Oregon Pesticide Registration: Requirements, Fees, and Renewal

To sell or distribute a pesticide in Oregon, you must register each product with the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) before it reaches the market. Oregon pesticide registration costs $400 per product for 2026, every registration expires on December 31 regardless of when it was first approved, and most submissions go through the ODA’s online MyLicense system.¹²

Which Products Need to Be Registered

The registration requirement applies to every pesticide sold, distributed, or offered for sale in Oregon, whether it’s going to commercial growers or retail shelves. The manufacturer or distributor is responsible, and each separate formula or formulation counts as its own registration. One active ingredient sold under three brand names is three registrations.³

Oregon’s scope is broader than many registrants expect. Pesticide devices — equipment designed to trap, destroy, or repel pests — fall under the same registration statute as chemical products.³ Minimum risk products that are exempt from federal EPA registration under FIFRA Section 25(b) still have to be registered at the state level in Oregon.⁴ And combination products like weed-and-feed fertilizers count as pesticides if the label makes any pest-control claim, even when their primary job is feeding the lawn.

The exemptions under ORS 634.016(7) are narrow. Products purchased or used by the federal government are exempt, as are transfers from manufacturer to distributor, drugs and chemicals sold for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, and common carriers or warehousemen simply moving or storing product. A distributor selling directly to end users cannot rely on the manufacturer-to-distributor exemption, and any unregistered product sitting on a retail shelf is a violation regardless of who put it there.³

What You Need Before You Apply

For most products, you need a federal EPA registration number first. Oregon treats the FIFRA Section 3 registration as a prerequisite. The exception is 25(b) minimum risk products, which skip EPA review but still have to be registered with the ODA.

ORS 634.016(4) spells out what the application has to include:

The registrant’s full name and address
The manufacturer’s name and address if different from the registrant
The exact brand name or trademark as it appears on retail packaging
A specimen or copy of the label for each formula or formulation
The chemical name and percentage by weight of each active ingredient
The total percentage of all inert ingredients

The label gets the closest look. The ODA checks that it meets both federal EPA standards and Oregon’s requirements, and that the claims on it line up with the chemical data in the submission.³

The ODA can refuse to register a product that is highly toxic with no effective antidote, or a food-crop product without established residue tolerances from the state or federal government. The agency also has authority to restrict a pesticide’s manufacture, distribution, or use at the time of registration or after a groundwater management area has been declared.³

Fees

The 2026 fee is $400 per product, per year. It applies equally to standard Section 3 registrations, Section 24(c) special local need registrations, and Section 25(b) minimum risk products.¹ The fee is nonrefundable and must accompany the application; incomplete payment delays review.

Because every formula and formulation counts separately, costs scale with catalog size. A company selling 50 products in Oregon pays $20,000 a year in registration fees alone. State law caps the maximum registration fee at $550 per product, which leaves the ODA room to raise fees by rule in future years without legislative action.³

How to Submit Your Application

The ODA uses an online portal called MyLicense for most pesticide registration work. If your company already holds an active Pesticide Product Registration (PPR) license in the system, new product applications, revised labels, supplemental labels, and FIFRA Section 2(ee) bulletins all go through MyLicense. Revised and supplemental labels have to be submitted online; the ODA won’t accept them on paper.⁵

Two situations still require paper:

A company’s first product registration, before it has a PPR license set up in MyLicense. After that initial product is registered, everything else goes through the portal.
New FIFRA Section 24(c) special local need registrations.

MyLicense also has an annual closure window. The system typically shuts down in mid-October and reopens in mid-November for the next year’s renewal cycle. Plan new product submissions around that window; paper applications generally aren’t accepted from companies that already have a MyLicense account.⁵

Renewal and Expiration

Every Oregon pesticide registration expires on December 31, no matter when it was first approved.² The ODA mails renewal notifications in mid-November, and MyLicense reopens around the same time for renewal submissions. The portal stays open for PPR renewals through March 31.⁵

The statute doesn’t set a formal late fee. The practical consequence is sharper: a product whose registration has lapsed cannot legally be sold in Oregon. Every day past expiration is a day the product sits unsellable, and distributing it without current registration exposes both the registrant and any retailer to enforcement under ORS 634.900.

Renewals are lighter on paperwork than initial registrations. If the product label hasn’t changed, you don’t need to resubmit a copy. The $400 fee still applies to every product, every year.³

Minimum Risk and Special Local Need Products

Two product categories follow slightly different paths through the same system.

Minimum risk pesticides under FIFRA Section 25(b) — products containing only EPA-approved minimum risk active ingredients such as garlic oil, cedar oil, or peppermint oil — don’t need an EPA registration number. Oregon still requires state registration, with the same $400 annual fee and the same core application requirements.⁴ Because not every state requires 25(b) registration, manufacturers selling nationally sometimes miss Oregon’s rule. The ODA enforces it the same as any other registration violation.

Special local need registrations under FIFRA Section 24(c) let Oregon authorize uses of a federally registered pesticide that go beyond the federal label — a new crop, for example, or an application method the federal registration doesn’t cover. The state can issue these when a pest problem in Oregon isn’t adequately addressed by available products and no appropriate federally registered alternative is sufficiently available. Necessary food tolerances must be in place, the EPA cannot have previously denied or canceled registration for that use on health or environmental grounds, and the registration cannot conflict with the purposes of FIFRA. All new 24(c) applications must be submitted on paper.⁵

Penalties for Selling Without Registration

Selling, distributing, or misbranding a pesticide in Oregon without proper registration carries civil penalties under ORS 634.900. A first violation can draw a fine of up to $2,000. A repeat violation raises the cap to $4,000. Violations involving gross negligence or intentional misconduct can reach $10,000, whether first or subsequent.⁶

Beyond civil fines, any violation of the pesticide control chapter is a Class A misdemeanor under ORS 634.992.⁶ The EPA also has independent authority to issue stop-sale orders under FIFRA Section 13(a), which freeze all sales, shipments, and use of the product until the agency lifts the order in writing.⁷ A single registration lapse can trigger state and federal enforcement at the same time.

1
Oregon Secretary of State. Oregon Administrative Rule 603-057-0006 – Pesticide Registration Fees
2
Oregon Department of Agriculture. Pesticide Product Registration Application
3
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 634.016 – Registration of Pesticides and Application Devices
4
Oregon Department of Agriculture. FIFRA Section 25(b) Minimum Risk Pesticide Product Registration in Oregon
5
Oregon Department of Agriculture. How to Register a Pesticide Product in Oregon
6
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 634 – Pesticide Control
7
US EPA. Stop Sale, Use, or Removal and Modification Order