1.5 Business Licensing, Customer Information, and Restricted-Use Pesticide Dealer Records

Why the Business Layer Exists

An individual license under ATCP 29.25 authorizes a person. It says nothing about the company that dispatches that person, owns the rigs, buys the chemical in bulk, and answers the phone when a neighbor's tomatoes turn yellow. Wisconsin therefore licenses the business separately, under Wis. Stat. § 94.703 and subch. V of ch. ATCP 29.

For the exam, hold three ideas apart:

1. ATCP 29.20 — Commercial application business; license. The company's permission to operate, issued per location.
2. ATCP 29.21 — Commercial application business; records. What the company must keep.
3. ATCP 29.22 — Commercial application business; information to customers. What the company must tell the person who hired it.

The Pesticide Business License

Two of those rows are worth memorizing together. "Bulk pesticide" means liquid pesticide in a container larger than 55 gallons, or solid pesticide in undivided quantities greater than 100 pounds. And the 1,500-pound remote-site threshold is the same number that triggers mandatory spill containment under ATCP 29.45(1)(b) — Wisconsin uses one throughput figure to decide both "you need containment here" and "this site is its own licensed business location."

The ACCP surcharge on all of these licenses funds the Agricultural Chemical Cleanup Program, which reimburses certain costs of cleaning up agricultural chemical spills and discharges. DATCP resets the surcharge every May 1 based on the balance in the cleanup fund, which is why the surcharge has been $0 in some past years and $5, $10, or $20 in others. Expect an exam question to test the mechanism — annual reset based on fund balance — rather than a specific year's number.

What the Business Owes the Customer

ATCP 29.22 is the customer-information rule, and it interlocks with the notice rules elsewhere in ch. ATCP 29:

• Before a residential structural application, the business must offer pre-application information under ATCP 29.51(3) and ATCP 29.55(2).
• Before the first landscape application, the business must offer pre-application information under ATCP 29.51(4)(a) and ATCP 29.56(2): the brand, product, or common chemical name of the pesticides that may be used, copies of the labels on request, and the application date.
• After the application, the business supplies the information required by ATCP 29.22.

Notice the verb in the rule: the business must offer the pre-application information. The customer may decline it. What the business may not do is skip the offer.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|          THREE RECORD SETS, THREE DIFFERENT RULES                           |
|                                                                             |
|   ATCP 29.33 ---> The INDIVIDUAL applicator's application record            |
|                   Made the DAY of application, kept 2 years                  |
|                                                                             |
|   ATCP 29.21 ---> The BUSINESS's application records                        |
|                   Relieves the individual of 29.33 retention when kept       |
|                                                                             |
|   ATCP 29.16 ---> The DEALER's restricted-use pesticide SALES records       |
|                   Traces who bought which RUP, and on what credential        |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The link between the first two is explicit in the rule text. ATCP 29.33(1) says the licensed individual must keep the record for at least two years "unless the individual is employed by a commercial application business that keeps the record" under the business records rule. This is a genuine exam trap: the individual is never relieved of making the record on the day of application, only of retaining it personally when the employer retains it instead.

Restricted-Use Pesticide Dealers

Selling an RUP is itself a licensed activity. Wis. Stat. § 94.685 and ATCP 29.15 require a Restricted Use Pesticide Dealer license, and ATCP 29.16 requires pesticide sales records.

The practical consequence for an applicator is simple and heavily tested: a dealer may not hand you a restricted-use pesticide unless you produce a valid certification in a category that covers the intended use, and the dealer must record that sale. If your certification has lapsed, the purchase stops at the counter — which is a very visible way to discover that your five years ran out.

Retail Display and Sale Rules

ATCP 29.41 governs how pesticides may be sold, and several of its provisions apply to anyone who stocks product, not just to big-box retailers. No person may sell a pesticide that is unregistered, has an absent or illegible label, is in a visibly broken or improperly sealed container, is sold for a use not on the label or on supplemental labeling handed to the buyer at the time of sale, or is sold after its registration expires or is cancelled.

Two child-safety provisions in ATCP 29.41(2) are commonly tested:

• Pesticides bearing POISON, DANGER, or WARNING must be protected from access by children when displayed at retail. A display complies if the products are kept at least 42 inches above the floor, or are packaged in nonbreakable tamper-resistant containers.
• Displayed pesticides must be adequately separated from food, feed, and other products so they cannot contaminate or be mistaken for them.

ATCP 29.41(3) adds a landscape-specific duty: a retailer selling a landscape pesticide to anyone other than a certified commercial applicator must display, and offer free of charge at the point of sale, both the warning signs described in ch. ATCP 29 Appendix F — at least 4 inches by 5 inches, professionally printed in red lettering on white, and built to stay legible for at least 72 hours outdoors — and the pesticide information sheets shown in ch. ATCP 29 Appendix G. That is how a homeowner ends up with the same style of lawn sign a commercial applicator must post.

Product Registration

Finally, every pesticide product distributed in Wisconsin must be registered with DATCP in addition to being federally registered by EPA. For the 2026 registration year, household and industrial products cost $500 per product per year and non-household products cost $515, which includes a required $15 ACCP surcharge; the non-household fee rises to $530 on January 1, 2027. FIFRA Section 25(b) minimum-risk products carry no fee but still must be registered, and unregistered minimum-risk products found for sale at retail draw a $250 penalty. Applicators do not file these registrations, but they are expected to know that "EPA-registered" and "legal to use in Wisconsin" are two different statements.