Florida’s Kratom Consumer Protection Act is five subsections long, one of which is the short title. It prohibits selling kratom to anyone under 21 and gives the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services power to make rules. It contains no labelling requirement, no potency limit and no purity standard.
The rules are where Florida’s kratom law actually lives. There are three of them, and between them they impose a permit, a fee, a mandatory label, an alkaloid ratio and a Schedule I prohibition on concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine. Two took effect in August 2026.
Reading section 500.92 and stopping would give a reader a badly wrong picture of what is lawful in Florida.
The statute
Section 500.92 of the Florida Statutes was enacted by chapter 2023-182, section 1. It sits in chapter 500, the state’s food law.
Subsection (1) gives the short title, the Florida Kratom Consumer Protection Act.
Subsection (2) defines a kratom product as a food product, food ingredient, dietary ingredient, dietary supplement or beverage intended for human consumption which contains any part of the leaf of the plant Mitragyna speciosa or an extract, synthetic alkaloid, or synthetically derived compound of such plant and is manufactured as a powder, capsule, pill, beverage or other edible form. Both halves have to be satisfied.
That definition is wider than most on the substance side. Where Utah excludes extracts from what may be sold, Florida writes extracts and synthetically derived compounds into the definition of the thing it regulates.
Subsection (3) makes it unlawful to sell, deliver, barter, furnish or give, directly or indirectly, any kratom product to a person under 21.
Subsection (4) makes a violation of subsection (3) a misdemeanour of the second degree, punishable as provided in sections 775.082 or 775.083. Those sections set the maximum at 60 days’ imprisonment and a $500 fine.
Subsection (5) says the department shall adopt rules to administer the section. “Department” in chapter 500 means the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, by section 500.03(1)(l).
Rule 5K-4.030: the permit, and everything around the sale
The department exercised that power. Rule 5K-4.030 of the Florida Administrative Code, headed Kratom Products, took effect on 10 January 2024.
A permit is required. Every establishment distributing products consisting of or containing kratom products must be permitted as a Food Establishment under section 500.12 and rule 5K-4.020. The annual permit fee for a food establishment distributing kratom products is $650.
Packaging and labelling. Kratom products must be packaged and labelled as chapter 500 requires. Neither the label nor the advertising may claim the product is intended for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease, which would make it a drug under 21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1); a product doing so is misbranded under section 500.03(1)(m). Manufacturers of kratom products, and any kratom product marketed or labelled as a dietary supplement, are subject to 21 CFR part 111, the federal dietary supplement good manufacturing practice rule.
The age limit is worked out in detail. A retailer selling kratom must post a sign directly next to the display reading, in these words: THE SALE OF KRATOM TO PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 21 IS PROHIBITED. PROOF OF AGE IS REQUIRED FOR PURCHASE. Kratom may not be mailed, shipped or delivered unless the establishment first confirms the purchaser is 21 or over. Proof of age must be required before sale. Self-service display is prohibited unless age has been verified before access. Sampling or giving kratom to anyone under 21 is prohibited. And kratom may not be sold from vending machines.
Penalties. A product distributed or sold in breach of the rule is treated as adulterated or misbranded under chapter 500, and may not be sold in the state. Violations draw stop-sale or stop-use orders, an administrative fine of up to $5,000 per violation, permit suspension, permit revocation, or any combination.
Emergency Rule 5KER26-11: what must be on the label
On 24 August 2026 the department made an emergency rule requiring two figures on every kratom product label.
The 7-OH concentration, in milligrams per gram for solids and milligrams per millilitre for liquids, identified as “7-Hydroxymitragynine”, “7-OH” or “7-Hydroxy”. Isomers, esters, ethers and salts present in the product must be listed individually. Where the concentration is below the method detection limit, that limit may be stated instead, provided the limit of quantitation is below 1 mg/g or 1 mg/mL.
The alkaloid ratio, being the mass of mitragynine to the mass of 7-OH, expressed in whole numbers. The rule gives its own worked example: a product over 5 g containing 500.2 mg of mitragynine and 0.9 mg of 7-OH is expressed as “Alkaloid Ratio 500 mg:1 mg”.
Both must be available to the customer before purchase, permanently affixed to the package or reachable through a permanently affixed QR code, printed clearly and conspicuously, not placed only on the bottom of the container, and if by QR code, reachable in three or fewer steps.
The rule also states that controlled substances do not meet the definition of a kratom product and are adulterants under section 500.10.
Concentrated 7-OH is a Schedule I controlled substance
This is the part a reader is most likely to get wrong, because it is not in chapter 500 and not in the printed drug schedule either.
Section 893.03 does not name kratom. We read it. There is no entry for kratom, Mitragyna speciosa, mitragynine or 7-hydroxymitragynine, the list renders its substances, and it is current: isotonitazene, metonitazene, protonitazene and para-fluorofentanyl are all in it, and its history line runs to 2026.
Section 893.03 is not the whole schedule. Section 893.035(7)(a) lets the Attorney General schedule a substance in Schedule I temporarily, by rule, on a finding that it is necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to public safety. Section 893.035(8)(a) then provides that on the effective date of such a rule the substance “shall be deemed included in that schedule, and all provisions of this chapter applicable to substances in that schedule shall be deemed applicable to such substance”.
Emergency Rule 2ER26-2 does exactly that. Its history line reads New 8-18-26, Supersedes 2ER26-1, so it has been in force since 18 August 2026. Under section 893.035 it adds to Schedule I, subsection 893.03(1)(a):
- 7-acetoxymitragynine;
- dihydro-7-hydroxymitragynine (MGM-15);
- 9-fluoro-7-hydroxymitragynine (MGM-16); and
- 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) itself, subject to the two conditions below.
