Loratadine is the active ingredient in Claritin. They are the same medication. Claritin is simply the brand name that the manufacturer uses to sell loratadine, much like Tylenol is the brand name for acetaminophen. Every Claritin tablet contains 10 mg of loratadine, and every generic loratadine tablet contains the same 10 mg dose.
How Loratadine Works
Loratadine is a second-generation antihistamine, meaning it relieves allergy symptoms without causing much drowsiness. When your body encounters an allergen like pollen or pet dander, it releases histamine, a chemical that triggers sneezing, itching, runny nose, and watery eyes. Loratadine works by blocking the histamine receptors on your cells so histamine can’t latch on and start that chain reaction.
Unlike older antihistamines such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl), loratadine doesn’t easily cross into the brain. That’s why it’s far less likely to make you sleepy or foggy. It’s taken once daily at a standard dose of 10 mg for adults and children six and older, and it comes in regular tablets, chewable tablets, dissolving tablets, liquid-filled capsules, and liquid syrup.
Brand Claritin vs. Generic Loratadine
The FDA requires every generic drug to prove it delivers the same amount of active ingredient into the bloodstream as the brand-name version. For generic loratadine, manufacturers must run a single-dose crossover study in healthy adults, measuring both loratadine and its active breakdown product in the blood. The generic can only be approved if its absorption falls within a tight statistical window of the brand-name Claritin results. In practical terms, your body can’t tell the difference.
Where brand and generic versions can differ is in their inactive ingredients: the fillers, binders, coatings, and dyes that hold the tablet together. Brand-name Claritin tablets use corn starch, lactose, and magnesium stearate. A store-brand version might swap in different fillers or use a slightly different coating. For most people this makes no difference at all, but if you have a known sensitivity to lactose or a specific dye, it’s worth checking the inactive ingredient list on whichever version you buy.
The Price Gap
Brand-name Claritin typically costs around $1.96 per tablet at retail, which adds up to roughly $59 for a 30-day supply. Store-brand loratadine from retailers like Walmart (Equate), Costco (Kirkland), or CVS (CVS Health) often runs a fraction of that price, sometimes under $0.20 per tablet. Because the active ingredient is identical and bioequivalence is FDA-verified, choosing the generic is one of the simplest ways to save money on allergy relief.
Claritin-D Is a Different Product
One important distinction: Claritin-D is not the same as regular Claritin. Claritin-D combines loratadine with pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant. The loratadine handles sneezing, itching, and runny nose, while pseudoephedrine shrinks swollen nasal passages to relieve stuffiness and sinus pressure. Because pseudoephedrine can raise blood pressure and cause jitteriness, Claritin-D is kept behind the pharmacy counter in most states. If you only need an antihistamine, regular loratadine or Claritin is the right pick.
Other Antihistamines in the Same Class
Loratadine belongs to a family of second-generation antihistamines that also includes cetirizine (Zyrtec) and fexofenadine (Allegra). All three are available over the counter, taken once daily, and work by blocking the same histamine receptor. They differ slightly in how quickly they kick in, how long they last, and how likely they are to cause drowsiness. Cetirizine is generally considered the most potent of the three but is also the most likely to cause mild sleepiness. Fexofenadine is the least sedating. Loratadine falls in between. If one doesn’t control your symptoms well enough, switching to another in this group is a reasonable next step.
The bottom line is straightforward: loratadine and Claritin are the same drug. The only difference between the brand-name box and the generic is the label and the price.