Merch
Medical card
No, weed is not legal in Monaco, and using it is a criminal offence in its own right rather than an administrative one. The complication is geography.
The border with France is open and unmarked, so people cross without thinking about it, but Monaco is a sovereign state with its own criminal law and one of the highest concentrations of police and surveillance anywhere. This guide explains Monaco’s cannabis laws, the penalties, where CBD sits and what the open border actually means.
Is weed legal in Monaco for recreational use?
Recreational weed is illegal in Monaco. The governing statute is Loi n° 890 du 1er juillet 1970 sur les stupéfiants, which has been amended several times but not substantively since 2002. Cannabis and cannabis resin are scheduled as narcotics by Arrêté Ministériel n° 2020-360.
Monaco is not part of France and not in the European Union, which matters more than it might seem. It uses the euro and sits inside the EU customs territory through France, but it legislates for itself. Do not assume that anything true of French cannabis law is true in Monaco, because in the area that matters most, CBD, it is not.
There is no decriminalised amount, no tolerated setting and no reform process underway that could be found.
What are the penalties under Monaco weed laws?
Penalties under Monaco weed laws separate personal use from supply, and both are criminal.
Using narcotics illicitly, or holding them for your own use, carries six months to three years’ imprisonment and a fine, or one of those penalties alone. Note the wording: the use itself is an offence, so a positive test with nothing in your possession is chargeable.
Supply is a different order. Cultivating, holding, offering, selling, buying, transporting or distributing narcotics carries five to ten years and a fine that can be multiplied up to tenfold.
That list includes buying and transporting, which means acquiring cannabis and carrying it can in principle be charged at the supply tier rather than the personal-use one. Production, importation and exportation carry ten to twenty years, and penalties double where minors or the vicinity of schools are involved.
There is a treatment route. A judge may order medical treatment independently of prosecution or conviction, and failing to comply with that order is itself punishable.
Penalties at a glance
| Conduct | Basis | General penalty |
|---|---|---|
| Using narcotics, or holding for personal use | Loi n° 890, art. 5 | 6 months to 3 years and a fine, or one of the two |
| Cultivating, holding, buying, selling, transporting or distributing | Loi n° 890, art. 2 | 5 to 10 years and a fine, multipliable up to tenfold |
| Production, importation or exportation | Loi n° 890 | 10 to 20 years and a substantially larger fine |
| Offences involving minors or near schools | Loi n° 890 | Penalties doubled |
In practice, sentencing at the low end is softer than those ranges suggest. Two reported 2025 cases involving personal quantities ended in a suspended sentence with supervised treatment in one, and a conviction with no penalty imposed in the other. The honest summary is hard prosecution, soft sentencing. You are still convicted, and the products are still confiscated.
Is medical marijuana legal in Monaco?
No Monégasque medical cannabis framework could be identified. There is no enabling law, no pilot scheme, no decree and no bill before the Conseil National.
Monaco does maintain its own list of narcotic-classified medicines, and its pharmacy regime is linked to France’s by a long-standing convention, which is the mechanism by which French-authorised medicines reach Monégasque pharmacies. Whether any specific cannabis-based medicine is available through that route could not be established, so it should not be assumed in either direction.
One reported case illustrates the practical position. A woman with rheumatoid arthritis was prosecuted in 2025 for using cannabis she had bought in France for pain, and the prosecution’s answer was that lawful alternatives were available to her.
Is CBD legal in Monaco?
No Monégasque authority has published a position on CBD. That is the honest answer, and it is worth stating plainly because every other page on this subject asserts a position without one.
What is documented is a court applying the narcotics law to CBD products. In a 2025 prosecution a defendant was charged over CBD products alongside cannabis, the prosecution argued that Monégasque legislation treats CBD as a controlled substance, defence counsel accepted the point while noting it differs elsewhere, and the CBD products were confiscated.
That outcome fits the scheduling. The narcotics schedule lists cannabis and cannabis resin with no low-THC or hemp exemption that could be located. France’s tolerance of CBD below 0.3% THC rests on a specific exemption in French law, and there is no Monégasque equivalent. Without one, CBD flower and resin are simply cannabis.
Monaco did update its schedule in 2024 to add semi-synthetic cannabinoids, including hydrogenated CBD derivatives, alongside other new substances.
Can you smoke weed in Monaco as a tourist?
No, and the open border is the trap rather than the escape. There are no routine controls between France and Monaco, so people cross casually, but the moment you do you are in a different jurisdiction with its own criminal law.
The policing density is the thing to understand. Monaco has in the order of 550 police officers for a resident population under 40,000, and close to 1,400 monitored cameras, with more than 130,000 identity checks recorded in a single year. New border surveillance posts at Beausoleil, the French commune immediately adjacent, were announced for 2026.
Both of the 2025 cases mentioned above involved cannabis or CBD bought in France and brought in, and in one the police traced the buyer by examining a dealer’s phone. A 2025 road safety law also broadened the circumstances in which drivers can be screened for drugs, and preventive checkpoints have been authorised in tranches since.
One practical note: there is no foreign-ministry travel advisory covering Monaco’s drug law. The UK advice says nothing about drugs and the US directs travellers to its France page. That absence is not permission, and France’s rules are not Monaco’s.
The bottom line on cannabis in Monaco
Weed is illegal in Monaco, personal use is a criminal offence carrying up to three years, and buying or transporting can be charged at the far heavier supply tier. There is no medical framework and no published CBD position, though a court has treated CBD products as caught by the narcotics law.
Sentencing at the low end is lenient but conviction is real. Given how easy the border is to cross and how densely Monaco is policed, carrying anything in from France is the specific risk worth avoiding.
Last reviewed: September 28, 2026. Cannabis laws change frequently, always verify current rules with official sources before you travel.
Sign up for bi-weekly updates, packed full of cannabis education, recipes, and tips. Your inbox will love it.
