China Drafts Biggest Overhaul of Pesticide Registration Data Rules Since 2017
25 September 2026, Beijing: China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) has drafted a sweeping revision of the data dossier requirements that companies must submit to register pesticides in the country, described by regulatory consultancy knoell as the most comprehensive update to these rules since 2017. MARA released the exposure draft, titled the revised Pesticide Registration Data Requirements, for public consultation on July 31, 2026, and the comment period closed on August 21, 2026. As of mid-September, the final version had not yet been issued. MARA’s own Planting Industry Management Division confirms the July 31, 2026 consultation notice on its public announcements page, though the underlying draft text itself was not independently accessible for this article.
Three changes stand out. First, the draft gives China’s six-year data protection period, long provided for on paper, enforceable teeth. Under new provisions, companies that submit their own test data must simultaneously register both the technical-grade active ingredient and a formulated product, and companies wanting to rely on another applicant’s protected data face specific authorization requirements. Once the six-year window lapses, new applicants must match the highest active ingredient content already registered rather than simply piggybacking on a lower-content precedent.
Second, the draft eliminates China’s long-standing “same pesticide” determination system, which required new applicants to prove their product was identical to an already-registered one in order to use a simplified pathway. In its place, the draft narrows the definition of a “similar formulation” to three factors only: the active ingredient, its content, and the formulation type. Products meeting that narrower similarity test face significantly reduced data requirements, a change intended to streamline registration for close variants while tightening the definition of what counts as similar.
Third, testing requirements themselves are being reshuffled by pesticide category. For conventional chemical pesticides, the draft adds a new residue-testing section while removing some environmental tests, including certain avian and earthworm toxicity studies, and making others conditional. For microbial pesticides, an algae growth inhibition test is added, while residue data may be waived for products classified as low-toxicity. For botanical pesticides, new toxicity tests are introduced and the previous waiver pathway tied to “food additive” status is removed. Rodenticides gain their own standalone chapter of requirements. Across all categories, the draft requires full digital submission of dossiers, ending the practice of filing paper originals.
The revision does not change who can register pesticides in China, but it does change the cost and shape of doing so. Enforceable data protection gives companies that invest in original toxicology and efficacy studies a clearer, more defensible period of exclusivity, an incentive structure that domestic Chinese innovators and multinational registrants have both pushed for. At the same time, a narrower “similar formulation” test and adjusted testing lists mean some categories of generic registration become more demanding, even as others, particularly certain microbial and low-toxicity products, get lighter treatment.
Why this matters to global agribusiness: China is both the world’s largest producer of pesticide technical materials and a major destination market in its own right, so any change to its registration dossier requirements affects two audiences at once: domestic and foreign companies seeking to register new products for the Chinese market, and the global supply chains that depend on Chinese-manufactured technical actives for their own formulated products elsewhere. A stronger data protection regime could, over time, slow the flow of ultra-low-cost Chinese generic registrations that international formulators have relied on, while the added enforceability may encourage larger multinationals to bring more innovative chemistry into China rather than treating it purely as a manufacturing base.
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