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Ozempic dosage: what the label actually says
Ozempic starts at 0.25 mg once a week and rises in steps to a top dose of 2 mg. Only 0.5, 1, 2 mg are doses the label says you can stay on.
Source: Read from the Ozempic label, revision 06/2026
Medically reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD · non-practicing medical reviewerReviewed 2026-08-12every number here is sourced
Key facts
- 0.25 mg once a week
- 0.5, 1, 2 mg
- 2 mg once a week
- 3
- Week 13
The Ozempic dosages, step by step
The label does not print a week-by-week table for Ozempic. It gives the first four weeks, then says each move up needs at least four weeks on the dose before it. So the timing column repeats the label’s own wording rather than turning it into week numbers.
| When | Weekly dose | Can you stay here? | What the label notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1 through 4 | 0.25 mg | No — a step only | Starting dosage — the label does not treat it as a blood sugar dose |
| Week 5 onward | 0.5 mg | Yes | The first dosage the label recognizes as one to stay on |
| After at least 4 weeks on 0.5 mg | 1 mg | Yes | Also the kidney disease maintenance dosage |
| After at least 4 weeks on 1 mg | 2 mg | Yes | Maximum recommended dosage, added to the label in 2022 |
Which dose do you end up on?
The label names 0.5 mg, 1 mg and 2 mg as the maintenance dosages, picked on blood sugar control. Where chronic kidney disease is the reason for the prescription, the label names 1 mg.
| Who the label covers | Dose to settle on | Approved |
|---|---|---|
| Adults with type 2 diabetes, alongside diet and exercise, to improve blood sugar control | 0.5 mg, 1 mg or 2 mg once weekly, chosen on blood sugar control | 2017-12-05NDA 209637 |
| Adults who have both type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease, to lower the risk of cardiovascular death, non-fatal heart attack or non-fatal stroke | 0.5 mg, 1 mg or 2 mg once weekly | 2020-01-16NDA 209637/S-003 |
| Adults who have both type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, to lower the risk of sustained eGFR decline, end-stage kidney disease and cardiovascular death | 1 mg once weekly, reached after at least 4 weeks on 0.5 mg | 2025-01-28NDA 209637/S-025 |
2 mg once weekly is the maximum recommended dosage. It was not on the original label: the FDA added it as a third maintenance dose on 2022-03-28.
12Label details
Who does the label cover, and who does it not?
Every approved use is written for adults. The label sets no dose for anyone under 18.
The Ozempic label does not cover weight loss. Every use on it is written for adults who have type 2 diabetes, and no dose above 2 mg exists.
What if a week gets missed?
The label says a missed dose can be given within 5 days. Past 5 days it says to skip that week and go back to the usual day.
The label allows the weekly day to move as long as two doses stay more than 2 days, or 48 hours, apart.
What does it come in?
The device matters for dosing, because some of these hold one dose and some hold four.
| Device | Strengths | Doses inside |
|---|---|---|
| Single-patient-use pen, 2 mg per 3 mL | 0.68 mg/mL, giving 4 doses of 0.25 mg then 2 of 0.5 mg, or 4 doses of 0.5 mg | 4 doses |
| Single-patient-use pen, 4 mg per 3 mL | 1.34 mg/mL, giving 4 doses of 1 mg | 4 doses |
| Single-patient-use pen, 8 mg per 3 mL | 2.68 mg/mL, giving 4 doses of 2 mg | 4 doses |
| Single-dose prefilled syringe | 0.25, 0.5 or 1 mg per 0.5 mL | 1 dose |
Ozempic and Wegovy are the same drug. So why are the doses different?
Wegovy is the same drug substance from the same manufacturer, approved for weight rather than blood sugar, and its label runs to 2.4 mg and then to 7.2 mg.
Both products contain semaglutide, and both come from Novo Nordisk. They were approved under separate applications, NDA 209637 and NDA 215256, for different groups of people. A separate application means a separate schedule, a separate top dose and a separate rule for a missed week.
The practical version: Ozempic stops at 2 mg and Wegovy stops at 7.2 mg. Neither label sets a dose for the other one’s patients.
Both labels print 0.25, 0.5 and 1 mg. Those are the same amounts of semaglutide on either label. What changes is where each one sits. 0.5 and 1 mg are doses you can stay on with Ozempic, and only steps on Wegovy.
How long does it take to reach the 2 mg dose?
Week 13 at the earliest, from the label’s four-week minimum at each of the 3 steps.
Ozempic has 3 steps between the 0.25 mg start and the 2 mg ceiling. The label asks for at least four weeks on a dose before the next one. Four weeks at each step is where week 13 comes from.
The label does not print week numbers for Ozempic. It gives the first four weeks, and then the four-week rule. Week 13 is that rule applied step by step, not a number quoted off the page.
Week 13 is a floor, not a schedule. Nothing in the label says a person has to keep climbing, and a slower rise is a decision for whoever wrote the prescription.
Can you stay on a low dose of Ozempic?
Yes at 0.5 mg, which is the lowest dose this label recognizes as one to stay on.
The label names 0.5, 1 and 2 mg as doses to settle on. 0.5 mg is the lowest of those. Below it the label is describing a climb, not a destination.
