Recordkeeping basics
FIFRA Basics for Pest Control Business Owners
A plain-language rundown of FIFRA — the federal law behind pesticide registration, applicator certification, and recordkeeping — and what it actually requires of a pest control operator.
What FIFRA is
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is the federal law that governs the sale, distribution, and use of pesticides in the U.S. It's administered by the EPA, and it's the source of most of the rules a pest control business runs into day to day — product registration, applicator certification, and recordkeeping among them.
States can, and often do, add their own stricter rules on top of FIFRA's federal floor — that's why retention periods and required fields vary so much state to state even though the underlying federal law is the same everywhere. See the state-by-state breakdown for the specifics that apply where you operate.
The three things that matter most operationally
- Registration — a pesticide product has to be EPA-registered before it can be sold or used; using an unregistered product, or using a registered one off-label, is a FIFRA violation regardless of state rules.
- Certification — applying a restricted-use pesticide requires the applicator to be certified, either directly or under the supervision of someone who is.
- Recordkeeping — certified applicators of restricted-use pesticides have a federal recordkeeping requirement under 40 CFR Part 171; most states extend a version of this requirement to general-use pesticide applications too.
Enforcement
FIFRA is enforced at both the federal and state level — the EPA handles the largest or most serious cases, but day-to-day inspections of pest control businesses are almost always run by the state agency that issues applicator licenses. A recordkeeping gap found during a routine state inspection is the far more common way this actually shows up for a small operator, not a federal case.
Last reviewed . Source: EPA, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) overview — read the primary source.
Questions, answered
- FIFRA's registration and labeling requirements apply to every pesticide product sold in the U.S. The federal recordkeeping requirement in 40 CFR Part 171 is specifically about certified applicators of restricted-use pesticides — but most states layer their own recordkeeping rule on top that covers general-use applications too, which is why the state-by-state figures matter more day to day than the federal floor alone.
- In practice, the state agency that licenses applicators — usually the state department of agriculture — handles the routine inspections and enforcement. The EPA generally gets involved in larger, more serious, or interstate cases.
PestShift builds this into every job
A job can't be marked complete without the product, EPA registration number, target pest, rate, and application site on file — so the record exists as part of the work, not as paperwork someone has to remember to do later.