DEA schedules and controlled-substance rules for the PTCE

The five schedules, the refill and transfer rules, the four DEA forms — and the handful that candidates reliably mix up

Federal Requirements is 18.75% of the PTCE and it is almost all recall, which makes it the cheapest domain to lock down. Everything below is federal law. Your state may be stricter, and where the two differ, the stricter rule governs — that is the single most-tested idea in this section.

The five schedules

Schedule	Abuse potential	Accepted medical use	Examples
C-I	Highest	None in the US	Heroin, LSD, MDMA, peyote, marijuana (federally)
C-II	High; severe dependence	Yes	Morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone/APAP, fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone, methylphenidate, amphetamine/dextroamphetamine, lisdexamfetamine, meperidine
C-III	Moderate	Yes	Buprenorphine/naloxone, ketamine, testosterone, acetaminophen with codeine, anabolic steroids
C-IV	Low	Yes	Alprazolam, lorazepam, diazepam, clonazepam, temazepam, tramadol, zolpidem, phenobarbital, phentermine, modafinil, carisoprodol
C-V	Lowest	Yes	Pregabalin, diphenoxylate/atropine, codeine-containing cough preparations

C-I is never dispensed in a retail pharmacy. Manufacturer packaging carries the “C” symbol with the Roman numeral. Every scheduled drug on the Top 200 list is here, sorted by schedule.

Refills — and the one nearly everybody states wrongly

Schedule	Refills
C-II	Zero. Every fill needs a new prescription.
C-III / C-IV	Up to 5 refills within 6 months of the issue date — whichever limit is reached first.
C-V	No federal limit. Refilled as the prescriber authorises; state law may restrict it.

The shorthand “C-III to C-V: five refills in six months” is repeated in a great deal of study material and it is wrong at the C-V end. Read the schedule in the question before you reach for the rule.

Transfers

Schedule	Transfer
C-II	No transfer in general. Narrow exception: an electronic C-II prescription may be transferred once, for the initial filling, at the patient’s request, where state law permits.
C-III / C-IV / C-V	One-time transfer in general, if state law permits — but unlimited (up to the refills remaining) when both pharmacies share a real-time online database.

How a C-II prescription may arrive

Method	Permitted?
Written, signed in ink, or a DEA-compliant electronic prescription	Yes
Oral / phoned in	Emergency only — quantity limited to the emergency period (commonly taught as about 72 hours), and the pharmacist must receive the signed written prescription within 7 days.
Faxed	Only for long-term care, hospice, or compounded home-infusion/IV pain therapy patients.

A partial fill of a C-II is permitted at the request of the patient or the prescriber, with the remainder supplied within 30 days.

The four DEA forms

Form 222: Ordering Schedule I and II — now mostly electronic through CSOS.
Form 224: The pharmacy’s own DEA registration application. 224a is the renewal.
Form 106: Theft or significant loss. Written notice to the DEA field office within one business day of discovery, then the completed form filed electronically within 45 days — paper Form 106 has not been accepted since 24 July 2023.
Form 41: Destruction. Retained by the pharmacy; not routinely submitted to the DEA.

106 versus 41 is the mix-up, in both directions. 106 is when it went missing; 41 is when you disposed of it on purpose. A break-in is a 106.

Inventory and records

An initial inventory when the pharmacy registers, then biennially — every two years. Biannual means twice a year, and swapping the two words is a standing exam distractor.
Schedule II must be an exact count. Schedules III–V may be estimated, unless an opened container holds more than 1,000 dosage units, in which case that container is counted exactly.
Federal record retention is two years, readily retrievable for DEA inspection. State law may require longer.

Pseudoephedrine (CMEA)

3.6 g per day per purchaser — the same for retail and mail order.
9 g per 30 days retail; 7.5 g per 30 days mail order.
Photo ID required, and the logbook is kept two years.

If a question hands you a purchase history, it is testing whether you noticed which limit the numbers are aimed at.

Free Top 200 drugs sheet. Brand, generic, class, all the controlled-substance schedules on one page, and the look-alike pairs — built by a pharmacist who precepts technicians. No signup gate on the content itself. Get the free sheet.