Special report · federal hemp deadline
Your hemp products now have a federal deadline. Which one depends on how the cannabinoid was made.
Congress rewrote the federal definition of hemp. A stopgap bill signed on 2 September 2026 delayed part of it — and only part. Most operators still think there is one deadline. There are two.
12 November 2026
Converted cannabinoids — Delta-8, Delta-10, HHC, THC-O, THCP. This date did not move.
No further delay expected
11 December 2026
Plant-derived — THCA, live resin, full-spectrum CBD, hemp delta-9 drinks over the limit.
The 0.4 mg upper limit arrives
Free, and nothing leaves your browser.
The one question that decides your date
Was your cannabinoid extracted from the plant, or converted from CBD?
Most operators do not know these are two different dates. You are about to.
Made in a lab, from CBD
Cannabinoids synthesized or converted outside the plant. Section 781 of Public Law 119-37 excludes these, and the delay language does not reach them.
This date did not move. No further delay is expected.
Was the cannabinoid
extracted from the plant,
or converted from CBD?
Made by the plant
Naturally occurring cannabinoids. The upper limit of 0.4 mg of total THC per container, and the total-THC standard including THCA, both arrive on this date.
The 0.3% delta-9 standard holds through 10 Dec.
What is actually happening
Nobody passed a payments law. They changed what your products are.
The 2018 Farm Bill carved hemp out of the Controlled Substances Act, and that carve-out is what created this industry. Section 781 of Public Law 119-37 pulls the line back toward where it sat before 2018 — a narrower definition of what counts as hemp, closer to the older and stricter reading.
A product that no longer meets the narrowed definition loses the exemption and falls back under the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule I substance, with its exact classification depending on what it is and how it was made.
Card networks and acquiring banks will not knowingly process a Schedule I substance. That is the whole mechanism. The pressure is not coming from a payments rule.
The definition narrows
Total THC replaces delta-9. Finished products face an upper limit of 0.4 mg of total THC per container.
Products lose hemp status
Anything outside the narrowed definition is no longer exempt from the Controlled Substances Act.
Banks and networks exit
No acquirer knowingly underwrites a federally scheduled substance.
Processors follow
Not because they want to. Because the rail above them closed.
Which means there is no processor that fixes a product problem. If your catalog falls outside the narrowed definition, no rail is the answer — not card, not ACH, not crypto.
So the first decision is not who processes your payments. It is which products you will still be allowed to sell once the dates pass, because that is what determines whether a processor can take you at all. Settle the catalog, and the payments question answers itself.
A separate clock, running ahead of the law
Square set its own dates, and those did not move
Square sent two different letters. Which one you received determines whether you are losing an account or losing a shelf. Most merchants have not been asked which one they got.
Letter A — remove the items. For merchants selling hemp alongside unrelated products. Strip CBD and hemp items from the Square catalog, in person and online. The account stays open. You lose the shelf, not the business.
Letter B — the account closes. 11:59 pm EST, for merchants whose catalog is primarily hemp or CBD. Not a restriction. A closure.
Federal date for converted cannabinoids. Delta-8, delta-10, HHC, THC-O, THCP. Unchanged by the September delay to Section 781 of Public Law 119-37.
Federal date for plant-derived cannabinoids. The 0.4 mg upper limit per container and the total-THC standard including THCA.
Both Square dates land before the law does. A private underwriting decision does not un-make itself on a statutory schedule, so waiting on Congress does not bring the account back.
Three things that matter more than the extra 29 days
What is still unresolved
No further extension is expected
The White House has told senators there will not be another delay. The 29 days bought in September were the extension, not the first of several.
The FDA has published nothing
Section 781 of Public Law 119-37 required cannabinoid lists and a definition of "container" within 90 days of enactment — by 10 February 2026. None of it exists. A retailer still cannot determine compliance for a multi-serving package.
35 state attorneys general pushed the other way
They wrote urging Congress to keep the November date and reject any effort to delay, repeal or weaken it. The state-level wind is not blowing toward relief.
The tool
Which date does your product fall under?
Two things decide it: how the cannabinoid was made, and the total THC in the container. Not the CBD milligrams on the label — those are a different number and they do not count toward the upper limit.
Product Analysis LiteFree, unlimited, no sign-up. Type a description, or upload a catalog using our template. Runs entirely in your browser.
Product Analysis AIReads photographs of labels and lab reports, and messy catalogs that no template would fit. Open to verified businesses in the hemp trade.
Everything here runs inside your browser. Spreadsheets and photographs are read on your own machine and are never uploaded, stored, or sent to us.
