabis Office
Montenegro misdemeanor under law, not criminal code none, possession as such is prohibited fine from 100 to 2000 euros general rule for medicines, quantity set by doctor
Czechia legal over 21, within thresholds 100 g at home, 25 g outside, 3 plants misdemeanor above threshold, crime from § 285 operates and reimbursed, up to 180 g monthly
Denmark prohibited, fine for personal use per tariff 10 g hashish, 50 g marijuana, 100 g plants tariff from 2000 kroner, increasing on repeat permanent since January 1, 2026
Estonia misdemeanor for small amount no number in read regulations fine up to 300 units or arrest no national path established
Finland punishable, separate use provision none, law mentions small amount fine or up to six months for small amount one registered medicine and special permits
France use itself is punishable none, provision penalizes use one year and 3,750 euros, practically flat fine moving from experiment to permanent framework
Greece punishable, separate milder provision for user none, law mentions amount justified for personal use up to five months, with possibility to waive penalty operates, built around domestic production
Spain administrative offense, public place decides none, public character of place is key fine from 601 to 30,000 euros started October 2025, narrow
Netherlands illegal but tolerated 5 grams and 5 plants usually seizure without prosecution for 5 plants operates since 2003, state-run
Indonesia crime, cannabis in schedule I 5 grams dried herb leads to life sentence risk 4 to 12 years and fine explicitly excluded by law
Ireland crime, separate path for personal use none, court decides purpose fine, prison only after third offense three parallel paths, three indications
Japan crime, use itself punishable none, weight not in regulation up to seven years imprisonment via ordinary prescription mechanism
Canada legal from 18, public place provision 30 grams equivalent, with conversion table ticket for small amounts, up to five years above limit operates in parallel, with higher limits
Liechtenstein misdemeanor for personal use none for possession, 1 percent material threshold fine up to 50,000 francs authorized doctors and permits
Lithuania criminal misdemeanor for small amount none in code, numbers in implementing act no prison for small amount no national path established
Luxembourg legal at home, from own cultivation 3 grams outside home, 4 plants at home fine from 25 to 500 euros up to 3 grams operates, for any authorized doctor
Malta up to 7 grams without offense, over 18 years 7 grams on person, three different numbers for three situations from 50 to 100 euros above 7 to 28 grams operates, any registered doctor can prescribe
Morocco punishable, legalization only for concessions 1 percent, as threshold for licensing regimes amounts not established, in 1974 act built from supply side, no patient path
Germany legal from 18, within statutory limits 25 g outside home, 50 g at home, 3 plants two levels with buffer, up to three years operates, own law since 2024
Norway illegal and punishable, reform rejected undetermined, law sources closed penalty ticket, for addicts dismissal of charges narrow, only by doctor prescription
Poland crime, no quantity threshold none, law does not specify any gram up to 3 years, milder for smaller amounts operates, based on pharmacy prescription
Portugal administrative offense, not a crime stock for 10 days average use administrative responsibility instead of criminal operates, own law since 2018
Romania crime, small amount does not protect none, substance category decides from three months to two years or fine no national path established
Serbia crime, court may waive penalty none, code uses evaluative terms fine or up to three years for smaller amount no national path established
Singapore prohibited, cannabis in class A no legality thresholds, aggravation thresholds 330 and 500 grams up to ten years, above thresholds corporal punishment no dried herb program, only registered medicines
Switzerland illegal, consumption punished by ticket 10 grams and 1 percent material threshold orderly fine for consumption alone operates, since 2022 without permit
Sweden punishable, including use itself none, law deliberately omits fine or up to six months for minor act no separate, general pharmacy license exists
Slovakia crime, cannabis has own provision 2 grams, above decides 200 mg active substance up to one year for insignificant amount none, cannabis in schedule I
Slovenia misdemeanor, not a crime none, smaller amount for one-time personal use fine or up to five days arrest national path not checked
Thailand only medical use, by prescription stock for thirty days penalty amounts not established only legal path, three conditions simultaneously
Turkey crime, with five-year deferral of prosecution none, qualification depends on purpose two to five years, practically probation patient path not established
USA federally prohibited, schedule I none, regulation does not refer to quantity table up to one year and fine at least 1000 dollars only FDA-approved medicines moved to schedule III
Uruguay excluded from liability by separate construction 40 grams, but two different forties exist milder range for psychoactive cannabis separated from recreational market by prescription
United Kingdom prohibited in any amount none, law contains no threshold three months or fine up to 2500 pounds operates since 2018, family doctors cannot prescribe
Hungary crime, strictly basic type 6 grams THC or 5 plants up to two years for insignificant amount no separate path, via individual demand
Italy administrative offense for personal use 500 mg active substance, not dried herb weight license suspension, no imprisonment operates since 2006, based on prescription
United Arab Emirates prohibited, zero tolerance policy does not exist amounts not established, sources closed narrow and hospital-only
Latvia crime only after warning none in code, numbers set outside up to three years without intent to sell national program not confirmed

