Sublocade can be detected in urine for 12 months or longer after your last injection. In some cases, buprenorphine has been found in both plasma and urine 22 to 38 months after the final dose. This is dramatically longer than sublingual buprenorphine (films or tablets), which typically clears urine within about two weeks, and it comes down to how the drug is designed to work.
Why Sublocade Stays in Your System So Long
Sublocade is an extended-release injection that forms a small solid deposit under the skin. That deposit slowly releases buprenorphine into your bloodstream over weeks and months. Because of this slow-release design, the drug’s effective half-life is 43 to 60 days, meaning it takes roughly two months just for the amount in your blood to drop by half. Compare that to sublingual buprenorphine, which has a half-life measured in hours.
After you’ve been receiving monthly injections for four to six months, your body reaches a steady state where buprenorphine has built up in your tissues and the depot under your skin. At that point, even after you stop getting injections, the remaining depot continues to slowly dissolve and release the drug. This is why the FDA label specifically notes that patients who discontinue after reaching steady state may have detectable levels in urine for twelve months or longer.
The 12-Month Floor, Not Ceiling
Twelve months is the most commonly cited detection window, but it’s conservative. A clinical study that tracked patients 22 to 38 months after their last Sublocade injection found that buprenorphine could still potentially be detected in both plasma and urine across that entire timeframe. So for some people, detection could extend well past two years.
How long it lasts for you depends on several factors: how many injections you received, whether you reached steady state, the dose you were on, and your individual metabolism. Someone who received only one or two injections will clear the drug much faster than someone who had monthly injections for a year or more.
What Drug Tests Actually Measure
Most urine drug panels that specifically test for buprenorphine use an initial screening threshold of 5 ng/mL. If that screen comes back positive, a confirmatory test looks for both buprenorphine and its main metabolite, norbuprenorphine, at cutoffs of 2 to 10 ng/mL depending on the testing context. Clinical and pain management settings tend to use lower cutoffs (as low as 2 ng/mL for buprenorphine), which means detection lasts even longer in those scenarios.
It’s worth noting that standard workplace drug panels (the kind used for employment screening) typically test for opioids but do not include buprenorphine unless it’s specifically ordered as a separate test. If buprenorphine testing is included, though, the slow trickle of drug from Sublocade’s depot means you’ll likely test positive for many months after stopping.
Factors That Speed Up or Slow Down Clearance
Buprenorphine is processed primarily by the liver through a specific enzyme system. Several biological and lifestyle factors influence how quickly your body breaks it down and clears it from urine.
- Liver function: Since buprenorphine is metabolized in the liver, any liver disease or impairment slows clearance and extends the detection window.
- Age and sex: Older adults and men tend to have lower activity of the liver enzymes responsible for breaking down buprenorphine, which can slow metabolism.
- Other medications: Certain drugs speed up buprenorphine metabolism (like some antibiotics used for tuberculosis), while others slow it down (like certain HIV medications). If you take medications that inhibit this enzyme pathway, buprenorphine will linger longer.
- Hydration: Heavy water intake can dilute urine and temporarily lower the concentration of buprenorphine in a given sample, but it won’t eliminate the drug from your system faster.
- Number of injections received: More injections means more drug stored in your tissues. Someone who received six or more monthly injections (and therefore reached steady state) will test positive far longer than someone who received two or three.
What This Means in Practice
If you’re discontinuing Sublocade and need to pass a buprenorphine-specific urine test, plan for a long timeline. The realistic minimum for most people who reached steady state is about 12 months, and it could be significantly longer. There is no reliable way to speed up the process because the depot under your skin will continue releasing the drug on its own schedule regardless of what you do.
If you’re being tested to confirm that you are taking buprenorphine as prescribed (for example, at an addiction treatment program), the extended detection window works in your favor. Even if you miss an appointment or switch from Sublocade to no medication, your urine will continue to show buprenorphine for months, which may complicate interpretation of compliance testing. Let your treatment provider know your Sublocade history so they can interpret results accurately.