Cannacurio #111: 2025 Q1 Licensing Round-Up

The year began with a new president in the White House and a stalled rescheduling process. Some M&A is occurring, while Gold Flora and others slip into receivership; and ancillaries like Blinc declare bankruptcy. Despite that tumult, new licenses are still being issued and replaced throughout the country.  

Key Findings

• 1,286 new licenses were issued for all activities in Q1 2025, down (-17.5%) from 1,560 in Q12024.
• There were 39,427 active cannabis licenses, imperceptibly down from 39,755 from YE24.
• 30 states issued at least one license this quarter.

Cultivation, Manufacturing and Store licenses accounted for 91% of new licenses issued in 2024. The chart below shows that the ratio from 2024 barely changed in the first quarter.

• Cultivation licenses increased from 54% to 56% of the total
• Stores were down one point to 29% from 30%
• Manufacturing held steady at 15%

The Grow licenses appear larger due to the reissued/renewed Oklahoma grow licenses that show up as new on the state sources. In this quarter there were no significant spikes for these three activities.

The Grow licenses appear larger due to the reissued/renewed Oklahoma grow licenses that show up as new on the state sources. In this quarter there were no significant spikes for these three activities.

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Here is the Leaderboard by state for Q12025 with New York in the lead. This table includes all licensed activities:

New York’s newly issued license was from a variety of activities while all 248 of Oklahoma’s were for cultivation licenses.

In looking at the number of facilities in the last twelve months for cultivation, stores, and manufacturing – the industry has been pretty flat on a national basis:

Activities

While there are many types of licenses in the cannabis ecosystem, cultivation, manufacturing and stores make up about 90% of the licenses issued – and they are universally licensed in all jurisdictions.  In the next section we’ll look at these activities for Q1 2025.

Cultivation

The seed to sale value chain starts with plants in the ground and many observers and analysts track this license to gauge how the supply and price of cannabis will move. These licenses are the source of the oversupply that affects some states (Michigan) or undersupply (Connecticut).

There were 637 cultivation licenses issued in the quarter. If we ignore these 243 Oklahoma renewal licenses, that means the rest of the country only added 394 cultivation licenses.  

Cultivation Key Points

• 637 cultivation licenses were issued in Q1 2025. 243 were issued as renewals under Oklahoma’s moratorium.  This is down (-14.6%) from the 746 issued nationwide last year in Q12024.
• California issued 155 new cultivation licenses with Oregon trailing at 54
• There are 18,218 active cultivation licenses nationwide down from 18,755 at YE 2024

The graph below shows the trailing 12 months of new cultivation license issuance.  The trend is downward with and without the renewals from Oklahoma.

Here is the Q1 2025 Cultivation Leaderboard.  Both Oklahoma and Oregon have active moratoriums so these numbers include renewals, change of ownership and license sales.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing licenses continued to be the least volatile activity in terms of new license issuance.  We tallied 173 new licenses in Q1 2025 with New York, Michigan and Vermont atop the leaderboard.

Manufacturing Key Points

• Only 173 new manufacturing licenses were issued in Q1 2025, down from 208 (-17%) last year.
• New York led and issued 86 (50%) with Michigan in the second spot with 17 (10%)
• Only 15 states issued licenses for this activity in Q1

Dispensary/Retail

Stores, or doors, are a key retail metric for the industry. Cannabiz Media accounts for medical licenses as Dispensaries and adult licenses as Retailers.  This definition, while convenient, is being tested as companies like Curaleaf take one of their Florida dispensaries and configure it to sell hemp products. They join the other 11,148 hemp retailers already licensed in the Sunshine State.  In some states smoke and vape shops are selling a wide variety of products that are a substitute for purchases at licensed cannabis establishments. This makes the “door” count vast and confusing.

Dispensary/Retail Key Points

• 337 new store licenses were issued in Q1 2025, way down from 566 (-40%) in Q1 2024
• 27 states issued new store licenses in the quarter
• There are 13,184 total active licenses at 12,539 stores

In the Store Leaderboard, New York held onto their leadership position from Q4 2024 and accounted for almost one third of all new store licenses nationwide.

Conclusion

The first quarter of 2025 was a quiet one. New York continued their reign in the top spot from last year by issuing 22% of the new licenses.  Meanwhile industry watchers have been monitoring Kentucky, Delaware and Minnesota as the next jurisdictions to come on line.  There have even been discussions in places like Indiana and Kansas as possible future states that may legalize.

Rescheduling has been the source of occasional leaks, press releases and new bills.  Most pundits and industry observers urge caution as this is not a priority for the current administration.

In our next post, we’ll review the retailer/dispensary landscape.

Author

Ed Keating is a co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees the company’s data research and government relations efforts. He has spent his career working with and advising information companies in the compliance space. Ed has managed product, marketing, and sales while overseeing complex multi-jurisdictional product lines in the securities, corporate, UCC, safety, environmental, and human resource markets.  

At Cannabiz Media, Ed enjoys the challenge of working with regulators across the globe as he and his team gather corporate, financial, and license information to track the people, products, and businesses in the cannabis economy.  

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

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