Between 1986 and 1992, 15% of all cases of penicillinase-producing Neisseria gonorrhoeae (PPNG) notified in the UK were seen at our central London clinic. During this time the geographical provenance of PPNG has changed. Africa and SE Asia have been supplanted by the Caribbean as the predominant source, with 21.4% of all cases being directly imported from there in 1992. If all gonococcal infections acquired outside the UK had been assumed to be PPNG, together with those occurring in patients with family origins in Africa or SE Asia, some 60% of cases of PPNG could have been predicted before laboratory confirmation of resistance. There is little evidence that PPNG has become endemic in the United Kingdom.