New data acquired from the Home Office by Prohibition Partners and Business of Cannabis shows that since 2021, the UK has imported the bulk of its medical cannabis from Spain.

For the first time, official Home Office figures have given us a comprehensive breakdown of the amount of medical cannabis the UK is importing, and crucially from what country.

In 2024, the UK’s total medical cannabis flower imports more than doubled, rising from nearly 7 tonnes in 2023 to over 15 tonnes in 2024.

For the year to date, the UK has imported just over 2 tonnes, nearly half of which was sourced from Spain.

Understanding the figures

While the new data presents a clear picture of the medical cannabis supply routes to the UK, it is worth noting that it remains unclear where this cannabis was grown originally, and from which countries these volumes could have been re-exported.

The full data set (which will be available in Prohibition Partners’ upcoming European Cannabis Report) also notes imports from Finland, Switzerland, Belgium and the US, in some cases going as far back as 2018.

Lawrence Purkiss, lead analyst at Prohibition Partners, explained: “These possibly relate to hemp imports, and we excluded them from the data, based on our knowledge of which countries are producing and exporting medical cannabis to the UK.

“Previous indications of UK imports from official sources have included these figures and have therefore overstated imported volumes; in 2023, Home Office minister Chris Philp stated that up until September 19 of that year, 23,890kg of medical cannabis had been imported – a figure which was widely reported.

“However, the data indicates that the majority of that volume came from Finland. Since Finland does not export medical cannabis, we now know that the true figure for medical cannabis imports in that year was significantly lower.”

Country by country

According to the data, which details the amount of dried cannabis flower preparations (considered ‘unlicensed specials’) imported into the UK since 2018, numerous new markets have become significant suppliers in recent years.

Initially, the Netherlands was the main supplier to the UK, representing the only country to import medical cannabis in 2018, and supplying the vast majority of products through 2019 and 2020, seeing the amount rise by high double digits each year.

However, since 2021 this has dropped off a cliff, falling from over 2.6 tonnes in 2020 to just 174kg in 2024. Its key export to the UK is thought to be Bedrocan.

Conversely, imports from Australia, Germany, Portugal and Spain have all skyrocketed since 2021.

Australian imports have risen from 99kg in 2021 to over 2 tonnes in 2024, while Canadian imports have also risen significantly from 59kg to over 2.5 tonnes in the same period.

Notably, Canadian imports spiked last year, jumping from just over 100kg in 2023, making it the sixth-largest exporter that year, to the second-largest in 2024.

German imports, meanwhile, have risen consistently since 2021 when it imported 654kg, rising to 884kg, 1.01 tonnes and 1.95 tonnes in the following three years.

Portugal has seen a similar trajectory, though like Canada it saw an outsized increase in 2024. In 2021 it imported just 32kg, rising to 162kg in 2022 and 384kg in 2023, but jumped to 2.5 tonnes in 2024.

Spain has remained the largest exporter of medical cannabis to the UK since 2021 and has already imported just under a tonne of cannabis to the UK in the first quarter of 2025.

In 2021, 666kg was imported from Spain, before spiking in 2022 to 5.8 tonnes. In 2023 and 2024 Spain imported 3.5 tonnes and 4.3 tonnes respectively.