Regulation on the Wholesale and Retail Sale and Storage of Plant Protection Products

The Regulation on the Wholesale and Retail Sale and Storage of Plant Protection Products was prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and published in Official Gazette No. 33106 of 13 December 2025. It sets out the rules for the wholesale or retail sale, storage and prescribing of plant protection products approved by the Ministry, and for the persons who carry out these activities (Article 1). It entered into force thirty days after publication (Article 53) and repealed the previous regulation published in Official Gazette No. 30685 of 13 February 2019 (Article 52). Its legal basis is Law No. 5996 on Veterinary Services, Plant Health, Food and Feed (Article 3).

Which activities and persons does the Regulation cover?

The Regulation covers sale, storage, distribution, the issuing of prescriptions, record keeping, the characteristics of sales premises, and their opening, operation, relocation, transfer and closure, as well as official control (Article 2). It applies to dealers, wholesalers, storage operators, persons authorised to write prescriptions and licence-holding companies.

Placing on the market and selling plant protection products that the Ministry has not licensed is prohibited, and products may only be sold and stored at permitted premises (Article 5). Wholesale is carried out by holders of a wholesaler permit and retail by holders of a dealer permit; the only exception is licence-holding companies selling their own products to wholesalers or dealers (Article 6).

What are the main obligations of dealers, wholesalers and licence holders?

The Regulation sets out separate duties for each group (Articles 21, 22 and 24). The main obligations are the following:

• Products subject to the QR-code requirement may not be taken into or released from stock without being reported to the Ministry’s plant protection product tracking system.
• Products that the Ministry has made available by prescription only may not be sold without a prescription, and prescription records are kept for five years.
• Counterfeit and smuggled products, and products that are not approved, are banned or whose use has been terminated, may not be kept or sold on the premises.
• Premises and warehouses are open to inspection by control officers, who must be shown the records and given the samples they request.

What happens to expired or recalled products?

Dealers and wholesalers must return to their supplier, within thirty days at the latest, products that the Ministry has ordered to be withdrawn from the market, for example because their use has been ended or banned or a batch has been cancelled, as well as products past their expiry date (Articles 21 and 22). Where return is not possible within thirty days because the company has closed or because of a legal dispute, the products are destroyed within one year at the latest, with the knowledge of the provincial directorate and after being placed in custody and recorded.

A licence-holding company collects expired products from the market within thirty days at the latest and has them destroyed within one year at the latest, with the knowledge of the provincial directorate; the same periods apply to products the Ministry has ordered to be recalled (Article 24). Returns, and the destruction of expired or spoiled products, must be reported to the tracking system (Article 37).

What does it mean for destruction and recycling?

Destruction is carried out under the supervision of the Ministry, at the owner’s expense; where products are seized without an owner, the Ministry bears the cost (Article 49). If the owner or the responsible person fails to recall products that must be recalled, the Ministry recalls them and gives one month to pay twice the cost of the recall; amounts not paid in time are collected under Law No. 6183.

The same article states that products whose use has been terminated, whose sale has been suspended as risky, that do not conform to the specification on which approval was based, or that are past their expiry date are to be recalled from the market. The Regulation does not detail the method of destruction; other matters concerning recall and destruction are determined by the Ministry. It contains no separate rules on packaging waste or recycling.

What should be watched in practice?

Products that are expired, unapproved, unlabelled, or suspected or found to be counterfeit or smuggled may be placed in custody by control officers (Article 48). Breaches attract the administrative sanctions in Article 39 of Law No. 5996 (Article 45), and keeping or selling banned, discontinued, counterfeit or smuggled products is a ground for cancelling a dealer or wholesaler permit (Article 47).

A dealer or wholesaler who wishes to pause activity has the permit suspended on condition that stock is returned or placed in custody (Article 29). Under Provisional Article 1, existing permitted premises must bring their physical conditions, other than floor area, into line by 31 December 2028. Keeping return, destruction and tracking-system records in order, and meeting the deadlines, is therefore important.