Why do some countries not have a number in the limit column?

The threshold column indicates absence in several countries and each time means the same: the regulation of that country does not contain any number. This is not a gap in our study but a construction of local law, stemming from three different reasons.

France and Spain are the best examples here. The French provision penalizes use itself, and the Spanish links responsibility to the public character of the place. In both cases, weight is not an element of the act, so there is nothing to record in the law.

The second group are countries using evaluative terms. Finland mentions a small amount, Serbia a smaller amount for personal use, and Bulgaria a case of smaller weight, and none quantifies these phrases in the text.

The third group has a number, but outside the code. Lithuania and Latvia refer to implementing acts we did not read, so we provide the legal effect of each category but do not guess its boundary.

The conclusion for the reader is inconvenient but honest. The weight attributed to France, Spain, or Serbia always comes from outside the provision, as the provision itself does not contain it.

What does this table not include?

The table has 44 rows, and the cluster ultimately covers 51 countries, so seven countries are missing and it is worth saying directly which. The reason for each absence was measured, not taken on faith, and we list it below instead of pretending completeness.

The division into two types is practical. For four countries, the publisher decided because the official service closed itself to automation or set a verification wall; we do not circumvent that. For three, the network or file format failed, so the attempt can be repeated.

Besides, the overview has two scope limitations to state clearly. The row about the United States describes only federal law, and the row about Australia only the Capital Territory, i.e., Canberra district.

In both countries, state or territorial law is separate and very different. Based on this table, it is impossible to answer what is allowed in a specific state or in Sydney.

All numbers describe the state checked in September 2026. Cannabis law changes faster in this overview than in other fields, so when planning travel it is worth checking the date for a specific country.

Crossing the border is governed by different questions than the status in the destination country. What changes at the moment of crossing and who decides at subsequent stages is described in the text about what tourists are allowed when crossing borders.

  • Albania (policy): drejtesia.gov.al, the Ministry of Justice hosting Kodi Penal, returns the Incapsula verification page instead of the file, and qbz.gov.al, the Official Publications Center, returns only the JavaScript shell without content. Bot verification is prohibited.
  • Egypt (technical): Rechecked 2026-09-05: moh.gov.eg still does not resolve, cabinet.gov.eg cuts transfer. sis.gov.eg works, but the State Information Service publishes press releases, not the text of Act 182 of 1960, so mandatory fields cannot be completed.
  • Iceland (policy): Both official Icelandic law sources have a separate “User-agent: ClaudeBot” group ending with “Disallow: /” in robots.txt: althingi.is (parliament) and stjornarradid.is (government). This is a clear publisher decision, so we did not try to circumvent it.
  • Israel (policy): gov.il returns a Cloudflare challenge (“Just a moment…”) also under /robots.txt. The only official study, a Knesset Research Center note on medical marijuana from May 12, 2020, is too old to describe the 2026 legal status.
  • Mexico (technical): Rechecked 2026-09-05: dof.gob.mx, diputados.gob.mx, and sil.gobernacion.gob.mx still do not respond within time limit, senado.gob.mx returns 403, and the only file downloaded from gob.mx is a scan without text layer: twelve pages yielded eleven characters after extraction. OCR or another network is needed.
  • Tunisia (technical): Rechecked 2026-09-05: iort.gov.tn responds over HTTP and redirects to WinDev app of official state printing house, but it requires a session and does not return Act 92-52 text at a stable address; legislation.tn returns 503, and santetunisie.rns.tn does not resolve in DNS.
  • Ukraine (policy): zakon.rada.gov.ua has a “User-agent: *” group with “Disallow: /”. Exceptions were given only to Googlebot and a few other search engines. No other official collection of Ukrainian laws was found.

