Severe financial distress since late 2023 has led several national drugstore chains to close store locations and, in some cases, file for bankruptcy protection.

America’s largest drugstore chains have closed 100s of store locations to restructure their businesses and reduce labor costs, eliminate above-market leases, stop leakage from theft, and shut down underperforming stores.

Defunct pharmacy chain Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 protection for a second time on May 5, 2025, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey and began closing all of its stores, which it estimated at the time to be about 1,240 locations, according to court filings.

Rite Aid goes out of business

By the end of September 2025, Rite Aid had gone out of business and closed all of its locations nationwide.

The nation’s largest pharmacy chain, CVS, in 2021 launched an out-of-court restructuring to close 900 of its nearly 9,900 stores to reduce costs and losses, cutting 300 locations each year in 2022, 2023, and 2024, TheStreet reported.

The company expanded its closures the following year, revealing in its annual report in February 2025 that it would close 271 additional stores that year.

CVS said it would close a San Francisco store but changed its mind and will keep it open.

CVS planned to close San Francisco store

CVS Health announced in a statement that it would close its location at 701 Van Ness in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 2026, SFGate reported on Jan. 15.

The company said that it considers “market dynamics, population shifts, and a community’s store density” in its decisions to close store locations.

The pharmacy had designated a CVS store at 1059 Hyde Street, a mile away from the Van Ness store, for a transfer of its patient prescriptions. It also arranged for employees to transfer to comparable roles within the company.

Pharmacy chain cancels store closing

San Francisco residents were spared another drugstore loss as CVS re-evaluated its upcoming store closure plans and reversed its decision to close the 701 Van Ness store, the company said in a Jan. 21 email to SFGate.

“We apologize for any confusion this change in direction may have caused,” a CVS spokesperson said in an email.

A closure would have left San Francisco with eight CVS stores.

The loss of another CVS store would have contributed to a shortage of drugstores in San Francisco.

Walgreens closed dozens of San Francisco stores

Walgreens launched an out-of-court restructuring and evaluated 2,000 of about 8,600 stores for potential closure.

The drugstore chain identified 1,200 locations to shutter over three years, with 500 set to close in fiscal year 2025.

Walgreens currently has about 29 stores in San Francisco, after earmarking 29 other locations in the city for closure since 2019. The chain closed about 17 stores from 2019 to January 2025 before adding 12 more locations to the list that month, KPIX-TV reported.

More closings:

  • Casual Mexican restaurant chain closes more locations
  • 79-year-old national trucking company closes down, no bankruptcy
  • 65-year-old Home Depot rival shutters business permanently

CVS had over 9,000 retail pharmacy locations, more than 1,000 walk-in and primary care medical clinics, and a pharmacy benefits manager with about 87 million plan members as of September 30, 2025, according to its website.

CVS Pharmacy was founded in 1963 in Lowell, Mass., as Consumer Value Stores, selling health and beauty products, according to its website. A year later, the pharmacy changed its name to CVS.

Pharmacy chain store closings:

  • Rite Aid, about 2,088, 2023-2025.
  • CVS, about 1,171, 2021-2025.
  • Walgreens, about 1,200, 2025-2027. 

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