0.25 mg is printed on the same ladder and is not on that list. The label treats it as somewhere you pass through.
The label sets doses. It does not rank them, and it does not say a higher one suits a given person better.
How does the Ozempic ladder compare with every other GLP-1 brand?
Ozempic tops out at 2 mg once a week. Eight brands in this class stop in eight different places.
The table below compares the approved GLP-1 brands by their highest labeled dose. It is the only place the eight ladders are set out together.
Milligrams do not carry across molecules. 2 mg of semaglutide is not comparable to 2 mg of anything else. The last column says so on every row where the drug substance differs.
Where two brands do share a drug substance, the comparison is real, because the same molecule is being measured. That is the case for exactly two pairs in the class.
| Brand | Drug | Starts at | Tops out at | Earliest week there | Doses to stay on | Against Ozempic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zepbound | Tirzepatide | 2.5 mg weekly | 15 mg | Week 21 | 5, 10 and 15 mg | Different drug — milligrams do not compare |
| Mounjaro | Tirzepatide | 2.5 mg weekly | 15 mg | Week 21 | None named | Different drug — milligrams do not compare |
| Rybelsus | Semaglutide | 3 mg daily | 14 mg | Week 9 | 7 and 14 mg | Same drug, ceiling higher at 14 mg |
| Wegovy | Semaglutide | 0.25 mg weekly | 7.2 mg | Week 21 | 1.7, 2.4 and 7.2 mg | Same drug, ceiling higher at 7.2 mg |
| Trulicity | Dulaglutide | 0.75 mg weekly | 4.5 mg | Week 13 | None named | Different drug — milligrams do not compare |
| Saxenda | Liraglutide | 0.6 mg daily | 3 mg | Week 17 | 2.4 and 3 mg | Different drug — milligrams do not compare |
| Ozempic | Semaglutide | 0.25 mg weekly | 2 mg | Week 13 | 0.5, 1 and 2 mg | This page |
| Victoza | Liraglutide | 0.6 mg daily | 1.8 mg | Week 9 | 1.2 and 1.8 mg | Different drug — milligrams do not compare |
Do the side effects change as the dose goes up?
The label does not publish side effects broken out by dose for Ozempic. It reports them across a whole trial.
This is the question the trial tables cannot answer. A label counts how many people reported something over a study, not which dose they were on that week.
The escalation itself is the closest thing to an answer the label gives. It exists because moving up slowly is how the trials were run. The four-week interval is part of the approved schedule, not advice added later.
Where a figure does exist it sits on the side-effect page for this brand. It is taken from the label’s own trial table, with the arm it belongs to.
What is the most important information I should know about Ozempic?
The label’s boxed warning covers thyroid tumors in rodents
Ozempic carries the same boxed warning as every product in this family. Rats and mice given semaglutide grew thyroid C-cell tumors, and nobody knows whether people do. The label says the drug is not for anyone whose family has had medullary thyroid cancer, or who has the inherited condition MEN 2.
A boxed warning is the strongest warning the FDA applies. It appears at the top of the label, before the dosing section summarized here.
It does not change with the dose. Nothing on the ladder above makes it apply more or less.
Do not use Ozempic if:
The label’s boxed warning names the histories it says rule the drug out, and they are not dose-related.
The exclusions sit in the boxed warning rather than in the dosing section. They are about who a person is, not about how many milligrams they take.
The label separately lists 9 serious effects it tells prescribers to watch for. Each one is set out with the label’s own wording on the Ozempic side-effect page.
The dose schedule comes from the prescribing label. Read the full label for the complete list of reasons not to take it.
What are the possible side effects of Ozempic?
The most common in the label’s own trial table is nausea, reported by 20.3% on Ozempic 1 mg.
That figure comes from the label’s trial table, with the arm it belongs to attached. A percentage without its arm is not a rate of anything.
The trial reports side effects across the whole study. It does not say which dose each person was taking, so effects cannot be split by dose step.
The full table, every arm and the placebo column beside it, sits on the Ozempic side-effect page.
Where to read next
4 pages sit next to this one, and each answers something this page deliberately does not.
- Ozempic side effects, dose by dose carries the label’s own trial table.
- The semaglutide dosage chart covers the drug rather than the brand, including the vial and syringe arithmetic no pen needs.
- Storing Ozempic safely covers the fridge, the room-temperature window and what the label leaves out.
- What Ozempic costs reads the price off the manufacturer’s own terms rather than the label, including who those terms shut out.
- Ozempic (semaglutide) injection — FDA-approved Prescribing Information (DailyMed)retrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- Drugs@FDA approval history — NDA 209637, Ozempic (semaglutide) injectionretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA approval letter, NDA 209637 — Ozempic (semaglutide) injection, glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetesretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA supplement approval letter, NDA 209637/S-003 — Ozempic cardiovascular event risk reduction in type 2 diabetes with established cardiovascular disease (SUSTAIN 6)retrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA supplement approval letter, NDA 209637/S-025 — Ozempic for reducing sustained eGFR decline, end-stage kidney disease and cardiovascular death in type 2 diabetes with chronic kidney diseaseretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label
- FDA supplement approval letter, NDA 209637/S-009 — addition of a third Ozempic maintenance dose, 2 mg once weeklyretrieved 2026-08-12FDA label