Why does the marijuana legality map change in both directions?

Because the direction of changes is not uniform. Between 2013 and 2024, five countries allowed recreational use at the national level: Uruguay, Canada, Malta, Luxembourg, and Germany. In the same period, Thailand reversed course, and the US federal reclassification procedure did not conclude as announced. Liberalization is thus a trend, not a law of nature.

The pace of changes matters directly to the reader. A text describing the state two years ago is not “slightly outdated” but can be false regarding the penalty a traveler risks. For this reason, each item on the list below has the date on which its legal basis was checked, not just the year the regulation was introduced.

The second feature of this map is even less intuitive. Legality is not a single quantity: a state may allow home cultivation but not sales, or allow sales only in pharmacies after registration. Comparing such models with one word “legal” loses all information that really decides what is allowed on site.

This is best seen at two extremes from the same list. Uruguay gave control over the entire chain to the state and conditioned purchase on registration. Germany went exactly the opposite way: it created no sales channel but allowed home and association cultivation. Neither system can be described with one label, even though both appear in the same column in every overview.

How does the Uruguayan state model work?

Opposite to all later ones. Act 19.172 of December 20, 2013, gave the state control over import, export, cultivation, production, storage, trade, and distribution of cannabis and derivatives. Uruguay did not liberalize the market but took it over, entrusting supervision to a specialized office, the Institute for Regulation and Control of Cannabis, IRCCA.

Access is threefold and always requires registration. Purchase at an IRCCA-licensed pharmacy cannot exceed 40 grams monthly per person. The second path is home cultivation after notification, the third is a membership club with at least fifteen and at most forty-five members and up to 99 plants, with annual harvest proportional to members.

This model has two features without European equivalents. Registration is a condition, not a facilitation: without registration, no legal purchase at all, even for citizens. The second consequence is exclusion of tourists, as the register covers only residents. Uruguayan legalization is thus the oldest and most restrictive at once, often lost in overviews where it simply appears first.

What exactly did the 2024 German law change?

The Act on handling consumer cannabis, abbreviated KCanG, has been in force since April 1, 2024. Paragraph 3 allows an adult to possess up to 25 grams of dried herb outside residence and up to 50 grams total dry mass. Paragraph 9 permits cultivation of up to three plants simultaneously for personal use.

The second pillar is cultivation associations, Anbauvereinigungen in German. Paragraph 16 section 2 limits them to 500 members and prohibits belonging to more than one such association simultaneously. Provisions on associations started not in April but July 1, 2024, causing misunderstandings in the first months.

What the law does not have is equally important. There is no retail sale in stores: the German model relies on home cultivation and associations, not a commercial market. For a person coming from Poland, this means no legal purchase point there, and import to Poland remains a crime regardless of German status. Details of the German model are described in the text about how marijuana legalization looks in Germany.

What is the Dutch tolerance model?

It means the ban applies, but prosecution is excluded under narrowly defined conditions. The Dutch government states that a coffee shop cannot sell more than 5 grams to one person in one transaction, and tolerated possession for personal use includes up to 5 grams and up to five plants (Government of the Netherlands).

This model had from the start a loophole called the backdoor problem by the Dutch themselves: sales in the shop were tolerated, but wholesale supply remained illegal. The answer is an experiment with a closed supply chain, where designated coffee shops receive cannabis from legal production.

