An accurate derivative spectrophotometric method was developed and validated for the determination of dipeptidyl peptidase inhibitor vildagliptin in the pharmaceutical dosage form. The second derivative of the UV spectra has enabled the estimation of vildagliptin absorbance at 217 nm without any interferences. Linearity, precision, accuracy, detection (LOD), and quantification (LOQ) limits were established for method validation. Calibration curve was linear in the range of 10-60 µg/mL with a regression coefficient of 0.998. The method was validated as per the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH Q2 (R1)). The limit of detection and the limit of quantification were found to be 2.06 µg/mL and 6.25 µg/mL, respectively. Intra and interday precision data illustrated that the method has acceptable reproducibility as the percentage relative standard deviation (RSD) was less than 2 %, which indicates the precision of the method. The recovery was 98.39 % by the standard addition method. The percentage assay of vildagliptin was 98.06 % which showed good applicability. The following results indicate that the procedure is accurate, precise, and reproducible while being simple and less time-consuming. The method was demonstrated to be adequate for routine analysis in quality control.