Certified Pesticide Applicator 2026: Federal Rules and RUPs

What is a certified pesticide applicator?

Federal law sorts certified applicators into two kinds. If you apply pesticides to produce an agricultural commodity on land you or your employer own or rent, you’re a private applicator. Anyone else is a commercial applicator. You must be certified in each state, territory and area of Indian country where you apply RUPs, and your state may require certification for other work too.

Commercial pesticide applicator license →Private pesticide applicator license →

What are restricted use pesticides?

EPA classifies the most acutely toxic pesticides, or those needing special care, as RUPs. They aren’t sold to or used by the general public, only by a certified applicator or someone under one’s direct supervision. EPA’s RUP report lists every active restricted use registration by product, company and active ingredient; the copy on its page is dated March 6, 2025.

No product named Roundup is on that report. Glyphosate appears once, in Syngenta’s Expert Herbicide, alongside atrazine and S-metolachlor.

EPA: Restricted Use Products (RUP) Report ↗

Working under a certified applicator

Be at least 18, or 16 on a family farm under a private applicator who is an immediate family member, but not with fumigants, sodium cyanide or sodium fluoroacetate, or from the air.
Have training within the last 12 months: the Part 171 program, Worker Protection Standard handler training, or a state program at least as strict.
Have been shown how to use the equipment safely within the last 12 months.
Get site- and product-specific instructions, the label, clean protective equipment and a way to reach the certified applicator at once.
The certified applicator must be on site when the label says so, and commercial applicators keep records of each helper’s qualifications.

These are the federal requirements for a noncertified applicator, in 40 CFR 171.201. States can add their own: Iowa, for example, limits work under direct supervision to the first 21 days of employment.

The 2017 rule and state certification plans

The revised Certification of Pesticide Applicators rule set a minimum age of 18, a maximum recertification interval of five years, separate certifications for fumigation and aerial application, and training for noncertified applicators. Section 171.5 still gives March 6, 2017 as its effective date, but EPA’s Federal Register notices delayed it. The key dates:

January 4, 2017: EPA publishes the revised rule
May 22, 2018: effective date after EPA’s delays
March 4, 2020: revised plans due
November 4, 2023: latest date an old plan stayed in effect

Under 40 CFR 171.5, a plan sent in on time kept the old plan in effect until EPA approved or rejected the revision, or until November 4, 2023, whichever came first. That end date was first March 4, 2022, which is the “original March 4, 2022 deadline” on EPA’s page. It was moved twice, the last time in August 2022.

State changes: Washington’s new rules →State changes: New York’s plan →

Sources: EPA · eCFR · IDALS and 7 more. Checked October 2026.