A simple, sensitive and reproducible method for the determination of ranitidine hydrochloride in pharmaceutical preparations was investigated. This spectrophotometric method was based on the formation of a deep red color product with ninhydrin in basic media and the absorbance measured at λmax = 480 nm. The reaction occurs at 45 °C with pH = 10 having a contact time of 38 minutes. Under the optimum conditions, Beer’s Law is obeyed in the concentration range of 8.98×103 - 9.90×104 µg/L. The coefficient of correlation was found to be 0.999 for the obtained method with molar absorptivity of 3.05×103 L/mol.cm. The calculated Sandell’s sensitivity is 0.108 μg/cm2. The limit of detection and limit of quantification are 0.0997 and 0.3023 µg/mL, respectively. The low values of the percentage relative standard deviation and percentage relative error indicate the high precision and the good accuracy of the proposed method. The stoichiometry of the reaction is determined and found to be 1:4 (Ranitidine hydrochloride:Ninhydrin). The initial rate method confirmed that this reaction is first order one.