More detail gives a better read. Cannabinoid type, milligrams per piece, pieces per container, and whether it is full-spectrum, broad-spectrum or isolate.
Drop a spreadsheet here, or choose a file
.xlsx, .xls or .csv — product name, description and milligram columns are read automaticallyYour own spreadsheet works — we read whatever columns we recognise. But the template below asks for the four things that actually decide a date, so the results come back complete instead of half of them saying "needs a lab report".
Drop a photo here, or choose a file
A product label, a cannabinoid facts panel, or a Certificate of AnalysisThe text is read on your device. Check what it picked up before you trust the result — labels photograph badly, and you can correct it.
The reader is open to businesses in the hemp, CBD and cannabinoid trade. Tell us who you are and where to find you, and it unlocks immediately.
A website or a social page is fine in place of a storefront address. We ask because each reading costs us money, and we would rather spend it on operators with real inventory than on curiosity.
Drop a photo here, or choose a file
A product label, a cannabinoid facts panel, or a Certificate of AnalysisFor products that do not survive
Where inventory can go, and what you would have to become
A product that loses hemp status has not become worthless everywhere. It has become cannabis. Cannabis is sold lawfully every day — inside licensed state programmes, by licensed operators, to verified adults.
That is a licensing question, not a payments question. Whether it is even theoretically open to you depends first on whether your state runs a licensed market at all.
Choose your state
Your federal date is identical in all fifty states. What changes state to state is whether there is a licensed channel that could take product once it is no longer hemp, and what your own state already permits on the shelf today.
On timing, and on writing it off
There is no sell-through window written into the statute. Section 781 of Public Law 119-37 sets an effective date. It does not, on its face, give retailers a grace period to clear stock afterwards. Confirm your position with your own counsel and your state regulator before assuming you can run inventory past your date.
The practical consequence follows from that: stock still on the shelf after your federal date has no ordinary retail outlet. Please plan your inventory cycle around the federal deadline rather than around the season.
Two cautions before you accelerate anything. Much of this inventory is already restricted under state law regardless of the federal date, so moving it faster can mean moving it somewhere it was never permitted. And wholesaling it to another business does not retire the problem — it transfers it to whoever is holding the stock when the date arrives.
On the tax question, talk to your accountant, and ask one thing specifically. Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code denies deductions and credits to a business trafficking in a Schedule I controlled substance. Most merchants assume unsellable inventory is a straightforward write-off, which it may or may not be, but Section 280E exists and interacts with how losses and inventory are treated — ask a certified public accountant who knows the industry, and ask before the date rather than at filing.
Where you land
Every merchant in this position ends up in one of three places
Which one you are in decides everything that follows — including whether a payment processor is even the right conversation.
Your catalog survives
Broad-spectrum, isolate, or anything that stays under the 0.4 mg upper limit per container. The narrowed definition does not reach you. You are losing Square, not your products.
What you need: a processor that will take the category A straight replacement. Nothing about your shelf has to change.
You are reformulating
Your current products are over the limit, but you have a compliant version coming and a plan to get there. The hardest of the three, and the one most worth helping.
What you need: acceptance that bridges the transition Underwriting that understands the plan, not just the current catalog.
Your products do not survive
Converted cannabinoids, or plant-derived products well over the limit, with no reformulation planned. After your date these are federally controlled.
What you need is not a payment rail It is a licensed outlet, a wholesale buyer, or a reformulated product. The map below is where that conversation starts.
If you need somewhere to go
Knowing the date is the first half. The second half is what you do about it.
Tell us what is on your shelf and we will tell you which of the three you are, including when the answer is the one nobody wants to hear. No charge, and no obligation to buy anything.
If a product does not survive, one outlet remains
A product that loses hemp status does not become unsellable everywhere. It becomes cannabis — and cannabis is sold every day inside state-licensed programmes.
That is a licensing route, not a payments route. A smoke shop, a convenience store or a direct-to-consumer website cannot take it. A licensed operator can. If that is where your inventory has to go, the conversation you need is with a licence holder or a wholesale buyer, and we will say so rather than sell you a terminal.
That is with us.
A payment processing professional will be in contact with you about these changes, usually the same day and always within two business days.
Nothing you sent is shared with anyone else, and you will not be added to a list.
What this tool is, and is not
This site explains publicly available federal law in plain terms and sorts products by which effective date applies to them as the statute is written.
It is not legal advice, and it is not a compliance determination. It cannot tell you whether a specific product is lawful in your state, and it does not substitute for a Certificate of Analysis or for your own counsel.
Verify every result against your lab report and your attorney before making an inventory or contractual decision.