Cannacurio No. 104: Best list for cultivation 2024 Q3

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Following our recent overview of third quarter licensing, we now look at cultivation licenses issued in the third quarter of 2024. These snapshots, derived from our Cannabiz Business Intelligence platform, show where new licenses are being created and the total number of licenses and facilities in the US.

Key findings

1. Eighteen states added cultivation licenses, up from 14 in the second quarter
2. Regulators issued 688 cultivation licenses in the third quarter, up from 1,000 in the second quarter
3. Five states accounted for 84% of these new licenses – Michigan accounted for 48%.
4. California leads the nation with 5,054 active cultivation licenses

The table below is a snapshot of the quarter-end new cultivation licenses added monthly in the third quarter for the top 10 states. The full list of issuing states can be found on our Cannabis Market Intelligence platform www.cannabiz.media.

Key markets

Michigan was the top driver of new cultivation licenses in 2024, issuing 1,171 new licenses in the past 12 months, surpassing California's 355 in the same period.

It is interesting to compare the total number of cultivation licenses between Oklahoma and Michigan. The following graphic shows the changes in recent years. Oklahoma's moratorium and regulatory efforts continue to have a profound impact on the state's condition.

California

California ended the quarter with 5,054 licenses, a slight decrease from the 5,167 in the second quarter (-2.1%). Facilities, which we define as companies with multiple licenses at one location, also decreased slightly, from 3,087 to 2,984 (-3.3%).

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The chart below shows the relationship between California's cultivation licenses and facilities over the past 12 months. The line chart shows the average licenses per facility, which remained within a narrow range of 1.76 to 1.66 licenses per facility over this time. Part of this decline may be due to the Large Indoor and Large Outdoor licenses issued in the last 18 months. California now has 61 active wholesale licenses, up from 59 last quarter. 50 of these are outdoor – unchanged from the second quarter.

Diploma

The rankings below show the top 10 states and the number of cultivation licenses we track. The statewide total decreased by 359 (2%) compared to the second quarter of 2024. The quarter ended with 17,445 active licenses and 12,759 facilities. The full list of issuing states can be found on our Cannabis Market Intelligence platform www.cannabiz.media.

The vast majority of cultivation licenses are still concentrated in a handful of states, with the top three controlling 64% of the market. The top 10 above account for 90% of cultivation licenses in the US.

Cannabiz Media customers can stay up to date on these and other new licenses through our newsletter, alerts and reporting modules. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive these weekly reports straight to your inbox. Or you can schedule a demo to get more information about how you can access the Cannabiz media license database yourself and dive deeper into this data.

author

Ed Keating is co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees the company's data research and government relations. Throughout his career, he has worked with and advised information companies in the compliance area. Ed has led product, marketing and sales while overseeing complex, multi-country product lines in securities, corporate, UCC, security, environmental and human resources.

At Cannabiz Media, Ed enjoys the challenge of working with regulators around the world as he and his team collect corporate, financial and licensing information to track the people, products and companies in the cannabis economy.

Ed graduated from Hamilton College and received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Northwestern University.

Cannacurio is a Cannabiz Media column featuring insights from the most comprehensive market intelligence platform. Check out Cannacurio posts and podcasts for the latest updates and information.