The conditions are the whole point of the rule. No product may contain more than 1 milligram of 7-OH per gram for solids and powders, including capsules, or per millilitre for liquids, including beverages, extracts and tinctures. And any product containing 7-OH must contain at least 100 parts mitragynine for every one part of 7-OH by mass.
All provisions of chapter 893 applicable to Schedule I substances apply to them.
So the position in Florida is not that kratom is uncontrolled. Leaf and mitragynine are uncontrolled. Concentrated 7-OH is a Schedule I controlled substance, and a product that clears 1 mg/g, or that fails the 100:1 ratio, is outside the permitted range.
This is an emergency rule and it has a clock on it. Section 893.035(7)(b) disapplies the ordinary 90-day expiry for emergency rules, so it does not lapse the way most do. Instead section 893.035(9) requires the Attorney General to report to the Legislature by 1 March each year on rules made under the section, and each rule so reported expires on the following 30 June unless the Legislature adopts its provisions as an amendment to chapter 893.
Three substances were in the June rule and are not in the August one
2ER26-2 is the third rule in a chain. Its history line reads New 8-18-26, Supersedes 2ER26-1, and 2ER26-1’s reads New 6-22-26, Supersedes 2ER25-3. We read both of the 2026 rules in full, and the lists are not the same.
2ER26-1, in force from 22 June 2026, scheduled seven substances: 7-hydroxymitragynine, 9-hydroxycorynantheidine, 10-hydroxymitragynine, mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, 7-acetoxymitragynine, MGM-15 and MGM-16.
2ER26-2, in force from 18 August 2026, schedules four: 7-acetoxymitragynine, MGM-15 and MGM-16 flatly, and 7-hydroxymitragynine subject to the two conditions above.
So 9-hydroxycorynantheidine, 10-hydroxymitragynine and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl appear in the June rule and not in the August one that replaced it. We report that because it is what the two instruments say. We are not going to tell you why, whether it was intended, or what it means for those three substances now, and there are two reasons for the caution.
First, Florida’s controlled substance analog provision at section 893.0356 catches a substance whose chemical structure is substantially similar to a Schedule I or II substance and whose potential for abuse is similar or greater. Whether that reaches any of the three is a question about chemistry and about a statutory test, and it is not ours to answer.
Second, the timing is worth knowing rather than interpreting: the DEA placed mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16 into federal Schedule I by temporary order on 26 August 2026, eight days after the Florida rule that dropped the first of those three.
Anyone relying on this page for one of those three compounds needs a Florida lawyer. We checked on 2 September 2026 and found no rule later than 2ER26-2.
Federal scheduling does not reach Florida on its own
We read the rest of the chapter to establish this rather than leaving it open. Nothing in chapter 893 makes a federally scheduled substance automatically controlled in Florida.
Section 893.0355 is the only provision that tracks federal scheduling, and it runs one way only: it lets the Attorney General reschedule a substance downward or delete it, giving great weight to federal rules, on a finding that reduced control is in the public interest. Section 893.035(11) separately requires that federal interpretations be given “due consideration and great weight”, which is a rule of construction and not a route into the schedule.
A substance therefore enters Florida’s Schedule I in one of three ways: the Legislature amends section 893.03, the Attorney General makes a rule under section 893.035, or it is caught as an analog under section 893.0356. Maryland’s law works differently and the difference matters: its Criminal Law section 5-202(f)(1) makes a federal designation controlling in Maryland unless the department objects.
One county is different, and we have not read its ordinance
Section 500.92 contains no clause preempting local regulation. We have not worked out what section 500.12(5), which preempts regulatory and permitting authority over food establishments to the department, does to a county ordinance aimed at drug abuse rather than at food, and we are not going to guess at it.
The Florida House of Representatives’ final bill analysis for CS/HB 179, the bill that became this Act, records that Sarasota County banned kratom in 2014, labelling it a designer drug, and that with the exception of Sarasota County all parts of the plant and its extracts are legal to cultivate, buy, possess and distribute in Florida without a licence or prescription. The analysis cites Sarasota, Florida, Code of Ordinances section 62-351 (2014).
We have not read that ordinance. The above is what the House staff analysis says about it, and a staff analysis is a description rather than the instrument. We have not checked whether it is still in force, what conduct it covers or what the penalty is. Note also that the analysis predates Rule 5K-4.030, so its second half no longer describes Florida accurately either.
We have not surveyed Florida’s other counties and municipalities.
How we checked this
We read sections 500.92, 500.03, 893.03, 893.035, 893.0355, 893.0356, 775.082 and 775.083 in the 2026 Florida Statutes as published by the Legislature, and the full text of Rule 5K-4.030, Emergency Rule 5KER26-11, Emergency Rule 2ER26-2 and its superseded predecessor Emergency Rule 2ER26-1, as published in the Florida Administrative Code and Register, including each one’s history line.
We checked the Florida Administrative Register for a rule later than 2ER26-2 and 5KER26-11 on 2 September 2026 and found none.
The lesson worth recording is that reading section 893.03 alone would have produced a false page. The schedule rendered, it was current, and kratom was genuinely absent from it. The substance was somewhere else: in a rule that section 893.035(8)(a) deems into the schedule without printing it there. A negative result from the right list can still be the wrong answer if the list is not the whole law.
If a later rule or act changes any of this, write to editorial@wikikratom.com and we will update the page and credit the correction.