The degradation of four recalcitrant and toxic VOCs (volatile organic compounds) present in pharmaceutical wastewater was studied using a continuous flow plasma reactor, along with evaluating its potential for real effluent treatment. The wastewater was sprayed into the plasma zone of the reactor, and it was re-circulated for better performance. The effect of different HRTs (hydraulic retention time) and initial concentrations of VOCs on the degradation efficiency were evaluated. In continuous reactor, complete removal of 200 mg/L of chloroform, chlorobenzene, and toluene was achieved at a HRT of 33.3 min, with an energy consumption of 22.4 kWh/m3. The study on the effect of different inlet loading rates of VOCs on elimination capacity showed that, the removal was limited initially by diffusion of reactive species and at higher loads, it was limited by insufficient amount of reactive species produced. During degradation of VOC mixture, more than 90% removal of chloroform, chlorobenzene and toluene was achieved at HRT of 33.3 min, and the TOC removal was 78.3%. The degradation efficiency of VOC mixture reduced slightly compared to that of individual compounds, due to insufficient amount of reactive species produced. The COD and BOD removal achieved after 140 min of direct plasma treatment of real pharmaceutical wastewater in batch reactor was 92.7% and 95.2%, respectively. Coagulation pre-treatment did not have a significant effect on the plasma treatment of real wastewater. When pharmaceutical effluent treatment was carried out in continuous flow reactor, 91.8% COD removal, 90.9% BOD removal and more than 90% degradation of all VOCs were achieved at a HRT of 150 min. Plasma treatment alone was capable of effectively treating the real pharmaceutical wastewater without any pre-treatment. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd