Utah runs the most tightly regulated lawful kratom market we have read. Only one kind of product may be sold, only registered businesses may sell it, and the compound at the centre of the federal argument over kratom is a Schedule I controlled substance in Utah with a narrow carve-out written around it. Several states are stricter still in the simple sense that they permit no market at all.
Two statutes have to be read together, and neither makes sense alone. The Kratom Regulation Act in Title 4 says what may be sold. The Controlled Substances Act in Title 58 says what is a drug offence. A product that falls outside the first one lands inside the second.
What may be sold
The Kratom Regulation Act permits the sale of pure leaf kratom and nothing else. Section 4-45-102(5) defines the term, and every limb of it matters:
- the product is identifiable plant matter, or identifiable plant matter inside an encapsulating agent;
- it is not mixed or packed with anything that is not kratom, unless that thing is an inert encapsulating agent made of food-grade or pharmaceutical-grade material with no pharmacological activity, no psychoactive substances, no stimulants and no adulterants, serving only to hold or deliver the plant matter;
- it contains no kratom extract; and
- it contains no more than 0.4% 7-hydroxymitragynine measured against the total kratom alkaloid composition of the product.
An alkaloid is a plant compound with a nitrogen atom in its ring structure, and it is the class the active constituents of kratom belong to. Mitragynine is the most abundant of them in the leaf and 7-hydroxymitragynine, usually shortened to 7-OH, is a minor one. Our page on the kratom alkaloids sets out what the research says about each, and at what evidence tier.
The 0.4% figure is the lowest ceiling in the twelve state laws we read for our survey of the Kratom Consumer Protection Acts. Maryland, Arizona and Texas allow 2%, and Oklahoma and Virginia allow 1%. Utah’s own ceiling was 2% until the 2026 amendment cut it to 0.4%.
“Kratom extract” is defined separately, at 4-45-102(1), as a preparation containing any part of the plant in concentrated form. An extract is therefore excluded by name whatever its 7-OH content, and a product that is not an extract is still excluded if it exceeds 0.4%.
Who may sell it
Registration is the second gate, and it has three parts.
A kratom processor, meaning anyone who prepares, processes, manufactures or distributes a kratom product, must register as a food establishment under section 4-5-301 and separately register with the department as a processor. A kratom retailer must register with the department as a retailer. Each product must be registered too, under section 4-45-108, and the department may seize and destroy any unregistered product offered for sale.
The retailer condition is the unusual one. Section 4-45-104(4)(c) says the department may not register a retailer unless that retailer is licensed as a retail tobacco specialty business under sections 10-8-41.6 and 17-78-1004.
That is a narrow category, not any shop that sells cigarettes. Section 10-8-41.6(1)(g) defines it as an establishment where tobacco, e-cigarette and nicotine products make up more than 35% of quarterly gross receipts, or 20% or more of public retail floor space, or 20% or more of total shelf space, or which holds itself out as such a business, or whose retail space features a self-service tobacco display. A supermarket or a petrol station does not qualify. Utah has confined kratom retailing to smoke and vape specialty shops.
Selling without registration draws an administrative fine of up to $5,000. Selling an unregistered product draws the same.
Chapter 45 never says which department it means. The answer is one title up: Utah Code section 4-1-109(4) defines “Department”, for the whole of Title 4, as the Department of Agriculture and Food, and 4-1-109(3) defines “commissioner” as the commissioner of agriculture and food.
Age
Section 4-45-105 prohibits sale, distribution or offer for sale to anyone under 21. A processor or retailer who breaches it is guilty of a class A misdemeanour for each violation.
The penalties are criminal, and they escalate
Section 4-45-104(1) prohibits a kratom processor or kratom retailer from preparing, possessing, distributing, selling or offering for sale a kratom product that “(a) is not pure leaf kratom; and (b) does not include a product label on the kratom product packaging that states the amount of mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine contained in the packaged kratom product”. The conjunction is “and”, so on the face of the text both limbs have to be met before the prohibition bites.
Section 4-45-104(2) makes a breach a class B misdemeanour for a first violation, a class A misdemeanour for a second, and a third degree felony for any subsequent violation.
Section 4-45-103 adds a separate administrative fine of up to $5,000 where a processor fails to disclose on the label the factual basis on which the product is represented as kratom. A processor fined under that section may ask the commissioner for a hearing.
Section 4-45-106 preserves a private civil action for damages, in addition to anything else.
Why Title 58 matters more than Title 4
Utah’s Schedule I, at section 58-37-108(2)(a)(viii), lists “the following substances commonly found in Mitragyna speciosa, including synthetic versions, isomers, esters, ethers, salts, and salts of isomers, esters, and ethers”, and names two:
- 7-hydroxymitragynine, given with its full chemical name; and
- mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, likewise.
There is no threshold on either entry, even though the bill summary that accompanied the amendment described it as scheduling 7-OH above a certain percentage. The enacted text carries no percentage, and we follow the text.
Note what the paragraph does not say. It does not use the “any material, compound, mixture, or preparation that contains any quantity of” formula that the paragraph immediately above it uses for gamma hydroxybutyrate, and that the opiate paragraph uses. Whether a listing in this form reaches a leaf that naturally contains a trace of the substance is a question of Utah statutory construction on a text four months old, with no case law on it. We are not going to answer it.
