OCR opens the first cultivation license application window

March 31, 2025. The Office of Cannabis Regulation opened the first application window for the Commercial Cultivation License and the Micro Cultivation Permit, roughly two months later than the “tentative January 2025” target the Cannabis Advisory Board had been given at its December 18, 2024 meeting. Applications ran for about 12 weeks and closed on June 27, 2025.

The merit-based framing

Every cultivation application is scored against the 1,000-point rubric codified in section 777-15 of the 2024 Cannabis Rules and Regulations. Conditional licenses go to the highest-scoring applicants, island by island, under the per-island caps in § 787 of title 19: up to 15 Commercial Cultivation Licenses each on St. Thomas and St. Croix, and up to five on St. John. Micro Cultivation Permits have no statutory cap, though the Office of Cannabis Regulation closed the Micro Cultivation window alongside the Commercial window at the June 27 deadline “to facilitate administrative review,” per the June 4, 2025 Cannabis Advisory Board meeting. Micro Cultivation applications were scheduled to reopen before the end of 2025.

Tiered fees

Commercial Cultivation application fees follow the three-tier scale the Cannabis Advisory Board approved at its October 21, 2024 meeting:

• Tier 1 — $2,500: 51 to 350 flowering plants, 201 to 1,000 vegetative plants.
• Tier 2 — $5,000: 351 to 650 flowering plants, 1,001 to 2,000 vegetative plants.
• Tier 3 — $7,500: 651 to 1,000 flowering plants, 2,001 to 3,000 vegetative plants.

Every fee is non-refundable on submission, by statute. An application is considered complete only on payment.

Testing ran in parallel

Laboratory Testing Facility proposals opened to the public at roughly the same time. The Office of Cannabis Regulation flagged the parallel schedule as operationally necessary. Cultivation license holders cannot legally sell product unless an accredited in-territory testing facility exists to certify potency and contamination standards.

What to watch

The cultivation round closed on June 27, 2025, three days before the first dispensary application window opened. Conditional Commercial Cultivation and Micro Cultivation approvals followed in the months after. The grow operator guide covers the plant-count bands, the merit-scoring rubric, and the build-out requirements every conditional licensee must complete before a Certificate to Operate can issue.