In most of Europe and in the United States, ayahuasca is illegal because it contains DMT, which is a controlled substance. The plants and the brew are not controlled under the UN drug treaties, so each country decides for itself, and the answer depends on how national law handles a drink that contains a listed substance. Several churches have gone to court over this. They won in the United States and lost in the Netherlands.
All statements below were checked against the sources linked, on 10 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. Laws change, and enforcement differs from what the law says on paper.
At a glance
| Country | Status of a DMT-containing brew | Key source |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | illegal; no exemption for churches | Opium Act List I; Supreme Court 2019 |
| Germany | illegal | BtMG Annex I |
| United Kingdom | illegal (Class A) | Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 |
| France | illegal; the plants themselves are listed | ministerial order of 20 April 2005 |
| United States | illegal (Schedule I), with court-recognised exemptions for two churches | Supreme Court 2006; Oregon 2009 |
| Brazil | religious use regulated and permitted | CONAD resolution 2010 |
| Peru | traditional use recognised as cultural heritage | National Institute of Culture 2008 |
International law
DMT is listed in Schedule I of the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The plants that contain it are not. The International Narcotics Control Board wrote in its 2010 report that no plants are controlled under the 1971 or 1988 Conventions, and that “preparations (e.g. decoctions for oral use) made from plants containing those active ingredients are also not under international control” (INCB Annual Report 2010, §284). This is why national courts have reached different conclusions.
Netherlands
DMT is on List I of the Opium Act, the list of drugs with unacceptable risks. Importing, possessing, preparing or supplying a brew that contains it is a criminal offence. The vine Banisteriopsis caapi on its own does not contain DMT.
For almost two decades, Dutch courts accepted the religious use of ayahuasca by the Santo Daime church. The Amsterdam district court ruled in the church's favour on 21 May 2001, and the Amsterdam Court of Appeal did the same in a comparable case on 24 February 2012. In between, the European Court of Human Rights decided in Fränklin-Beentjes and Ceflu-Luz da Floresta v. the Netherlands (no. 28167/06, 6 May 2014) that a general ban on ayahuasca does not violate freedom of religion.
The turning point came with a member of the church leadership who brought 33,351 grams of ayahuasca from Brazil through Schiphol airport on 14 July 2015, for use in the church's services in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal convicted her on 28 February 2018. On 1 October 2019 the Dutch Supreme Court upheld that ruling. It held that the import ban serves to protect public health and is a restriction on freedom of religion that is necessary in a democratic society under Article 9(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that this can be assessed in general terms without weighing each case separately (Hoge Raad, ECLI:NL:HR:2019:1456; summary in Dutch at bijzonderstrafrecht.nl).
Since then there is no legal route for ayahuasca ceremonies in the Netherlands, also not for churches. Retreats that advertise “legal ceremonies in the Netherlands” are wrong on this point.
Germany
Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is listed in Annex I of the Narcotics Act (Betäubungsmittelgesetz), the category of substances that cannot be traded or prescribed (BtMG Anlage I). Possessing, importing or supplying a brew containing it is a criminal offence.
United Kingdom
DMT is a Class A drug under Schedule 2, Part I, of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which also covers preparations containing it (legislation.gov.uk). Class A is the category with the highest penalties.
France
France went further than most countries. A ministerial order of 20 April 2005 added the plants Banisteriopsis caapi, Psychotria viridis, Diplopterys cabrerana, Peganum harmala, Mimosa hostilis and Banisteriopsis rusbyana, and the alkaloids harmine, harmaline, tetrahydroharmine, harmol and harmalol, to the list of narcotics. In France, the vine itself is therefore illegal. A written question in the National Assembly in 2021 described France as the only country to have listed all plants and substances of the brew (Assemblée nationale, written question no. 39644, published in the Journal officiel on 22 June 2021).
United States
DMT is a Schedule I substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act. In Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal (2006), the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the government had not shown a compelling interest, as required under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, to prohibit the church's sacramental use of the brew it calls hoasca (Cornell LII). In 2009 a federal court in Oregon reached a similar result for a Santo Daime church. These rulings apply to those churches. They do not make ayahuasca legal for anyone else, and retreats on US soil operate outside the law unless covered by such an exemption.
Brazil
Brazil's National Anti-Drugs Council (CONAD) adopted a resolution on the religious use of ayahuasca in January 2010 (INCB Annual Report 2010, §500). Religious use by the Brazilian churches is permitted within that framework.
Peru
In June 2008 Peru's National Institute of Culture declared the knowledge and traditional uses of ayahuasca by native Amazonian communities part of the Cultural Heritage of the Nation (Andina, 2008). Retreats for foreign visitors operate openly. That does not make them supervised: the US Embassy's 2025 warning against using ayahuasca in Peru is described in the retreats chapter.
Travelling with ayahuasca
Bringing a brew back from South America means importing a controlled substance in almost every European country and in the United States. The Dutch case above began with exactly that, at Schiphol, on behalf of a church.
Read on about the ethics of ceremony tourism, or go back to safety.