OBJECTIVES: In the pursuit of performance enhancement in the health care system in Egypt, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector, researchers face severe lack of relevant data. This limits our understanding of the health care system and the ability to detect policy-relevant problems. This is especially true for community pharmacies, which make the most easily accessible health care avenues for Egyptian households. We, therefore, sought to explore the characteristics of Egyptian community pharmacies in terms of labor force and practice patterns. METHODS: This is the first wave of a modified cross-sectional survey adapted from the US National Pharmacist Workforce Survey. We randomly sampled pharmacies located in the East and South regions of Cairo from addresses listed in Yellow Pages using a systematic random sampling methodology. Pharmacy data was collected through personal interviewing of the pharmacist on duty in the surveyed pharmacies. RESULTS: One-hundred-and-sixty-nine pharmacies participated in the survey (72% response rate). Independent pharmacies accounted for 88% of respondents. Only 35% of the pharmacies had a full time pharmacist, while 20% suffered recent layoffs of pharmacists. Virtually all pharmacies offered disease and medication counseling, 58% offered compounding services, 56% offered drug information services, and 40% carried durable medical equipments. Respondent pharmacists were on average 31.6 years old; 62% were male; the majority (94%) had only the bachelor's of pharmacy degree; work 56.3 hours per week; and receive 6.05 Egyptian Pounds (EGP) (~ $1) per hour in compensation.  Males reported working more weekly hours (58.8 vs. 52.4, p=0.02) but the average hourly rate was not statistically different from females (6.12 vs. 5.94 EGP, p=0.2). CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates an ongoing effort to document the characteristics of community pharmacies in Egypt. The current study and future ones would significantly improve the ability to probe practice-related issues and economic challenges community pharmacies and pharmacists face in Egypt.