How to become a pharmacist
You need a PharmD and a state license. From high school that's about 6 years: 2 years of prerequisite college courses, then 4 years of pharmacy school.
What a pharmacist does
A pharmacist dispenses prescription medication and checks it against the patient's other drugs and conditions. The job also covers vaccinations, insurance billing, and supervision of the technicians and interns on shift (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook).
Pharmacist and pharmacy technician are separate jobs with separate paths. A pharmacist holds a doctorate and a state license and signs off on the final check of every prescription. A technician works under that license, and most states ask for a state technician registration, often with the voluntary CPhT credential on top. Pharmacists held about 335,100 US jobs in 2024. Pharmacies and drug retailers employed 37% of them and hospitals 30% (BLS, 2024 data).
How long it takes to become a pharmacist
About 6 years after high school on the common route: 2 years of prerequisite college courses, then a 4-year Doctor of Pharmacy. An accelerated PharmD cuts that to 5, and finishing a bachelor's degree first pushes it to 8. A residency after graduation adds 1 to 2 years on top of any of those.
| Prerequisite college courses | 2 years is the usual minimum. BLS says PharmD programs typically want at least 2 years of undergraduate coursework, and some want the whole bachelor's degree. |
|---|---|
| PharmD, standard | 4 years. The University of Iowa calls its program a 4-year professional PharmD (2026). |
| PharmD, accelerated | 3 years, taught year-round. Pacific University in Oregon runs a 160-credit curriculum with a 2-week summer break (2026). |
| Direct entry from high school | 6 years total. Duquesne University admits high school graduates into 2 pre-professional years plus 4 professional years, 212 credit hours (2026). |
| Licensing after graduation | 2 exams in most states, plus an application. |
| Residency, if you want one | 1 to 2 years. BLS lists it as optional and typical for clinical or other advanced positions. |
| Total from high school | 6 years on the common route, 5 with an accelerated program, 8 with a bachelor's degree first. |
The degree you need
You need a Doctor of Pharmacy from a program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. ACPE accreditation is what makes you eligible for the national licensing exam, so check it at acpe-accredit.org before you pay a deposit.
Schools disagree about what they want before the doctorate. AACP sorts programs by how much pre-pharmacy study they require: none at all for direct entry from high school, 2, 3 or 4 years, a finished bachelor's degree, or an early assurance track that holds a pharmacy seat for you while you do the undergraduate years. Four programs, all checked in 2026:
- University of Iowa says it doesn't require a bachelor's degree for its 4-year professional PharmD, only the 2 years of prerequisite coursework.
- Ohio State requires a completed bachelor's degree in any subject before you matriculate, plus prerequisite courses including precalculus, statistics, biochemistry and 2 semesters of organic chemistry.
- Roseman University runs a 3-year PharmD and asks for a minimum of 52 semester credit hours of prerequisites.
- Duquesne University takes you straight from high school into 6 years, 212 credit hours in total.
The admission test is gone. Pearson retired the Pharmacy College Admission Test on January 10, 2024 and stopped issuing score reports that December, and Roseman's admission page now states plainly that the PCAT isn't required.
Applications run through PharmCAS on a yearly cycle, and the calendar starts early. PharmCAS opened the autumn 2027 cycle on July 9, 2026, and Ohio State set a priority deadline of November 1, 2026 with a final deadline of March 1, 2027. Miss the cycle and you wait a year.
Getting licensed
Every state licenses pharmacists, and a license typically takes 2 exams plus a state-set number of intern hours (BLS). One exam covers practice and is the same everywhere. The second covers pharmacy law. Which version you sit depends on your state, and 6 jurisdictions skip it entirely.
| NAPLEX | The practice exam, 6 hours and 225 questions, 200 of them scored. Taken by graduates of ACPE-accredited schools, and by foreign-trained pharmacists holding FPGEC certification. Eligibility application $100 plus $520 to purchase the exam. In 15 jurisdictions NABP confirms eligibility on behalf of the board, and there an extra $85 processing fee applies at application; it covers the NAPLEX and the MPJE for the same jurisdiction for a year (NABP, March 2026). |
|---|---|
| MPJE | The law exam, written separately for each state, 2.5 hours and 120 questions. $100 plus $170 per jurisdiction, with a 5-attempt maximum (NABP, March 2026). |
| UMPJE | A uniform law exam NABP built for boards that adopt it. Testing started on April 1, 2026 in the early adopter states (Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island) and opened to the general adoption group on June 1, 2026. $100 plus $350. |
| State-run law exams | Arkansas, California, Nevada and Puerto Rico run their own instead of the MPJE. California's is the CPJE, which covers practice standards as well as state law. The board application is $260 (California Board of Pharmacy, revised January 2026). |
| Intern hours | Set by your state board. California wants 1,500 hours across community and institutional pharmacy, and graduates of an ACPE-accredited or board-recognised school after January 1, 2016 are deemed to have met that through the degree itself. |
Step by step: how to become a pharmacist
- Finish high school. If the 6-year route appeals to you, apply to direct-entry programs now, because they fill their seats from high school.
- Take the prerequisite college courses. General and organic chemistry with labs, biology, microbiology, human physiology, statistics and precalculus are a fair sample of what schools ask for.
- Decide whether you need the bachelor's degree. Iowa doesn't ask for one, Ohio State does, and that decision is worth 2 years.
- Apply through PharmCAS a full cycle ahead of when you want to start.
- Finish the PharmD, 4 years at most schools or 3 year-round at an accelerated one.
- Get an intern license and work the hours while you study. Retail chains and hospitals both post those jobs, and we list them on our pharmacy intern page.
- Pass the NAPLEX, then the law exam for the state you want to work in.
- Apply to the board for your license, then start applying to jobs. Add a residency if you want hospital clinical work.
What pharmacists earn
The median wage for pharmacists was $137,480 a year, or $66.10 an hour, in May 2024 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). That's the midpoint across every experience level, so a first job out of school usually pays under it.
Retail postings in our own listings sit near that figure. CVS Health currently advertises staff pharmacist roles at $60 to $76 an hour and pharmacy manager roles at $65 to $85 (MedJobList, July 2026). BLS projects 5% employment growth for the occupation between 2024 and 2034, with about 14,200 openings a year over the decade.
Where the job leads next
There are 2 common next steps: running a pharmacy, or specializing through a residency.
Management is the shorter one, and the pay difference shows up in the postings. CVS pharmacy manager listings run $65 to $85 an hour against $60 to $76 for staff pharmacist roles, and district support pharmacist jobs cover several stores at once (MedJobList, July 2026).
Residency is how you get into hospital clinical practice. A PGY1 year is general training, and a PGY2 year specializes in an area such as ambulatory care, critical care, oncology or infectious diseases. The 2026 ASHP match had 1,282 general PGY1 programs offering 3,621 positions, and 3,330 of those were filled (National Matching Services, Phases I and II combined).
Where pharmacists are hiring now
Right now 2,845 of the active US openings we track are pharmacist roles. Most of that volume is retail. On July 25, 2026 that was 2,865 retail postings against 89 in hospitals.
The postings use several titles for the same license: Staff Pharmacist, Pharmacy Manager, District Support Pharmacist and plain Pharmacist all appear, full-time and part-time. APhA immunization certification was named in 515 of the pharmacist listings on that date. BLS notes that most states require pharmacists to be certified before they can administer vaccinations. You can see the current set on our pharmacist jobs page.