Two provisions bear on the answer. Section 58-37-111 says the chapter and Title 76, Chapter 18, Part 2 “do not restrict the sale and use of herbs, herbal products, or food supplements that are not scheduled in this chapter as controlled substances”, and neither kratom leaf nor mitragynine is scheduled in Utah.
Section 58-37-406 is the kratom-specific one. It says that a person who possesses, manufactures or distributes pure leaf kratom is not subject to the penalties in Title 58 or in Title 76, Chapter 18, Drug Offenses, for 7-hydroxymitragynine, to the extent that the conduct complies with the Kratom Regulation Act.
So the exemption is not a general permission for kratom. It is conditional on compliance with Title 4, and it is drafted narrowly in two ways worth noticing.
It names only 7-hydroxymitragynine. Mitragynine pseudoindoxyl is in the same Schedule I paragraph and is not mentioned in the exemption.
That has a consequence worth spelling out. On 26 August 2026 the DEA placed mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16 in federal Schedule I by temporary order. Utah had already scheduled mitragynine pseudoindoxyl by name, in the 2026 General Session, so the federal order changes nothing about it here. MGM-15 and MGM-16 are not named in Utah’s paragraph (viii), and we have not worked out whether Utah’s analog provisions reach them.
It runs on the pure leaf definition. A product that exceeds 0.4% 7-OH, or that is an extract, or that is packed with something other than an inert encapsulating agent, is outside the exemption. At that point the question is no longer only whether a shop has broken a consumer protection law.
There is a further wrinkle nobody has resolved. The exemption is conditioned on compliance with a chapter whose duties fall on processors and retailers, not on consumers. What it means for a consumer to comply with Title 4, Chapter 45 is not obvious from the text.
There is a transitional provision. Until 6 March 2027, section 58-37-406(3) protects conduct that complies with section 4-45-104(5), which allows a processor to make a product that is not pure leaf kratom provided it is not offered for retail sale or distribution in Utah, is manufactured for lawful sale in another state, and still holds 7-OH at or below 0.4%.
The chapter changed its name, and it is not a cosmetic change
Until 6 May 2026 Title 4, Chapter 45 was headed Kratom Consumer Protection Act. The chapter text in force from that date is headed Kratom Regulation Act. The 2026 General Session did the work across at least three chapters of session law: chapter 362 renumbered and amended much of the Controlled Substances Act, chapter 480 amended most of the kratom chapter and enacted the Title 58 exemption, and chapter 482 amended the product registration section again with effect from 1 January 2027.
A search for “Utah Kratom Consumer Protection Act” now finds a name that no longer describes the statute. The pure leaf restriction, the 0.4% ceiling, the retailer licensing condition and the felony tier are all in the version that carries the new name.
Looking it up is harder than it should be
Three traps sit in front of anyone checking this themselves.
The short title section was repealed, and it is where the old name lived. Section 4-45-101 read “This chapter is known as the ‘Kratom Consumer Protection Act.’” It was in force from 14 May 2019 and repealed on 6 May 2026. The current chapter therefore starts at 4-45-102, Definitions, and its name comes from the chapter heading rather than from any section. A search for 4-45-101 in the current code returns nothing, which reads like a numbering quirk and is a repeal.
The controlled substances schedules moved. They were at section 58-37-4. A drug recodification in the 2026 General Session renumbered the chapter, and the schedules are now at 58-37-108, in force from 6 May 2026. Fetching 58-37-4 returns a page with no substances on it, which looks like a rendering failure and is not one.
The exemption section is spelled inconsistently. The heading of section 58-37-406 reads “Exemption for 7-hydroxymitragyine in kratom products”, missing an “n”. Subsection (3) spells it “7-hydroxymitragine”. Subsection (2) spells it correctly. Searching the code for the correct spelling will not find the heading.
How we checked this
We read the chapter text of Title 4, Chapter 45 as published for the version effective 6 May 2026, and sections 58-37-108, 58-37-111 and 58-37-406 as published for the same date. The former name of the chapter comes from section 4-45-101 as published for 14 May 2019 and marked repealed 6 May 2026. We read section 4-1-109 for the definition of “department”, and section 10-8-41.6 for the definition of a retail tobacco specialty business.
One trap is worth recording. The chapter-level PDF for the 2019 version of Title 4, Chapter 45 carries the chapter headings and no section text at all. It is under 6 KB. Treating that as “the 2019 chapter text” is how the repeal of section 4-45-101 was missed on the first pass here, and it is the same failure as a list that renders its frame and not its contents.
We checked the Schedule I list rendered and is current before relying on what is in it. Heroin appears at (2)(a)(ii)(K), so the list is not an empty page. Etizolam, tianeptine and phenibut are in it, so it is not a decades-old snapshot. And the two Mitragyna speciosa entries were added in the 2026 General Session, which dates the text more precisely than any older substance could.
If a later act or rule changes any of this, write to editorial@wikikratom.com and we will update the page and credit the correction.