Canadian drug shortages, tracked live

Check whether any medication is in shortage in Canada, which manufacturers are affected, and when supply is expected back. Built from the reports every manufacturer is legally required to file with Health Canada, aggregated per drug and refreshed through the day.

Drugs in shortage
547
Critical (Tier 3)
14
Updates this week
25

Widespread shortages right now

Drugs where half or more of reported products are affected, or Health Canada has assigned its most serious (Tier 3) designation.

Widespread shortageSitagliptin12 of 24 reported products affected · est. return Jan 7, 2027Widespread shortageD-pantothenic Acid Nicotinamide Vitamin B2 Vitamin B1 Vitamin D3 Vitamin B12 Zinc Magnesium Iodine Copper Ascorbic Acid Vitamin B6 Iron Vitamin E Folic Acid Beta-carotene2 of 2 reported products affected · est. return Dec 31, 2026Widespread shortageChloride Magnesium Chloride Dextrose Chloride Chloride Lactate3 of 5 reported products affected · est. return Aug 31, 2026Widespread shortageButalbital Acetylsalicylic Acid Codeine Caffeine2 of 4 reported products affected · est. return Jul 20, 2026Widespread shortageMethocarbamol Codeine Acetylsalicylic Acid4 of 5 reported products affected · est. return Oct 10, 2022Widespread shortageCaffeine Acetylsalicylic Acid Butalbital2 of 3 reported products affected · est. return Oct 20, 2026Widespread shortageEsomeprazole Naproxen2 of 3 reported products affected · est. return Nov 24, 2026Widespread shortageTimolol Brimonidine3 of 3 reported products affected · est. return Oct 2, 2026

All current shortages → · Critical shortages → · Anticipated →

Latest changes

All recent changes →

If your medication is affected

Don't stop or ration a medication because of a shortage; for many drugs that is more dangerous than the shortage itself. Start at the pharmacy counter: pharmacists can usually substitute an unaffected manufacturer's version, adjust strengths or forms, and in most provinces adapt or renew prescriptions on the spot. If every manufacturer is short, a prescriber can select an alternative treatment. Free health advice is one call away at 811 in every province.

The full playbook: what to do when your medication is in shortage.

Why shortages happen

A few hundred drugs are in shortage in Canada on any given day, mostly from manufacturing disruptions in a heavily consolidated global supply chain, sometimes from demand surges like the ones behind the amoxicillin and Ozempic shortages. Most resolve quietly through pharmacy substitution; the dangerous ones are molecule-wide. That difference, one supplier down versus all of them, is what every rxstat drug page computes. More: why drug shortages happen in Canada and how to read shortage reports.

About this data

Since 2017, manufacturers must report shortages and discontinuations to Health Canada. rxstat syncs that database through the day, groups the per-company filings into one page per drug, and records every change, including estimated end dates that slip. The methodology page has the full rules. rxstat is an independent Canadian project by the maker of erstat.ca, the ER wait time tracker.