COA Expiration & Retesting

In Texas, every Certificate of Analysis must carry an expiration date — it is item (9) of the 12 items required on a COA under 25 TAC §300.301(d). (The full list, and how to check a COA at intake, is covered in Understanding COAs — this lesson assumes that ground and goes deeper on the expiry piece.)

These are the DSHS Consumable Hemp Program rules as amended effective March 31, 2026. Everything in this lesson is Texas law; other states run their own regimes.

It helps to be precise about which parts of this are rule text and which parts are operating judgment. The rule side:

Where the rule is silent, treat the gap as a question for your supplier agreements and your attorney — not as permission. The conservative operating posture is simple: a COA that is expired, or about to expire, is a supply-chain problem you raise with your supplier before the date hits, and a product you don't leave on the shelf on the strength of an invalid document.

COA expiration is one of three date concepts in the rules, and confusing them causes real mistakes. First: the COA expiration date (§300.301(d)(9)) — when the lab document stops being valid. Second: the batch date on the product label — the date the batch was made, which the rules also call the lot date (§300.101(6)); the retail label list in §300.402(a) requires batch number and batch date, and notably does not include a product expiration date. Third: on the manufacturing side, every raw material and ingredient must be identified with an 'expiration, re-test, or use-by date' (§300.206(b)(5)) — a traceability requirement inside the facility, not something you'll police at retail.

The practical takeaway for a store: the date that governs whether you can rely on the paperwork is the one on the COA. A fresh-looking product with an expired COA is still a compliance problem; an older batch date with a current, matching COA is not — at least not on this axis.

A retest is a new laboratory analysis of the same lot, by an accredited (ISO/IEC 17025) laboratory, producing a new COA for that lot. The rules around it that do exist are worth knowing: everyone in the chain must ensure products are tested against the department's most current analyte list (§300.303(h)) — so a retest is run against today's panel, not the one that applied when the lot was first tested. Testing costs are paid by the manufacturer, processor, or retailer at the rate the chosen lab prescribes (§300.303(d)). And results must be retained for at least three years from receipt (§300.303(f)) — keep the old COA and the new one.

Two more reasons not to let this drift. DSHS conducts random testing of consumable hemp products at retail (§300.302(c)) and can demand samples at the licensee's or registrant's expense (§300.302(d)) — your paperwork can be checked against a fresh state-run analysis at any time. And the retest COA must be verified like any COA: same lot number as the product on your shelf, QR code resolving to the lab, full results. A retest COA for a different lot is not a retest of your inventory — it's a different product's paperwork.

One open question to resolve with your supplier and counsel rather than by guessing: the retail label must carry a URL that reaches the product's COA within three steps (§300.402(a)(6)). When a lot is retested, confirm where that link now leads and that a customer or inspector following it reaches a valid, current COA.

The enforcement chain behind §300.301(f) is concrete. The department tags or marks an article it finds — or has probable cause to believe — is adulterated or misbranded (§300.603, mirroring HSC §431.048); a tagged article can't be used, moved, or sold without authorization. From there the paths are: court-ordered destruction at the claimant's cost (§300.604), or court-ordered correction by proper labeling or processing under department supervision, where the defect is correctable (§300.605). Administrative penalties are also on the table (§300.606) — though the department must notify a retailer of a potential violation and give the registrant an opportunity to resolve unintentional or negligent violations (§300.606(b)).

That notice-and-cure provision is real, but it is not a strategy. The whole reason to run COA expiry off a calendar is so that the first person to notice an expired COA is you, with weeks of runway — not an inspector, with a roll of tags.

Any of these should stop a product, or stop a shipment at the door: