New Jersey Recreational License
We are highly experienced cannabis licensing experts, and we’ve created operational document templates for those seeking NJ Cannabis Licenses in the new adult-use market. For most of you (if you make under $200k per year), New Jersey’s recreational licensing process will start with the Conditional Application.
The plan requirements for the first-stage conditional application submission are:
- A Business Plan and Management Profile (Email us for a free basic template for this.)
- A Regulatory Compliance Plan (we sell this separately, click to view)
- A Plan to Obtain Liability Insurance (this you should obtain from a cannabis insurance company)
When you are ready to submit your conditional conversion application (within 120 days), we offer the following set of documents as a kit or a la carte. These are our available NJ Cannabis Procedures and Plans:
- An Environmental Impact Plan
- A Safety and Security Plan
- A Workforce Development Plan
- A Diversity Plan
- Adverse Event SOPs
- Quality Assurance and Quality Control SOPs
- Recall SOPs
- Packaging and Labeling SOPs (cultivation and manufacturing only)
- Inventory Control, Storage and Diversion Prevention SOPs
- Record Keeping SOPs
- Waste Disposal SOPs
- SOPs for (Click your license type: Cultivation, Manufacturing, Retail)
- Accounting and Tax Compliance SOPs
- Reporting of Test Results SOP
- Secure Transport of Cannabis SOP (cultivation and manufacturing only)
Every document we call a “plan” is written in narrative text, paragraph form. Every document we call a “procedure” or “SOP” is written in step-by-step instructional format.
The marijuana application documents above contain policy citations, links to the regulatory text, and collectively comprise between 110 and 130 pages of text (depending on license type), 12pt single spaced. This set of cannabis operating plans and standard operating procedures is offered at a package discount price of $5797 – $6997. You can also buy these documents individually. Click on each one above to see the prices. The package deal represents a 25% discount over buying each document separately.
Please email us or call1-877-757-7437 to schedule an appointment to view our cannabis application templates. We are in the Hawaii time zone, which is 5-6 hours earlier than East Coast, so let us know in your voicemail how late we can return your call. We will set up a screenshare preview with you, so you can see all of what you’d be getting if you decide to purchase any of our templates.
Need Help Getting Started with Your New Jersey Cannabis License?
These Cannabis Cultivation, Manufacturing and Retail Operations documents will save you hundreds of hours preparing your NJ cannabis application!
It’s exciting to see the adult-use cannabis industry in NJ finally coming to fruition! All adults should have the right to consume recreational cannabis, so it’s great that New Jersey is willing to be a leader, beating New York to the launch of a recreational cannabis market.
Applications for New Jersey cannabis cultivation licenses and manufacturing licenses have been accepted by the CRC, since December 15th, 2021. Applications for dispensaries have been accepted since March 15th, 2022. Coming soon are New Jersey Cannabis Distribution Licenses are New Jersey Delivery licenses.
Read on for our New Jersey Cannabis Licensing FAQ’s
How do I get a recreational cannabis license in New Jersey?
One of your highest priorities should be to find a properly zoned location where you have permission from the municipality (and from the building owner if you are leasing) to operate as a cannabis grower, manufacturer or retailer, and you’ll need at least a few hundred thousand dollars for licensing and buildout.
The nj microbusiness licensees will be able to get a small operation going for under $2 million as cultivators, under $500,000 for manufacturers, and under $300,000 for dispensaries. We hate to break the bad new for you, but a couple hundred thousand bucks won’t get you as far as you think, especially as a grower. Construction, mechanical installation, equipment and climate control systems run into some serious money because you are building out the equivalent of a clean-room lab that has the power and equipment to offset large amounts of moisture and heat.
Tip- if you don’t already know a lot about cultivating commercial cannabis and would be happy with having any kind of nj recreational cannabis license, you’d probably be best off with a New Jersey cannabis manufacturing license or NJ dispensary license. Manufacturing and Dispensary license types are cheaper types to operate, don’t require as much experience; not as much can go wrong.
How Many Cultivation Licenses are there in New Jersey?
The CRC is granting 37 large-scale NJ cannabis cultivation licenses in 2022. These New Jersey grow license applications will be scored using a pass/fail system, and the first 37 to be submitted that are fully compliance with CRC regulations and application requirements will be granted. More New Jersey cultivation licenses will be issued in NJ in Feb 2023, which isn’t that far away, so don’t worry if you don’t get one in the first round!
Other Jersey cannabis license types (Micro, Distributor, Wholesaler, Manufacturer, Retailer and Retail Delivery) will not be limited by the State, but local jurisdictions have the right to limit them.
