Now that Q2 has wrapped up we want to share our quarterly round-up of which states issued the most dispensary/retailer licenses and get a sense of the number of stores in the US.  

Key Findings

• 316 new store licenses were issued in Q2 2024, down from 333 in Q1
• 5 states accounted for 63% of these licenses: New Mexico, Michigan, New Jersey, Florida, and New York
• During the 2^nd Quarter Oklahoma shed 149 dispensary licenses

Here are the top 5 states that issued store licenses in the quarter:

In looking over the last six months, the number of new licenses issued has hovered between about 90 and 140. We all expect to see this number increase as New York and other states ramp up their licensing efforts and expand their programs. The complete list of issuing states is available on our Cannabis Market Intelligence Platform www.cannabiz.media.

While new active store licenses have been steady, we are tracking many pending licenses in the queue in states like New York and New Jersey. Here are the top six states and the number of pending stores/dispensaries we are tracking:

Overall there are 1,907 pending retailer/dispensary licenses nationwide and the above six states account for 85% of those licenses. A year ago we found 1,579 stores and most of the increase came from New York. The complete list of issuing states is available on our Cannabis Market Intelligence Platform www.cannabiz.media.

Conclusion

Based on our data, stores are still a growing category. Active stores nationwide crept up 3.2% if Oklahoma is included. If we remove the Sooner State, store growth is almost 13% over the last 12 months:

We will be closely monitoring those licenses moving from pending to active and any new programs coming online or expanding in the next quarter.

Cannabiz Media customers can stay up-to-date on these and other new licenses through our newsletters, alerts, and reports modules. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive these weekly reports delivered to your inbox. Or you can schedule a demo for more information on how to access the Cannabiz Media Market Intelligence Platform yourself to dive further into this data.

Author

Ed Keating is a co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees the company’s data research and government relations efforts. He has spent his career working with and advising information companies in the compliance space. Ed has managed product, marketing, and sales while overseeing complex multi-jurisdictional product lines in the securities, corporate, UCC, safety, environmental, and human resource markets.  

‍Cannacurio is a column from Cannabiz Media featuring insights from the most comprehensive license data platform. Catch up on Cannacurio posts and podcasts for the latest updates and intel.