Can You Grow Hemp in Georgia? Licenses, Testing, and Renewal

To get a hemp growing license in Georgia, you apply to the Georgia Department of Agriculture under the Georgia Hemp Farming Act, submit fingerprints for a state and federal background check, provide GPS coordinates for every field or greenhouse, and pay $50 per acre up to a $5,000 annual cap. The license lasts one calendar year, covers cultivation only, and comes with strict testing and reporting rules that continue from planting through harvest.

Who Can Qualify

Georgia issues hemp grower licenses under O.C.G.A. § 2-23-5, and the statute sets a hard bar on criminal history. Anyone convicted of a felony involving a controlled substance under state or federal law within ten years of the application date is disqualified.¹ If you’re applying through a business, that same disqualification reaches every key participant, not just the person signing the paperwork.²

Falsifying anything material on the application is a permanent bar from the program.² The state also limits each person to one grower license, and no one can hold a financial interest in more than one license, no matter how small.¹

Business entities have an extra step. A Georgia entity must submit a current Certificate of Existence from the Secretary of State. An entity formed elsewhere needs a certificate from its home jurisdiction plus a Georgia Certificate of Authority to conduct business in the state.² You’ll also identify every owner, key participant, and person with a beneficial interest in the operation, along with contact information for each.

What the Application Requires

The application does two jobs: it proves you’re not disqualified, and it tells the state exactly where you plan to grow.

For the background check, the Department collects fingerprints and submits them to the Georgia Crime Information Center and the FBI to search state and federal criminal records.¹ Business applicants have to submit a separate set of prints for every key participant.

For your grow sites, you provide a legal description and GPS coordinates in decimal degrees for every field and greenhouse, precise enough for state agents to find the location.¹ You declare the maximum total acreage for outdoor fields, and for covered facilities, the number of structures and the square footage of each.²

Every applicant signs a written consent allowing representatives of the Georgia Department of Agriculture, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and local law enforcement to enter any premises where hemp is grown or stored for compliance inspections.¹ Without that consent, your application will not be processed.

You’ll also need a Farm Service Agency farm number from your local USDA office. Federal rules require hemp growers to report planted acreage to the FSA, and the farm number ties your cultivation to tracked agricultural land in the federal system.

Fees and Where to File

The annual license fee is $50 per acre you intend to cultivate, capped at $5,000.¹ Fractional acreage rounds up to the next whole number, so a half-acre plot still costs $50. Each covered growing facility counts as a separate acre for fee purposes, calculated on a 43,560-square-foot basis.²

Applications and payments run through the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s online hemp licensing portal.³ You upload the background check documentation, site information, and signed consent forms directly. The Department reviews the materials, verifies coordinates and criminal history, and issues licenses electronically once everything checks out.

Annual Renewal and Reporting

The license is good for one calendar year. For the 2026 season, the Georgia Department of Agriculture began accepting renewal applications on November 1, 2025.³ Before you can renew, all site reporting from the previous year must be complete. Every planting, harvest, and disposal from the 2025 season had to be reported by December 1, 2025.

Renewals require a fresh criminal background check dated within 60 days of submission.² Missing the renewal window or leaving reporting incomplete means you can’t legally plant until a new license is issued, and growing without a valid license violates both state and federal law.

Pre-Harvest Testing You Have to Schedule

Georgia defines hemp as cannabis with a total delta-9-THC concentration at or below 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.⁴ Anything above that line is legally marijuana under state and federal law, regardless of what variety you planted or what a seed supplier told you.

Within 30 days before you plan to harvest any lot, a Department-approved sampling agent must collect samples from the flowering material for THC testing.² You or an authorized representative must be present at the grow site during sampling. Only samples pulled by an approved agent count; a third-party lab report on your own samples will not substitute. You cannot harvest any cannabis before the official samples are taken. Once samples are collected, you have a 30-day window to complete the harvest of that lot. You pay all sampling fees.

When a Crop Tests Above the Limit

If your crop tests above 0.3 percent THC, it cannot be sold and must be destroyed. The Department issues an order of disposal requiring the entire lot and all plant material to be removed within a timeframe it sets, at your expense.² Acceptable disposal methods include plowing or tilling the plants into the soil, mulching, composting, burning, or burying the material and covering it with soil.⁵

Not every hot crop is treated the same. Under federal and Georgia rules, if you made reasonable efforts to grow hemp and the tested cannabis comes in at or below 1.0 percent total delta-9-THC on a dry weight basis, the violation is not treated as negligent.² You still destroy the crop, but you avoid a corrective action plan. That 1.0 percent buffer exists because THC levels can spike from environmental factors outside a grower’s control.

When the Department determines that a grower negligently violated the Hemp Farming Act, whether by exceeding 1.0 percent THC or through other compliance failures, it issues a corrective action plan with a deadline to fix the violation and a requirement to report compliance status to the Commissioner for at least two years.² If the Department finds a grower acted with intent beyond negligence, it must immediately report the grower to the U.S. Attorney General and the Georgia Attorney General for potential criminal enforcement.

Paperwork for Moving Hemp

All hemp shipped, transported, or delivered into, within, or through Georgia must travel with documentation showing two things: that the hemp was lawfully produced under an approved state, tribal, or USDA plan, and that it does not exceed the legal THC limit.⁶ In practice, that means carrying a certificate of analysis with compliant test results.

The person moving hemp must also carry a bill of lading listing the owner’s name and address, the origin and destination of the shipment, the type and quantity of hemp, and the shipment date. Getting stopped without proper paperwork creates real legal exposure, because cannabis that can’t be proven to be hemp looks exactly like cannabis that isn’t.

Recordkeeping

Georgia requires hemp grower licensees to keep all records and reports for at least three calendar years, stored so they can be readily produced for the Department on request.⁷ Retain seed and clone purchase documentation, planting and harvest dates for each lot, THC test results, disposal records for any non-compliant material, and sales or transfer documentation. All plantings, harvests, and disposals must be reported to the Department by December 1 each year.³

Processing Is a Separate Permit

A grower license only covers cultivation. If you plan to turn raw hemp into a marketable product, you need a separate hemp processor permit from the Georgia Department of Agriculture.⁸ The processor permit has its own application, its own fees, and a surety bond requirement under O.C.G.A. § 2-23-6.1. The bond starts at a minimum of $20,000 and can reach $1 million, calculated as a percentage of hemp purchased from licensed growers.⁹

If you intend to extract CBD oil, manufacture consumable hemp products, or do anything beyond selling raw plant material, budget for the processor permit from the start. The processor application requires GPS coordinates for every processing and storage facility, a description of the products you intend to produce, and a plan for their intended end use.

1
Justia. Georgia Code Title 2, Chapter 23, Section 2-23-5 – Procedure for Licensing; Fees
2
Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia Code 40-32-2 – Hemp Growers
3
Georgia Department of Agriculture. Hemp Program
4
Official Code of Georgia Annotated. Georgia Code 2-23 – Hemp Farming
5
Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia Code 40-32-1 – General Provisions
6
Justia. Georgia Code Title 2, Chapter 23, Section 2-23-7 – Business Agreements; Transportation; Reimbursement for Crop Destruction
7
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 40-32-2-.10. Ga Comp R Regs R 40-32-2-.10
8
Georgia Department of Agriculture. Hemp Processor Permits
9
Justia. Georgia Code Title 2, Chapter 23, Section 2-23-6.1 – Bond Requirements; Breach of Bond; Hearing; Enforcement; Insufficient Bond Funds