It is worth knowing the schedule of this experiment, as it is sometimes described prematurely in the past tense. The startup phase began December 15, 2023, in Tilburg and Breda, and the main phase only April 7, 2025, covering ten municipalities. Only from that date do shops in participating municipalities sell exclusively product from the regulated chain. Outside these municipalities, the old tolerance model applies, without legal supply.

What is happening with marijuana classification in the USA?

The matter is ongoing and in 2026 took a step back. The Department of Justice published on May 21, 2024, a draft regulation moving marijuana from schedule I to schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. A hearing notice was announced August 29, 2024, but the process stalled.

A breakthrough occurred outside this procedure. After the December 18, 2025, executive order on research on medical marijuana and cannabidiol, the DOJ and DEA issued an act placing two narrow categories on schedule III: FDA-approved marijuana products and state-licensed medical products. Marijuana itself remained on schedule I.

Simultaneously, on April 28, 2026, the August 2024 hearing notice was withdrawn and that proceeding ended, opening an accelerated procedure with a hearing from June 29, 2026. Documents are available in the Federal Register. We deliberately do not provide the number of states with legal recreational sales: numbers circulating in texts differ and could not be confirmed in federal sources.

Where are the harshest penalties for marijuana?

The harshest confirmed legal order is Singapore. Its Central Narcotics Bureau states cannabis is a class A substance, and import or trafficking over 500 grams is punishable by death. Below that threshold, prison sentences combined with caning apply (Central Narcotics Bureau).

The second notable case is Thailand, showing liberalization can be reversible. After removing cannabis from the drug list in 2022 and several years of free sales, the Thai Ministry of Public Health issued on June 26, 2025, a notice on controlled herbs conditioning purchase of flower on a medical prescription. This act could not be read in the Thai official journal, so treat this entry as less certain and verify before travel.

The table shows something the number alone does not. Thresholds do not mitigate responsibility but shift it upward, and at the highest threshold the law provides a penalty not found anywhere else in this overview.

It is worth comparing this with the rest of the country table. In Europe, the upper limit is often counted in years, while here the weight range alone decides whether the case is about imprisonment or life.

Amount of cannabis Sanction in Singapore
below 330 g from 5 years imprisonment and 5 cane strokes, up to 20 years and 15 strokes
from 330 g to 500 g from 20 years imprisonment and 15 strokes, up to life and 15 strokes
above 500 g death penalty for import or trafficking

What is the legal status of marijuana in Poland in 2026?

Recreational marijuana remains illegal. Possession of narcotics or psychotropic substances contrary to the Act is a crime under Article 62 of the Act of July 29, 2005, on counteracting drug addiction (consolidated text Dz.U. 2023 item 1939), punishable by imprisonment up to 3 years. Paragraph 2 of this article provides for imprisonment from one to 10 years if a significant amount is involved.

Paragraph 3 concerns a smaller amount and provides for a fine, restriction of liberty, or imprisonment up to one year. Separate Article 62a allows discontinuation of proceedings for an insignificant amount for personal use if punishment would be pointless. Discontinuation is discretionary: the prosecutor may use it but does not have to, and meeting conditions does not block prosecution.

Medical marijuana is a separate path. The Act of July 7, 2017 (Dz.U. 2017 item 1458) allowed cannabis other than fiber hemp and extracts as pharmaceutical raw material for compounding medicines, after obtaining permission from the President of the Office for Registration of Medicinal Products. Dispensing requires a prescription. We do not provide the number of issued prescriptions as it could not be confirmed in official sources. The amendment effective August 27, 2026, does not change this.

Which hemp products are legal in Poland?

Those that fit the statutory definition of fiber hemp. Article 4 point 5 of the Act on counteracting drug addiction, as amended by the Act of March 24, 2022 (Dz.U. 2022 item 763), effective May 7, 2022, requires that the sum of delta-9-THC and tetrahydrocannabinolic acid in flower tops or fruiting parts does not exceed 0.3% dry mass, rounded to one decimal place.

