Housing Hemp / Sunsetting inventory
Until its federal date, a product that meets today's definition is still hemp. It can still be sold, and shipped to states that allow it. On its date it becomes a Schedule I controlled substance, and every one of those doors closes at once.
Pick your state. We show you the destination states where your inventory can still go, for which products, and by when.
We show where inventory can still go from your state before its date, what can still be sold at home, and whether any licensed cannabis business can take it.
Lab-converted cannabinoids such as Delta-8, Delta-10, HHC, THC-O and THCP leave the definition of hemp. This date did not move.
Plant-derived products over the upper limit of 0.4 mg of total THC per container, with THCA counted, leave the definition.
Sources:
We reviewed all fifty states and the District of Columbia against their own statutes, agency rules and court orders, as of September 17th, 2026. Most have already closed the door on this inventory. These have not. Tap a state to see what can still be sold there.
No state cap, no state licence, delta-9-only standard. THCA flower, hemp delta-9 and, in all four, converted cannabinoids still sell at retail. North Carolina and Pennsylvania are each one vote from a ban.
Everything still sells to buyers 21 and over, but each state's own law closes the market on November 12th, 2026, a month before the federal date for plant-derived products.
A large market for some product classes, or open with conditions. Florida and Texas still sell compliant hemp delta-9 edibles; Maine sells everything to buyers 21 and over; the rest are narrower or contested.
Possible only for low-dose products inside each state's limits, through a state licence or registration. Check lead times: some will not arrive before your date.
Banned, capped below where intoxicating products can go, routed into a licensed cannabis system that takes no outside hemp, or enforced as unlawful.
The federal date is the same in every state. Selling to a consumer, or to a store that turns stock quickly, moves the product before the clock runs out. Selling to someone who will still be holding it on the date only hands them the problem. Shipments have to arrive before the date, not just leave.
Every one of these works only while the product is still hemp. Start with the ones that recover the most, and start now.
In-state retail under your state's current rules is the fastest and most reliable outlet. Price and promote around the federal deadline, not the season.
Until the date, compliant hemp can be sold into states that still allow the product, directly to consumers or to retailers who can sell it through in time. Check the destination state above, get any licence it requires, and make sure the shipment arrives before the date.
Lawful before the product's date, if the destination state allows possession and the carrier will take it. Read your distributor agreements now for return, buyback or change-of-law terms. After the date, a return is an interstate transfer of a controlled substance.
Over-limit plant material and distillate can be processed by a licensed processor into isolate or THC-remediated broad-spectrum CBD. This is for bulk material sent before the date, not packaged retail goods, and some states require destruction instead.
Render it unusable and keep chain-of-custody records. Ask your state agriculture department how it expects hemp waste to be handled before you start.
Into any state's licensed cannabis supply chain. Colorado, Washington, Missouri, California and Michigan expressly prohibit outside hemp or THC entering the regulated market, and Colorado's regulator announced a crackdown in April 2026. Penalties run from product embargo to license loss and referral to law enforcement.
Since April 2026 that door has narrowed again. Licensed medical operators covered by federal rescheduling must now register with the DEA to handle the product lawfully, so their inventory answers to a federal registration as well as a state track-and-trace system. An operator with that much to lose is not a buyer for stock that came from outside it.
Even a lawful sale needs a carrier willing to move it. Their rules measure delta-9 THC, not total THC, and they have tightened through 2026. Settle this before you promise a buyer a delivery date.
