On September 16, 2026, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) opened public consultation on a draft Negative List for Online Pesticide Sales (2026 Edition), issued by its Department of Crop Management under Circular Nong Nong (Pesticide) [2026] No. 51. Once adopted, the list would prohibit the domestic internet sale of every pesticide product it names, with a single carve-out for products used solely as hygiene pesticides. Comments are due September 30, 2026.
The move targets a sales channel that China's existing pesticide regime already licenses but cannot easily police at scale. It does not change what counts as a registered pesticide; it changes which registered products may move through e-commerce listings inside the People's Republic of China. The official notice and draft attachment are published on MARA's crop-management bulletin page.
What would the negative list prohibit, and what stays exempt?
The draft would make it unlawful to sell any listed pesticide product over the internet anywhere in the People's Republic of China. The single express exemption is for products used solely as hygiene pesticides, a category that covers household insecticide products rather than agricultural crop-protection chemicals.
The prohibition is a channel restriction layered on top of the existing licensing regime, not a replacement for it. A pesticide must already be registered with the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals (ICAMA) before any production or sale, and any operator, online or offline, must hold a pesticide operation license issued under the Measures for Pesticide Operation Licensing. The specific products covered are enumerated in the draft attachment, Internet Pesticide Business Negative List (2026 Edition), which affected sellers should review line by line against their live catalogs.
Who must act, and what is the compliance deadline?
Licensed pesticide distributors and e-commerce platforms operating in China, pesticide manufacturers selling through online channels, and the third-party marketplaces that host pesticide listings all fall in scope. Written comments must reach MARA's Department of Crop Management by September 30, 2026.
The consultation is addressed to every provincial agriculture department, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and the two industry bodies that represent the supply chain: the China Crop Protection Industry Association and the China Pesticide Development and Application Association. Feedback can be sent by email to [email protected], by fax to 010-59191875, or by post to the Department of Crop Management, MARA, No. 11 Nongzhanguan Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100125. Multinational crop-protection firms selling into the PRC through Chinese distributors or platforms should confirm that their local counterpart is aware of the draft and is submitting comments.
How does this fit China's existing pesticide regime?
The list does not create pesticide regulation from scratch. It sits on top of the Regulations on Pesticide Administration (State Council Order No. 677, effective 2017, as amended by Order No. 752 in 2022), which already require registration, production licensing and operation licensing. China's regime already separates out restricted-use pesticides (限制使用农药) that face tighter sales controls; the negative-list mechanism extends that supervision specifically to the online channel, where verifying a seller's license and keeping restricted-use products off open listings is hardest. Food residue limits sit in a separate but related instrument, the GB 2763 national standard for maximum residue limits.
| Stage | What happens | Indicative timing |
|---|---|---|
| Consultation (征求意见) | MARA collects written comments from provinces, associations and firms | by September 30, 2026 |
| Finalization and adoption | MARA reviews comments and settles the listed products | after the comment window closes |
| Publication and entry into force | The finalized list takes effect; online sale of listed products becomes prohibited | set by the adopted instrument |
Continuous, per-jurisdiction monitoring surfaces a consultation like this the moment MARA publishes it, before the window to comment closes.
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Three actions are time-sensitive. Submit written comments by September 30, 2026 if the draft attachment covers products you manufacture or distribute, because the consultation is the only formal moment to challenge the scope before adoption. Map your online product catalog against the draft attachment and flag any listed SKUs for delisting preparation, so that the day the finalized list takes effect your marketplace listings are already clean. Verify that every seller on your platform holds a valid pesticide operation license (农药经营许可证) and that restricted-use pesticides are not reachable through open online search, since both are the compliance baseline MARA is tightening against. Brief regulatory affairs and e-commerce operations teams together, and track MARA's crop-management bulletin for the finalized list and its effective date. Obsidian follows this jurisdictional pipeline as it develops.