Two things are regularly misrepresented in this definition. First, the threshold concerns the sum of delta-9-THC and THCA, not delta-9-THC alone, which changes the lab test result. Second, the national threshold does not come from EU law. It is a separate regulation with the same numeric value as the threshold in Regulation (EU) 2021/2115, applied since January 1, 2023. The earlier EU threshold, set by Regulation 1307/2013, was 0.2% and ceased at the end of 2022.

The classification of substances completes the picture. Cannabidiol is not listed in any controlled substance schedules. HHC is a controlled substance in Poland. For food from hemp seeds, separate limits apply expressed in milligrams per kilogram: 3.0 mg/kg for seeds and processed products, and 7.5 mg/kg for hemp seed oil, based on Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915. Legal fiber hemp products, including oils, can be found in the hemp oils category.

Legal hemp dried herb, which these regulations do not cover, is collected in the dried herb category. Rules for travelers within the EU are explained separately in the text about what tourists are allowed.

What to remember when traveling with hemp?

That legality at the starting point and destination does not add up to legality of transport. Crossing the border with hemp is a separate act, assessed under customs and drug laws of both states. Herb legally bought in a country that allows it becomes illegal import upon entry to Poland.

This rule has no exception for prescriptions. A Polish prescription does not cover a product issued in a foreign pharmacy, and a foreign one does not work in a Polish pharmacy. A patient needing medicine while traveling must arrange the procedure in advance, as some countries require separate permits and some do not allow personal import at all.

The practical conclusion is simple and unattractive. Before departure, check the legal status in the official source of the destination country, not in a travel guide or this article, as no text keeps up with changes months in advance. Procedures for patients are described in a separate guide on traveling with medical marijuana.

It is also worth remembering the direction rarely considered. The risk concerns not only entry to a strict country but also return from a liberal country: Polish border control assesses the act under Polish law, and the status in the purchase country is not a circumstance excluding liability. Local regulations inside states allowing use also apply: bans on smoking in public places, hotels, or port and airport zones are enforced separately, regardless that possession itself is legal there.

Frequently Asked Questions

In how many countries is marijuana legal?

In this overview, possession by an adult is excluded from prohibition in Czechia, Germany, Canada, and Malta, and in Luxembourg and Uruguay under narrower conditions. The Netherlands tolerates something different than legalizing.

What is the difference between legalization and decriminalization?

Legalization means the act ceases to be prohibited. Decriminalization means it ceases to be a crime and becomes a misdemeanor or administrative offense. The substance is still subject to seizure, and the sanction still exists.

Why do some countries not have a threshold in grams?

Because the regulation of that country does not contain it. France penalizes use itself, Spain links responsibility to public place, and Finland and Serbia use evaluative terms not quantified.

Does the threshold in the table always mean the legality limit?

No. In Cyprus, 30 grams triggers a presumption of trafficking, and Austrian Grenzmenge only divides regulations. The threshold column gives the legality limit where it exists, as noted in the description.

Why are there 44 countries in the table, not 51?

Seven countries could not be closed. For four, the official service closed itself to automation or set a verification wall, and for three the network or file format failed. Reasons are listed below the table.

Does the USA row describe state law?

No. It describes only federal law, where marijuana is schedule I. State law is separate and very different, and this overview does not cover it. Similarly, the Australia row concerns only the Capital Territory.

Sources

Act or document Address Checked Level of evidence
Government of the Netherlands government.nl 2026-09-05 official stance
Federal Register federalregister.gov 2026-09-05 legal text
Central Narcotics Bureau cnb.gov.sg 2026-09-05 official stance
Dz.U. 2023 poz. 1939 api.sejm.gov.pl 2026-09-05 legal text

The article is informational and educational and does not constitute legal advice. The legal status described applies on the publication date: cannabis regulations may change. Consult a lawyer or current legal acts before making decisions.

Author: Michał Waluk

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