Everything below is real. You can’t buy it here yet.
The MT regulator, statutes, tax stack and track-and-trace on this page are researched and current. We can set up stores in Washington and Arizona today, and MTis not one of them — so there is nothing to sign up for here, and we won’t pretend otherwise. (Washington’s CCRS is still the only track-and-trace we have integrated; Arizona mandates none, which is why it could open without one. A state that mandates one needs that adapter built first.)
CARD
Montana CARD-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/ ↗Statutes that bite
| Citation | Subject |
|---|---|
| MCA Title 16, Ch. 12 | Montana Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (I-190, 2020) |
| MCA Title 16, Ch. 12, Part 5 | Medical marijuana — the standalone Title 50 chapter is repealed and terminated; medical sits in Part 5 of the unified Marijuana Regulation and Taxation chapter |
| ARM 42.39 | DOR Cannabis and Alcohol Regulation 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(2)) and 4% medical cannabis tax (§15-64-102(1)) — separate lanes, medical materially lower. Both are imposed on the RETAIL PRICE, which §15-64-101(10) defines as the price charged “AFTER ANY DISCOUNT OR REDUCTION” — so discounts come off before the tax, not after. And §15-64-102(3) imposes both ON THE PURCHASER, collected at the time of sale and remitted by the seller: the dispensary is the collector, not the taxpayer.
Sales / Use
0% — Montana has NO state general sales tax. The 20% / 4% cannabis tax is the only state tax line.
Local option
COUNTIES only may impose the local-option marijuana excise tax, up to 3%, by a vote of their electorate. MCA 16-12-309 "specifically delegate[s] to the qualified electors of a COUNTY the power to authorize their county to impose a local-option marijuana excise tax" — municipalities have no such power and appear in the statute as revenue RECIPIENTS: 16-12-310(3)(b) apportions 45% of the county's take to the municipalities within it. And the tax reaches BOTH lanes: 16-12-310(2) taxes "all marijuana and marijuana products sold at an adult-use dispensary OR MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY within a county", so a medical sale in an adopting county pays 4% + up to 3%, not 4% alone. We confirm your county's rate with you at onboarding; roughly 26 of 56 counties have adopted one. Combined stack 20-23% adult-use, 4-7% medical.
Compliance topics surfaced in-platform
- Age 21+ adult-use / 18+ medical patient ID verification with split lanes — for a minor the custodial parent or legal guardian agrees to control the acquisition, dosage and frequency, and undertakes that the minor will use only products intended for a means other than smoking; the registry statement records WHETHER that guardian will be obtaining product through licensed dispensaries; and a second physician's certification is required unless the treating physician is an oncologist, neurologist or epileptologist (MCA 16-12-508(2), (4))
- METRC tag handoff + manifest reconciliation per ARM 42.39
- Patient registry lookup hook (Montana Medical Marijuana Patient ID)
- Daily inventory reconciliation export shaped for CARD 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 CannAgent is built toward for MT
- Adult-use + medical lanes with separate tax stacks — 20% vs 4% at the state level, and the county local-option excise (up to 3%) rides on BOTH under MCA 16-12-310(2), so the medical lane is 4-7% in an adopting county rather than a flat 4%
- 0% state sales tax handling, with the optional COUNTY 0-3% rate confirmed with you at onboarding — counties are the only Montana jurisdictions that can levy it (MCA 16-12-309); a municipality receives an apportionment but cannot impose its own
- 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 + CARD rule taxonomy
Coverage here — honestly
Montana coverage is written against CARD rules: the 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. We keep it current as CARD moves, and where something isn’t built for MT yet we say so before you sign.
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(2)) and 4% medical cannabis tax (§15-64-102(1)) — separate lanes, medical materially lower. Both are imposed on the RETAIL PRICE, which §15-64-101(10) defines as the price charged “AFTER ANY DISCOUNT OR REDUCTION” — so discounts come off before the tax, not after. And §15-64-102(3) imposes both ON THE PURCHASER, collected at the time of sale and remitted by the seller: the dispensary is the collector, not the taxpayer. 0% — Montana has NO state general sales tax. The 20% / 4% cannabis tax is the only state tax line. COUNTIES only may impose the local-option marijuana excise tax, up to 3%, by a vote of their electorate. MCA 16-12-309 "specifically delegate[s] to the qualified electors of a COUNTY the power to authorize their county to impose a local-option marijuana excise tax" — municipalities have no such power and appear in the statute as revenue RECIPIENTS: 16-12-310(3)(b) apportions 45% of the county's take to the municipalities within it. And the tax reaches BOTH lanes: 16-12-310(2) taxes "all marijuana and marijuana products sold at an adult-use dispensary OR MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY within a county", so a medical sale in an adopting county pays 4% + up to 3%, not 4% alone. We confirm your county's rate with you at onboarding; roughly 26 of 56 counties have adopted one. Combined stack 20-23% adult-use, 4-7% medical.
- Is CannAgent available for Montana dispensaries?
- Regulatory-summary coverage for Montana is current; engineering capacity opens as operator demand lands. There is no MT queue to join yet — read the rules here, and come back when you want a second opinion on a MT question.
Other states
Washington
Colorado
California
Oregon
Michigan
New Jersey
New York
Massachusetts
Illinois
Missouri
Nevada
Arizona
Maryland
Oklahoma
Connecticut
Maine
Rhode Island
New Mexico
Vermont
Minnesota
Delaware
Alaska
Ohio
We know Montana’s rules. We don’t sell here yet.
Everything above is researched against the CARD and kept current. We can only set up stores in Washington and Arizona today, so there is no quote to give you and no queue to join. Read the rules, keep the page, and come back when you want a second opinion on MT.