Who regulates cannabis retail in Montana?

Montana Department of Revenue Cannabis and Alcohol Regulation Division (CARD) is the state cannabis regulator for Montana. Official site: https://revenue.mt.gov/card/cannabis/.

What seed-to-sale track-and-trace system does Montana use?

Montana uses METRC (Franwell) for seed-to-sale traceability — the de-facto standard across most regulated states. CannAgent maps its inventory and transfer events to METRC's required fields.

What cannabis taxes apply to retail in Montana?

20% adult-use cannabis tax (MCA §15-64-102) — applied at retail. 4% medical cannabis tax — separate lane, materially lower than adult-use. Both apply to gross retail receipts. 0% — Montana has NO state general sales tax. The 20% / 4% cannabis tax is the only state tax line. Counties and municipalities may impose up to 3% local cannabis tax, each via a vote of the electorate (HB 701, 2021). Auto-derived per store address; about half of Montana counties (roughly 26 of 56 as of late 2024) have adopted some variant. Combined adult-use stack 20-23% depending on jurisdiction.

Is CannAgent available for Montana dispensaries?

Regulatory-summary coverage for Montana is live; engineering capacity opens as operator demand lands. Join the waitlist on this page to signal interest for MT.

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CARD

Montana CCD-aware dispensary platform

Native compliance hooks for Montana Department of Revenue Cannabis and Alcohol Regulation Division rules. METRC traceability, 20% adult-use cannabis tax + 4% medical tax + variable local up to 3%, CARD reconciliation cadence, and the green-county / red-county opt-in/opt-out topology Montana uniquely operates under.

Regulator

Montana Department of Revenue Cannabis and Alcohol Regulation Division (CARD)

https://revenue.mt.gov/card/cannabis/ ↗

We re-check this regulatormonthly— stable rules, low expected churn

Statutes that bite

Citation	Subject
MCA Title 16, Ch. 12	Montana Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (I-190, 2020)
MCA Title 50, Ch. 46	Montana Medical Marijuana Act
ARM 42.39	DOR Cannabis Control Division administrative rules
MCA §15-64-102	20% adult-use cannabis tax + 4% medical cannabis tax statute

Tax stack

Excise

20% adult-use cannabis tax (MCA §15-64-102) — applied at retail. 4% medical cannabis tax — separate lane, materially lower than adult-use. Both apply to gross retail receipts.

Sales / Use

0% — Montana has NO state general sales tax. The 20% / 4% cannabis tax is the only state tax line.

Local option

Counties and municipalities may impose up to 3% local cannabis tax, each via a vote of the electorate (HB 701, 2021). Auto-derived per store address; about half of Montana counties (roughly 26 of 56 as of late 2024) have adopted some variant. Combined adult-use stack 20-23% depending on jurisdiction.

Compliance topics surfaced in-platform

Age 21+ adult-use / 18+ medical patient ID verification with split lanes
METRC tag handoff + manifest reconciliation per ARM 42.39
Patient registry lookup hook (Montana Medical Marijuana Patient ID)
Daily inventory reconciliation export shaped for CCD record-keeping
Green-county / red-county opt-in/opt-out tracking — under I-190, counties that voted FOR the initiative are automatically opted IN to adult-use sales (green counties, and may later vote to opt out) while counties that voted AGAINST it are opted OUT (red counties, and may vote to opt in); county-by-county license-validity flagging is a Montana-unique compliance topic

What ships on day-1 for MT

Adult-use + medical product lanes with separate tax stacks (20% vs 4%)
0% state sales tax handling with optional county 0-3% stack derivation
Green-county-vs-red-county license-validity flagging (Montana-unique)
METRC-shaped inventory + sale receipt mirror
Daily reconciliation report (auto-runs at close)
Manager write-up assistant configurable to MT labor + CCD rule taxonomy

We serve here — honestly

We don’t operate stores in Montana. We do follow CARD bulletins, the green-county-vs-red-county opt-in/opt-out topology under I-190 (most multi-state POS skip this), the medical-vs-adult-use 4-vs-20 tax split, the no-state-sales-tax framework, and the METRC-cadence reconciliation requirements. CannAgent ships MT support with the same compliance discipline we apply to WSLCB — and we’ll say it directly when something’s off.

Operator playbooks

Compliance ops playbook

State traceability reconciliation — the daily, weekly, monthly discipline

Buyer scorecard

Picking a cannabis POS: the 7-question scorecard

Migration playbook

POS migration: a 4-week playbook for cannabis dispensaries

Operations deep-dive

Cash discipline at a cannabis dispensary: variance, escalation, audit

Montana cannabis retail — common questions

Who regulates cannabis retail in Montana?: Montana Department of Revenue Cannabis and Alcohol Regulation Division (CARD) is the state cannabis regulator for Montana. Official site: https://revenue.mt.gov/card/cannabis/.
What seed-to-sale track-and-trace system does Montana use?: Montana uses METRC (Franwell) for seed-to-sale traceability — the de-facto standard across most regulated states. CannAgent maps its inventory and transfer events to METRC's required fields.
What cannabis taxes apply to retail in Montana?: 20% adult-use cannabis tax (MCA §15-64-102) — applied at retail. 4% medical cannabis tax — separate lane, materially lower than adult-use. Both apply to gross retail receipts. 0% — Montana has NO state general sales tax. The 20% / 4% cannabis tax is the only state tax line. Counties and municipalities may impose up to 3% local cannabis tax, each via a vote of the electorate (HB 701, 2021). Auto-derived per store address; about half of Montana counties (roughly 26 of 56 as of late 2024) have adopted some variant. Combined adult-use stack 20-23% depending on jurisdiction.
Is CannAgent available for Montana dispensaries?: Regulatory-summary coverage for Montana is live; engineering capacity opens as operator demand lands. Join the waitlist on this page to signal interest for MT.

See it on your MT data.

30-minute demo on a sandbox shaped like your store. End the call with a fixed-scope quote and a MT-aware cutover plan.

Request a demo →See the full feature set