Is CBD reimbursed by the French social security system?

The French health insurance body is explicit. On its page devoted to the subject, products containing CBD cannot, on pain of criminal penalties, claim therapeutic properties, unless they have been authorised as a medicine. The same page notes that no scientific study genuinely confirms the benefits attributed to these products.

The administrative reasoning follows from that. Reimbursement presupposes inclusion on the list of reimbursable pharmaceutical specialities, which in turn presupposes a marketing authorisation. A wellness product has none: the question of a reimbursement rate therefore never even arises.

Worth noting: the health insurance page contains no sentence explicitly stating that "CBD is not reimbursed". The consequence is deduced from the legal regime; it is not set out as such.

Epidyolex obtained a centralised marketing authorisation on 19 September 2019. Its active substance is indeed cannabidiol, and its authorisation is valid throughout the European Union. Its indications are narrow: adjunctive treatment of seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, Dravet syndrome and tuberous sclerosis complex, from the age of two.

In France, the public medicines database indicates a reimbursement rate of 65%, listing under liste I, and prescription restricted to specialists in neurology and paediatric neurology. It is therefore a specialist medicine, dispensed within a hospital setting, with no relation to a bottle bought in a shop.

A point of vocabulary is needed: this is the only medicine authorised at European level whose active substance is cannabidiol. Sativex, which combines THC and CBD, falls under a different regime.

This is the subject with which confusion is most common. The French trial of cannabis for medical use, launched in March 2021, closed its enrolments at the end of March 2024 and ended on 31 December 2024. During that period, the medicines concerned were covered at 100% by the health insurance system.

According to the ANSM thematic file on cannabis for medical use, updated on 20 April 2026, three draft texts were notified to the European Commission in March 2025, and patients in transition remain covered pending the establishment of the definitive framework, a phase that will end three months after publication of the opinion of the Haute Autorité de santé. Future medicines will be subject to a renewable five-year authorisation, as a last-line treatment and on initial hospital prescription.

In plain terms: this framework does not concern wellness products, and it was not yet fully in force at the date of the agency's most recently published update. We follow this file in our article on medical cannabis in France.

Some complementary health insurers offer what they call wellness or complementary-medicine allowances, whose scope is set contractually. We have found no official source establishing that any insurer specifically reimburses CBD products, and we will therefore name no insurer.

The useful approach is simple: read the general terms of your contract, and ask in writing whether the expense falls within the allowance. A product that is not reimbursable by the health insurance system may fall under an optional allowance, but that depends entirely on the contract, not on any general rule.

Reimbursement is not the only administrative angle to the subject. In March 2025, the ANSM published a warning recalling that these products are not medicines and listing several drug classes concerned by interactions, including anticoagulants, antiepileptics and immunosuppressants, while specifying that the list is not exhaustive. We develop this point in our articles on drug interactions and on CBD and liver enzymes. For the general framework governing the product, see our article on CBD and its French legal framework.

Is CBD oil reimbursed on prescription?

No. A CBD oil sold as a wellness product holds no marketing authorisation as a medicine, which is the precondition for any inclusion on the list of reimbursable pharmaceutical specialities. A prescription does not change that regime: it does not turn a consumer product into a reimbursable pharmaceutical speciality.

Is there a CBD medicine covered in France?

Yes, Epidyolex, whose active substance is cannabidiol, authorised at European level since 19 September 2019. The public medicines database indicates reimbursement at 65%, listing under liste I and prescription restricted to specialists in neurology and paediatric neurology, for indications limited to certain rare epilepsies.

Is medical cannabis reimbursed in France?

During the trial launched in 2021 and closed at the end of 2024, the products were covered at 100% by the health insurance system. The permanent framework was still being put in place at the date of the ANSM's most recently published update, in April 2026, the end of the transitional phase being conditional on an opinion from the Haute Autorité de santé. That scheme is distinct from wellness CBD and does not concern it.