| Carrier | Hemp rule | What that means for sunsetting stock |
|---|---|---|
| USPS | Domestic hemp mailings allowed under Publication 52 only at or below 0.3% delta-9 THC, with lab results and licenses kept for two years after mailing. | THCA flower and Delta-8 sold to intoxicate are enforcement targets even under 0.3% delta-9. |
| UPS | Pre-approved shippers only: dedicated account, licenses on file, signed hemp agreement, adult signature required. Raw hemp only under contract with a Certificate of Analysis. | A retail shop without an existing hemp shipping agreement cannot open one in time. |
| FedEx | Hemp-derived CBD at or below 0.3% THC only. No cannabis or THC products; THCA flower is not clearly authorized. | Ingestible over-limit products will not move. |
| Any carrier, vapes | The PACT Act bars shipping vaping devices to consumers through USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL. Business-to-business only between registered participants. | Vape inventory cannot be mailed to a buyer at all. |
| Any carrier, marijuana | Never mailable. The April 2026 move of state-licensed medical marijuana to Schedule III did not change this. | After its date, your product is in this row. |
No. Section 781 of Public Law 119-37 sets effective dates and gives retailers no grace period afterwards. Any window comes from state law or your own supply contracts. A handful of states wrote one in for their own licensees, and none of them opened a door for inventory from another state.
Yes, if it meets the current definition. Section 10114 of the 2018 Farm Bill bars states from prohibiting the transportation or shipment of hemp produced under an approved state or federal plan. That permission is narrower than it sounds, in four ways.
It protects the trip, not the sale. A sale is lawful only where the destination state allows the product, and states keep full authority over sale and possession inside their borders.
It may not protect you at all if your own state has already reclassified the product. Where a state has redefined it as marijuana or scheduled the cannabinoid, possessing it and loading it for shipment can be offenses under that state's own drug law, whatever its federal status. After Ohio's ban took effect, the attorney for the shops challenging it warned that anyone caught transporting the stock would face a felony trafficking charge. Federal appeals courts in the Fourth, Eighth and Tenth Circuits have all upheld stricter state hemp laws, and no court has held that the Farm Bill shields a retailer from his own state's charge. Pick your state above to see where it stands, and talk to a lawyer there before you move anything.
It covers hemp produced under an approved plan. Keep the paperwork and a batch Certificate of Analysis with every shipment. Product without them stands on weaker ground.
The shipment has to arrive before the product's date. Anything still in transit on November 12th or December 11th becomes a controlled substance mid-route.
Carriers set their own, stricter rules. Something lawful to move can still have no carrier willing to move it.
No, and in one respect it cuts the other way. The Acting Attorney General signed the final order on April 23rd, 2026, effective April 28th. It moved two narrow categories to Schedule III: marijuana in an FDA-approved drug product, and marijuana held under a qualifying state medical marijuana licence. Adult-use marijuana stayed in Schedule I, and a hearing on broader rescheduling ran from June 29th to July 15th, 2026 with no final rule yet.
Synthetically derived THC was expressly excluded and stays in Schedule I, so converted cannabinoids gain nothing from it. The order did not authorize interstate commerce, which still requires an act of Congress, and card networks did not change their rules.
It also added a federal obligation. Every entity that handles covered marijuana, other than the end user, must now hold a DEA registration, and the order created an expedited pathway for state medical licensees to get one. That makes a licensed operator's supply chain federally registered as well as state-tracked, which narrows rather than widens what they can lawfully take in.
Bills exist and none has passed. The Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act (S. 3474) would allow 5 mg of THC per serving and expressly permit interstate commerce while letting states ban sales. The Hemp Safety Enforcement Act (S. 4315) and the Lawful Hemp Protection Act (H.R. 9830) contain similar interstate language. All remain in committee, and the White House has said it will not seek a further delay.
Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code denies deductions to a business trafficking in a Schedule I controlled substance. Whether unsold inventory is a clean write-off is not obvious once it changes status. Ask a certified public accountant who knows the industry before your date, not at filing.
The 2026 rescheduling relief from Section 280E runs to state-licensed medical marijuana operators, not to a retailer holding hemp inventory that becomes a controlled substance on its date. Treasury was encouraged to consider retroactive relief for those same licensees; nothing in the order reaches your shelves.
The free checker on the main page reads a product description, a label photo or a catalog and tells you whether November 12th, December 11th or no date applies. Knowing each product's date tells you how much time you have to move it.
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