The numbers, top-line.
On a typical day, about 18.2 pharmacies are on call across the island. The rotation is dense by design — every shift is one pharmacy per area for the night, so each district carries a small set of slots that turn over throughout the month.
Coverage per district.
Slots are the count of on-call shifts a district fills over the 153-day window. Density is unique pharmacies per 100,000 residents, using Cyprus Statistical Service population estimates.
| District | Pharmacies | On-call slots | Avg slots / day | Per 100k residents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Nicosia Λευκωσία | 186 | 918 | 6.0 | 56.4 |
Limassol Λεμεσός | 159 | 760 | 5.0 | 63.6 |
Larnaca Λάρνακα | 72 | 459 | 3.0 | 49.7 |
Paphos Πάφος | 54 | 337 | 2.2 | 60.0 |
Ammochostos Αμμόχωστος (free area) | 28 | 306 | 2.0 | 56.0 |
District populations: Nicosia ~330k, Limassol ~250k, Larnaca ~145k, Paphos ~90k, Ammochostos free area ~50k. Source: Cyprus Statistical Service (CYSTAT), 2024 estimates.
Where the coverage runs thin.
Density tells the part of the story raw counts hide. Nicosia carries the biggest roster, but Limassol and Paphos see more pharmacies per resident — and Larnaca, the third-largest district, sits at the bottom of that ranking. The tourist districts run a larger rotation than their resident base alone would suggest, which lines up with summer demand.
Holidays in the window.
Three Cyprus public holidays fall inside the May–September window: Labour Day, Kataklysmos (Whit Monday in 2026), and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. On a public holiday the rotation tends to widen by a slot or two relative to a regular weekday, because all pharmacies are otherwise closed.
| Date | Holiday | Nicosia | Limassol | Larnaca | Paphos | Ammochostos | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 May 2026 01/05/26 | Labour Day | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 19 |
1 June 2026 01/06/26 | Kataklysmos / Whit Monday | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 19 |
15 August 2026 15/08/26 | Assumption of the Virgin Mary | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 19 |
The rotation holds steady across all three holidays, with 19 pharmacies on call. Compared with the May–September average of 18.2 slots, a public holiday adds about 0.8 on-call shifts to the day.
Use this data.
The numbers on this page are released into the public domain. Cite freely, include a link back, and you're welcome to email us for a custom data pull or a quote. If you publish, send us the URL so we can list it on the press kit.
How to cite
CyNightMeds, The State of Cyprus Night Pharmacies 2026, CyNightMeds, May 2026. https://cynightmeds.com/state-of-pharmacies-2026
Methodology.
The source is the bundled on-call schedule published by the Cyprus Pharmaceutical Services (Ministry of Health) and redistributed under CC BY 4.0 on data.gov.cy. We ingest the official XLS pack for each district and normalise the rows into a single JSON file shipped with the site.
Unique pharmaciesis the count of distinct pharmacy registration numbers that appear at least once in a district's rotation across the window. A pharmacy that takes three shifts in May and two in August is counted once.
On-call slots is the count of district-day rows in the schedule. A district that runs five concurrent pharmacies on a given day contributes five slots for that date.
Density per 100kdivides unique pharmacies by the district's resident population (CYSTAT 2024 estimate) and scales to 100,000 residents. This understates coverage in the tourist districts during peak season because the resident population denominator does not include visitors.
Holidays are the three public holidays of the Republic of Cyprus that fall inside the window: 1 May (Labour Day), 1 June (Kataklysmos / Whit Monday, movable, dated for 2026), and 15 August (Assumption of the Virgin Mary). Easter falls earlier in the calendar and is not in this window.
Caveats. The rotation is published months in advance and is occasionally amended at short notice; a pharmacy can swap shifts with another. We refresh the bundled schedule when the Ministry issues a new pack. The figures here are accurate as of the cut shown at the top of the page.
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