January, not June, is the month that breaks the calendar

We wrote in August that the last week of June was the busiest of the compliance year. Having doubled the library, that is no longer true: January is worse, and one state wants two different filings a day apart.

We were wrong in August, and here is the correction

On 25 August we published Five states renew on 30 June and called that week the busiest of your compliance year. At the time the library held seventeen states and that was true of what we could see. It now holds twenty-nine, and the shape has changed: January is the pile-up, not June. We would rather say so than leave the older piece standing as the last word.

What lands in January

31 January closes the semiannual period in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, and it is the annual report deadline in North Dakota and the licence renewal deadline in South Dakota. 30 January is the Louisiana quarterly deadline, the Missouri semiannual deadline and the South Dakota tonnage report. Michigan’s annual report is due 31 January and is defined by postmark. California’s semiannual period closes 31 January too.

South Dakota wants two filings, one day apart

This is the detail that costs money. In South Dakota the tonnage report is due 30 January and the licence renewal is due 31 January. They are two separate filings with two separate penalties: 10% with a $10 minimum on the report, and a flat $25 late fee on the licence. Miss the pair and you pay both. It is the kind of thing that reads as a typo until you file late once.

Two more traps in the same fortnight

Oklahoma charges a $10 minimum even if you distributed nothing at all in the period, so a quiet half-year is still a filing. And North Dakota pairs a 31 January report with a registration renewal that turns into $100 per product if it slips past 31 July — two deadlines six months apart on the same account.

Why this is the argument for a single calendar

Nine states in the library want something in the last two days of January, under four different regimes, with penalties that range from $10 to double the fee. Nobody sends a reminder. That is the whole reason this product exists: one calendar, one place, every form prefilled and every fee calculated, with the official source next to each rule so your own team can check it. You still file, under your own account. We just make sure the work is done before the date, not after it.

Written by the Fertilabel rules desk — the team that maintains the state rule library. We publish under the company name, not personal bylines: what matters is the source under each claim, and every one is linked.

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