Ecuador

Penalties for possessing, using, or trafficking illegal drugs in Ecuador are severe — offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines, and drivers can be held responsible for drugs passengers carry in their luggage.

1–2 year minimum for cannabis trafficking/consumption; long sentences and heavy fines.

Verified Jul 20, 2026

Cannabis is illegal in Ecuador, there is no legal way to buy it, and a traveller should treat no quantity as officially safe. What changed in 2025 has since been undone: the Ley Orgánica de Solidaridad Nacional, which rewrote the criminal code so that personal consumption could never be presumed and forensic toxicological and psychological exams became compulsory before a possession case was decided, was declared unconstitutional in its entirety, for defects of form, by Ecuador's Constitutional Court - the ruling (Sentencia 51-25-IN/25) was published in the Registro Oficial, Edición Constitucional 96, on 3 October 2025. Those 2025 rules are therefore not the law. Possession is still judged case by case as personal use or as trafficking, and supplying or selling any amount is a crime.

VOID SINCE 3 OCTOBER 2025: Sentencia 51-25-IN/25, published in the Registro Oficial, Edición Constitucional 96, declares unconstitutional "por la forma" the totality of the provisions of the Ley Orgánica de Solidaridad Nacional (Sexto Suplemento del Registro Oficial 56, 10-VI-2025), so that law's amendments to COIP arts. 220 and 228 - no presumption of consumption, compulsory toxicological and psychological exams - are not in force. Standing separately, from the 2024 reform: COIP art. 220(1) as amended by the law in R.O. Suplemento 599 (12-VII-2024) - trafficking in scheduled substances, minimum scale 3 to 5 years, medium 5 to 7, high 19 to 22, large 22 to 26; cannabis scale bands by net weight per Resolución 001-CONSEP-CD-2015 - minimum up to 20 g, medium over 20 to 300 g, high over 300 g to 10 kg, large over 10 kg; selling or delivering to a minor raises the maximum by one third; illicit production 13 to 16 years (art. 219(1)). Those 2024 bands were verified in an earlier LawLert run and were not re-fetched when this dead-law correction was made.

Verified Sep 30, 2026

Confirm your medication is legal with Ecuador's Ministry of Public Health, carry it in original packaging with your prescription, and buy only from reputable pharmacies (counterfeits are common).

Verified Jul 20, 2026

Declare USD 10,000 or more when entering or leaving Ecuador — and on exit, amounts of USD 1,200 or more are subject to a 5% currency-exit tax.

Failure to declare can lead to fines, confiscation, or criminal charges (FCDO).

Verified Jul 20, 2026

Ecuador restricts certain items entering the Galápagos Islands; check the Galápagos Biosecurity Agency (ABG) prohibited-items list before traveling there.

Verified Jul 20, 2026

Ecuador gives you a far smaller tobacco allowance BY LAND than by air, and the gap is wide enough to catch people out. Arriving by air or sea, an adult may bring 20 packs of 20 cigarettes (400 cigarettes), 1 pound of tobacco and 25 cigars. Crossing a LAND border from Colombia or Peru, the personal-effects list allows a maximum of THREE packs of cigarettes and nothing else - no loose tobacco and no cigar allowance are listed at all. Both allowances are 18-plus. Anything over the limit stops being personal baggage and becomes taxable goods, so a carton bought for a flight becomes an over-limit import the moment you take it across a land crossing instead.

Over-limit tobacco is not a fine in the ordinary case - it is reclassified. Goods exceeding the personal-effects quantities become "bienes tributables" (goods accompanying the traveller that exceed the quantity, value or measure of the personal-effects list) and must be declared on the Formulario de Registro Aduanero before customs control. The ladder recorded in SENAE Resolucion 2026-0041-RE art. 35 is graduated by value: below USD 1,000 the traveller pays only the foreign-trade taxes; between USD 1,000 and USD 2,000 there is an additional multa por falta reglamentaria on top of the taxes; and above USD 2,000 the customs authority initiates the legal proceedings for the customs offences of defraudation or contraband under the Codigo Organico Integral Penal. Personal effects may never be resold - commercialising them is treated as customs fraud. Separately, on the smoking side, art. 37 of the 2011 tobacco Act sets the individual smoker's penalty at 25% of one salario basico unificado, a fixed percentage rather than a range; the SBU for 2026 is USD 482.00 under Acuerdo Ministerial MDT-2025-195, which puts the smoker's fine at about USD 120.50, but note that the statute states only the percentage and the conversion is arithmetic. The 2011 Act and the SBU acuerdo were sourced by research this run and not re-read first-hand.

Verified Sep 10, 2026

A valid US license is recognized in Ecuador for up to 90 days; carrying an international driving permit is recommended, and longer stays require a license from the National Transit Agency.

Verified Jul 20, 2026

Drone and satellite-phone use is regulated in Ecuador; research the rules (civil aviation / ARCOTEL) before bringing them into the country.

Verified Jul 20, 2026

There are no legal restrictions on same-sex sexual relations or the organization of events focused on sexual orientation in Ecuador.

Verified Jul 20, 2026