Over time, the rules will likely loosen up, but for now, you’ve got about 300 hours of time to put into gathering and organizing your NJ cannabis application materials. With the cannabis application templates we sell here, we believe we’ve reduced your workload by at least 200 hours. We know that because that’s literally how long it took us to write all these plans!
The New Jersey cannabis procedures and operating plan templates we offer are written from the standpoint of a hypothetical applicant. It’s as if you are getting to see a competitor’s completed application and can use it as a model create your own high-level custom cannabis application!
Here are some sample pages from our NJ cultivation procedures. They include policy citations, hyperlinks, and a color coding system.
This is a sample page from the Inventory/Storage/AntiDiversion SOP:
This is a sample page from the Packaging & Labeling SOP:
How Much Will a New Jersey Cannabis License Cost?
Total cost for getting licensed in New Jersey has many components. The first is the amount that the state will charge to apply for the license. Based on the size of your business, this will range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand.
AND…there are many other costs that need to be taken into account for planning purposes when it comes to obtaining a New Jersey recreational license:
- If you want to start with templates to ease your process and save you time, templates will cost a few thousand dollars.
- If you want to ensure that your license won’t be kicked back over technical errors, an attorney will charge a few thousand dollars to review your documents.
- If you are purchasing a property, your down payment could easily exceed $100k. If you are leasing a property, you’ll need a security deposit, 1st and last month’s rent, plus enough rent money to cover you until you can grow plants. That’s going to run anywhere from $30k to $150k, depending on the size of the property.
- You will need several hundred thousand dollars to cover all of your build-out and early operational expenses. This varies greatly depending on the size of the building. Figure $400 per square foot for a vertical LED setup, which covers equipment, materials, construction and mechanical installation costs. It’s a lot, but you won’t go over-budget if you plan for this level of expenditures. Read more here about cannabis facility design costs.
Contact us today for a pre-purchase tour of the documents! View before you buy and get a fee Q&A session at the same time.
Are Edibles Legal in New Jersey?
The following manufactured cannabis products are legal in the New Jersey recreational cannabis market, as of 2022, once you have obtained a permit:
A New Jersey cannabis manufacturer is authorized to manufacture the following forms:
1. A cannabis concentrate, either in solid form or in liquid form as oil, either as cannabis extract or as resin extracted using non-chemical processes;
2. A cannabis-infused product, either in solid form or liquid form, containing either usable cannabis or cannabis concentrate along with an additional ingredient that includes, but is not limited to:
i. Vaporized formulation;
ii. Drops, tinctures, and other sublabial and sublingual forms;
iii. Oral lozenges and other buccal forms;
iv. Ingestible forms, which shall only include syrups, pills, tablets, capsules, and chewable forms; and
v. Topical formulations and transdermal forms;
How Do you Get a Grower’s License in New Jersey?
To get started applying for any kind of new jersey cannabis business license, go to the website for the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC) website here. Create an account, log in, and click all of the tabs along the top of the page to learn what’s required to submit for marijuana licenses. You’ll need to gather a lot of stuff! We can help you with plans and procedures, but there’s still a lot to do that covers topics like background checks, securing property in the right zone, proving residency, getting local approval, proving access to your financing–these are all items that fall under the category of eligibility. The Jersey cannabis regulatory landscape is complex! What that means is that you can’t apply for a NJ recreational license unless you are fully eligible. Proving eligibility requires paperwork, and only you can do most of these things. A lawyer or consultant would not have access to that information, so if you hired their help, they’d still have to ask you gather the items above. Scroll Down for Images of the Document Requirements in the NJ CRC Application Portal.
Jennifer Martin – Cannabis Expert
Hi, I’m Jennifer Martin. I’ve been working on cannabis industry documents and application materials since 2016, and I’ve been designing and operating cannabis cultivation facilities for over 20 years. At heart, I’m a commercial grower, and I wish it were easy to legally set up shop anywhere and just grow cannabis plants for a living. Unfortunately though, many states are concerned about seeming too liberal about legalizing psychoactive substances, so they are generally making it difficult, if not impossible, to get a cannabis business license. This is finally changing in New Jersey!
What else should I know about starting my New Jersey Cannabis Application?
If you are applying for one of the larger New Jersey cultivation licenses and must compete with other applicants, there are 4 main components of a winning application: 1) evidence of solid financial backing, 2) evidence of sufficient commercial cannabis production experience, 3) proof of ownership (or owner’s permission to use) of an adequate and properly located cannabis production facility, and 4) a complete and well organized NJ cannabis application.
New Jersey Cannabis Application Process
Here are screenshots of the documents required for a cannabis license application. They vary slightly depending on license type, and conditional applicants won’t need labor peace agreements or an operating plan summary. POI stands for Person of Interest and EOI is Entity of Interest:
It looks like a lot of stuff to upload, and it is, but with some help, you can do it!
