Georgia pesticide license for lawn care and landscaping
Checked October 2026
Georgia licenses a lawn care sprayer twice. The person passes the commercial applicator exam, a general standards test plus a category such as 24, Ornamental and Turf, at 70 percent, then pays $90 for a five-year license. The company holds a pesticide contractor license at $55 a year. Georgia's rule sets the contractor's liability floor for ground work at $25,000 bodily injury and $10,000 property damage per occurrence, or a $20,000 bond.
Georgia sells the company license for one year at $55 and the person's license for five years at $90, so the two renew on different clocks. The Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) says that anyone who applies any type of pesticide, general use or restricted use, to another person's property for a fee needs both a Commercial Applicator License and a Pesticide Contractor License.
The insurance figures are the soft spot on this page. Georgia's Secretary of State rules site would not load for us on 2026-10-01, so those amounts come from a Wayback Machine copy of the rule dated 2025-06-26. The GDA pages were read live the same day. Compare the amounts with the current rule before you send a check.
The contractor license
This is the business license, and GDA's contractors page lists a lawn care or maintenance company first among its examples. It also covers anyone who applies as part of a maintenance contract. A contractor license needs at least one full-time certified commercial applicator on staff and proof of financial responsibility, and each business location needs its own license.
The contractor license page puts the fee at $55, the same for a new application or a renewal. Licenses run one calendar year, a late renewal adds 50 percent, and you apply or renew online through Kelly Registration Systems. GDA also asks for proof of citizenship or legal residency with every application. Operating without the license can bring an injunction and a fine of up to $1,000, and GDA says each application may count as a separate violation.
The applicator license and where to take the exam
The person who holds the applicator license passes a computerized exam given at Georgia technical colleges. GDA's FAQ sends you to gapestexam.com to register and to the University of Georgia for study materials, and the colleges charge a $45 exam fee on each attempt. The general standards exam and at least one category exam are both required, each passed at 70 percent. For lawn work the category is 24, Ornamental and Turf.
Fail and you wait until the following month. Nobody can sit the same exam more than twice in six months, and a passing score on one exam is kept for a year while you retake the other. After you pass, mail GDA a check or money order for $90. The license is valid five years, and GDA says it arrives within two weeks if the paperwork is complete.
The FAQ's only preparation advice is the University of Georgia study materials. No practice test appears on the pages we read.
What the insurance rule says
The agency pages say only that the contractor must meet financial responsibility requirements. The application form doubles as the certificate of liability insurance: your signature certifies that you carry the minimum for the license period, and a lapse cancels the license.
The amounts are in rule 40-21-8-.03 of the Georgia Department of Agriculture rules, as published by the Secretary of State.
| Option | Ground contractors |
|---|---|
| Liability insurance, bodily injury | $25,000 any one occurrence |
| Liability insurance, property damage | $10,000 any one occurrence, with a $25,000 aggregate listed beneath it |
| Maximum deductible | $500 per occurrence |
| Surety bond instead | $20,000 minimum, $500 maximum deductible |
| Cash deposit instead | $20,000 minimum, $500 deductible |
Aerial contractors carry higher limits, and the rule says policies may carry pollution exclusions only as far as O.C.G.A. 2-7-103 allows. We did not read that statute, so we can't say what it does to a standard exclusion. The rule also lets a certificate of deposit stand in for insurance, at the same $20,000 for ground contractors, held by the Commissioner during the license period and for 90 days after.
Renewing the applicator license
The applicator license has no yearly renewal, but it does have a credit requirement. GDA's category list gives category 24 10 recertification hours per five-year period, and the FAQ says the hours must reach GDA at least 90 days before the license expires. The other route is to sit the commercial exam again. Approved online trainers are listed on GDA's pest control program page.
Looking up a license
GDA's applicator search finds commercial applicators by last name, license number, location or category. Kelly Registration, a private company, runs the search, and the page says GDA doesn't manage it. The program page above also links a search for active licensed contractors.
The property damage limit
Start with the pesticide applicator insurance guide for the endorsement question and the general liability guide for the base policy. The pesticide license table shows where Georgia sits among the other states we have read. Price your coverage from your contracts, and before you buy, find out whether the policy carries an applicator endorsement and how it treats the lawn you treated. A $10,000 property damage limit does not go far if a crew browns out a front yard, and the rule says the insurance, bond or deposit does not apply to damage to crops, plants or land being worked upon by the contractor.