What changed, and when we knew
Every change to the rule library, dated, with its source — including the times we got it wrong and fixed it. Nobody else in this market publishes one of these. That is exactly why we do.
20 entries · library last reviewed September 19, 2026 · RSS · the data itself
New Hampshire: $128 per grade and at least 37 cents a ton since 1 July 2025
RSA 431:4 and 431:6 as amended in 2024 and 2025. The department's form still shows $75 per product and the published rule 20 cents and $5; both superseded by the statute, which sets a floor.
Maine has no per-ton fee since 2015; registration is $125 a product
Maine ·
PL 2015 c.191 struck the $1 a ton fee from 7 MRSA 743-A and raised registration to $125. The annual tonnage report, due 1 September, remains, without a fee.
All fifty states: New England, Alaska, Hawaii and Wyoming
The library goes from 41 to 50 of 50. Alaska and Hawaii are recorded as having no state fertilizer programme; Maine and Wyoming charge per product with no per-ton fee. Four new discrepancies declared: Massachusetts fees and fee unit, New Hampshire inspection fee, Connecticut report date. Thirteen open.
Maryland registrations expire 31 January, the same day as the semiannual report
Maryland ·
Md. Agriculture Code 6-207: “Each registration expires January 31 each year”; renewal by 1 February under COMAR 15.18.03.02. The semiannual tonnage report for July to December is due 31 January too. Two filings, one date, in the busiest month of the compliance year.
Delaware's late surcharge is 10% per month, and its fee is 25 cents since 2024
Delaware ·
3 Del. C. 2106 sets the tonnage fee at “not less than 25 cents per ton effective January 1, 2024” and the surcharge at “10%, with a minimum of $10, per month”. The agency's older pages still show 10 cents a ton and $28.75 for small packages; the Code and the 2026 form say 25 cents and $40. We follow the Code.
The Atlantic six: Alabama, South Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey
The library goes from 35 to 41 of 50. Four new discrepancies are declared rather than resolved: Alabama's monthly due date (15th in the statute, 20th on the form) and its top licence tier, South Carolina's specialty fee ($30 in one section, $60 in another), and New Jersey's semiannual due date (end of month in the statute, 30 days on the form). Where two dates differ we calendar the earlier.
Nevada gives you 15 days, not 30 — and lets you prepay $20 to skip the paperwork
Nevada ·
Reports are due within 15 days of the quarter close, half the usual window. But if you expect to stay under 20 tons a quarter, Nevada lets you prepay $20 for all four periods and be done. Below that threshold the fee is $5 a quarter, so prepaying saves nothing on money and everything on filings.
New Mexico says monthly and quarterly on the same page, and does not say who is which
The agency page states that “monthly reports are due by the 15th of each month” and, two lines later, that reports are due “no later than the last day of January, April, July and October”. It does not say which distributors fall into which. We calendar it as quarterly and print the monthly wording on the state page. The same page also writes the fee as “.35¢ per ton”; 21.18.2 NMAC says thirty-five cents. We follow the rule.
Montana's statute allows 20 to 25 cents a ton. The rule charges 25
Montana ·
MCA 80-10-207 sets a band rather than a figure: “not less than 20 cents per ton or more than 25 cents per ton”. ARM 4.12.608 puts the actual rate at the top of it. Both are on the state page. Second state in the library where the ceiling and the charge differ, after Nebraska.
Idaho charges $75 a product and, as far as we can read, no per-ton fee at all
Idaho ·
$75 per separately identifiable product, expiring 31 December, with a $10 per product penalty if the renewal is not postmarked by 31 January. The statute we read sets no inspection fee per ton and no tonnage report date, so both are published as Not verified and the fee calculator refuses Idaho.
The west: Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada
The library goes from 29 to 35 of 50. Nevada arrives with the tightest quarterly turnaround we have seen anywhere: 15 days after the quarter closes, where everyone else gives 30 or 31.
Tennessee: 20 cents a ton, or a tiered licence fee? Both are official
The 2014 code sets an inspection fee of twenty cents per ton. The 2017 departmental rules describe no per-ton fee at all and instead a tiered annual licence fee based on tonnage and product count. We could not read a current consolidated statute, so the per-ton figure is published as Not verified and our fee calculator refuses to calculate Tennessee rather than return a number we cannot stand behind.
South Dakota calls the same licence annual and biennial, two sentences apart
The agency's own programme brochure says “an annual commercial fertilizer distribution license is required” and then “the cost of the biennial fertilizer distribution license is $25.00”. Both are published. We print both.
Six more states: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota and Tennessee
The library goes from 23 to 29 of 50. Two of the six arrive with a declared discrepancy rather than a clean figure, which is the point.
We were wrong: January, not June, is the busiest week of the compliance year
On 25 August we published that the last week of June was the peak. That was true of a seventeen-state library. With twenty-nine, nine states want something in the last two days of January, and South Dakota wants two separate filings a day apart. The August piece now carries an update note pointing here.
Nebraska: the statute allows 15 cents a ton, the agency charges 10 — and 2026 is a transition year
Nebraska ·
Neb. Rev. Stat. 81-2,162.06 sets a ceiling of fifteen cents; the published rate is ten. Budget the ceiling, pay the published rate. And the semiannual deadlines for 2026 are 31 July and 31 December; the 31 January / 31 July pair only starts in 2027.
Mississippi's own page writes its fee as “.25 cents per ton”. The statute says 25 cents
A hundredfold difference between the agency's website and Miss. Code 75-47-11. We follow the statute and say so on the state page.
Six states across the corn belt and the delta: Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi
From 17 to 23 of 50. Arkansas arrives as the strictest regime in the library: monthly reporting, due on the 20th, with penalties that double past 31 days.
California: the agency guide says $100, the statute allows far more
The CDFA fertilizing materials guide publishes a $100 licence and registration fee, but the guide was last revised in 2017 and the statute sets higher caps. Currency not reconfirmed, so both are on the page.
Florida has two late penalties, not one — we had it wrong for weeks
Florida ·
We published “1.5% per month or 10%, whichever is greater” as a single penalty. Reading §576.041 properly, they are two separate penalties for two separate failures: 1.5% a month on unpaid inspection fees, and 10% or $25 for not filing or filing a false report. Corrected everywhere and written up as an article.
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