OBJECTIVES: To describe the frequency of use and median spending with high cost drugs of greater financial impact used for patients with schizophrenia attended by Brazilian Public Health System (SUS) from January 2000 to December 2010, according to ATC (3^rdlevel, pharmacological subgroup).   METHODS: A nationwide open cohort was developed through deterministic-probabilistic linkage of administrative records of SUS databases.  At study entry patients must have had diagnosis of schizophrenia and have solicited one of the following antipsychotics: clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone and ziprasidone. High cost drugs spending was presented as medians, according to its ATC. Monetary values were adjusted for inflation to January 2015. Brazilian Reais (BRL) were converted to United States Dollars (USD) using the purchasing power parity of the World Bank at a conversion factor for 2014 (USD1 = 1.69 BRL). RESULTS: