What will the costs be for a license?
The initial costs of a license at the state level include the application fee, the regulatory assessment. Additional costs at the state level are authorized under the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (MMFLA) and may be required. An applicant may also need to pay a fee to its municipality of up to $5000.
Any municipality fee is not determined or collected by BMMR, applicants will need to find out this information from their local municipality.
Section 401(5) of the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (MMFLA) requires the setting of application fee amounts for each category and class of license by rule.
State License Application Fee: The application fee is non-refundable and offsets the cost for LARA, the Michigan State Police (MSP), and/or contract costs for investigative services for conducting the background investigation of those applying for licenses.
The nonrefundable application fee, which must be submitted before an application will be processed, will be $6000.
State Annual Regulatory Assessment: The regulatory assessment is due prior to the issuance of each license and may vary depending on the number of licenses anticipated to be issued. The regulatory assessment does not apply to safety compliance facilities.
This assessment offsets operational costs and other statutory mandates including LARA’s costs to implement the act. It also offsets the cost of medical-marihuana-related services provided to LARA by the Michigan Attorney General’s office, MSP, and the Dept. of Treasury. By statute, the assessment must also provide $500,000 annually to LARA for licensing substance abuse disorder programs in addition to five percent of the other state departments’ costs to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for substance abuse-related expenses.
LARA is currently determining the annual regulatory assessment for fiscal year 2018 for each of the five license categories authorized by MMFLA. Grower A licenses are capped, by statute, at $10,000. Grower B-C, Processor, Transporter, and Provisioning Center licenses will be dependent on the number of total licenses subject to assessment and could be as low as $10,000 or as high as $57,000. The exact amounts of the regulatory assessments are not available at this time.
State Additional Costs: If required, the applicant may need to pay additional costs. The MMFLA authorizes the following:
- Late renewal fees as established by rule (Sec. 402(11))
- 3% tax on each provisioning center’s gross retail receipts (Sec. 601(1))
- Actual costs of investigation and processing that exceed the application fee paid by an applicant (Sec. 401(5))
