Texas has about 38,800 agricultural pesticide license and certificate records on the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) list, and almost two thirds of them belong to private applicators.

TDA publishes the list of currently licensed agricultural applicators as a spreadsheet. We counted it by license type, region and county. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension adds a second view: how many applicators it trained in 2017, 2021 and 2024.

The two sources measure different things, so read the notes under each number. TDA does not publish exam counts or pass rates for these exams, and we found no TDA complaint totals, so we leave those out.

In short

  • TDA's list of currently licensed agricultural applicators has 38,751 records.1
  • Private applicators hold 24,294 of them (62.7 percent), commercial applicators 5,196.1
  • The North Texas region has the most records: 12,123.1
  • AgriLife trained 63,138 applicators in 2024, up from 62,319 in 2021.23
  • Private applicators in training fell from 38,442 in 2017 to 30,330 in 2024.42
Contents
  1. Licenses by type
  2. Licenses by region and county
  3. When licenses expire
  4. Applicators trained by AgriLife
  5. What these numbers do not show
  6. Common questions
  7. Cite this page
  8. Sources

Licenses by type

The figures below count the records on TDA's "Ag Pesticide Applicators Currently Licensed" report, which we downloaded on November 10, 2026. One record is one license or certificate, not necessarily one person. The file has 38,751 rows and 38,750 distinct account numbers.1

1Private: 24,294 records

62.7 percent of all records. Private applicators use restricted-use products on land they own, rent or control to produce an agricultural commodity. A private license lasts five years.15

2Commercial: 5,196 records

13.4 percent. Commercial applicators work for hire on the property of others.16

3Noncommercial political subdivision: 4,568 records

11.8 percent. These are employees of Texas political subdivisions and federal agencies working in Texas.16

4Certified private: 3,320 records

8.6 percent. This certificate is no longer issued. It exists only for people certified before January 10, 1989. Holders earn 15 CEUs every five years and pay no renewal fee.17

5Noncommercial: 1,373 records

3.5 percent.1

TypeRecordsShare
Private24,29462.7%
Commercial5,19613.4%
Noncommercial political subdivision4,56811.8%
Certified private3,3208.6%
Noncommercial1,3733.5%
Total38,751100%

Only commercial, noncommercial and noncommercial political licenses need the General Standards exam. That is 11,137 records, or 28.7 percent of the list.18

Licenses by region and county

6North Texas leads with 12,123 records

TDA assigns each licensee to one of its five regional offices. The North Texas office (Region 2) covers 31.3 percent of all records.1

TDA regionRecordsShare
Region 2 North Texas12,12331.3%
Region 3 Gulf Coast9,90525.6%
Region 1 West Texas7,28218.8%
Region 4 South Central7,17818.5%
Region 5 Valley1,9415.0%
Unknown region3220.8%

7Harris County has the most: 1,018 records

Next come Dallas (695), Tarrant (681), Lubbock (639), Bexar (591), Lavaca (539), Denton (517) and Travis (516).1 The county is the one on the licensee's record, which may be a mailing or business address.

When licenses expire

81,280 records expire in 2026, 15,312 in 2027

Commercial and noncommercial licenses run for one year, so every one of them expires within about a year of the list date. Their latest expiration dates in the file fall in November and December 2027. Private licenses run for five years, so their dates reach into 2031.19

Expiration yearRecords
20261,280
202715,312
20285,033
20295,039
20305,368
20316,719

Every one of these renewals needs continuing education first: 5 CEUs for annual licenses and 15 for private licenses.10 Our guide to CEU requirements explains how to earn them.

Applicators trained by AgriLife

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension runs the Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP). Its yearly impact sheets count the applicators reached by licensing training and continuing education in all 254 counties. These counts include structural applicators, which TDA licenses separately, so they are not comparable to the TDA list above.2

963,138 applicators trained in 2024

32,808 commercial and noncommercial applicators and 30,330 private applicators.2

10Commercial and noncommercial up 22 percent since 2017

From 26,975 in 2017 to 29,527 in 2021 and 32,808 in 2024.432

11Private down 21 percent since 2017

From 38,442 in 2017 to 32,792 in 2021 and 30,330 in 2024.432

YearCommercial and noncommercialPrivateTotal
201726,97538,44265,417
202129,52732,79262,319
202432,80830,33063,138

What these numbers do not show

  • They are not exam counts. TDA and Metro Institute do not publish how many people take the General Standards exam or how many pass.
  • They are not people. The TDA list counts license and certificate records, and the AgriLife counts are program participants.
  • The TDA list is a snapshot of current licenses, so it changes every day as people renew or let licenses lapse.
  • Structural pest control licenses are not in the TDA agricultural list.

Want to see where you stand before the exam? Take a free practice test. The exam format is explained in our guide to the General Standards exam.

Common questions

How many licensed pesticide applicators are there in Texas?

TDA's agricultural list had 38,751 records on November 10, 2026.1 AgriLife counted 63,138 applicators trained in 2024, including structural applicators.2

Which license type is most common?

Private, with 24,294 records or 62.7 percent.1

What is the pass rate of the Texas pesticide exam?

Not published. We found no pass rate from TDA, Metro Institute or AgriLife.

Are private applicators becoming rarer?

The number of private applicators trained by AgriLife fell from 38,442 in 2017 to 30,330 in 2024.42

Use these numbers

Writing about this topic yourself? You are welcome to use all the numbers, with a link to this page. Pick a format and copy it with one click.

Link for your website
<a href="https://texaspesticidelicense.com/blog/texas-pesticide-applicator-statistics/">Texas Pesticide Applicator Statistics 2026</a>, TexasPesticideLicense.com
APA

Holloway, W. (2026). Texas Pesticide Applicator Statistics 2026. TexasPesticideLicense.com. https://texaspesticidelicense.com/blog/texas-pesticide-applicator-statistics/

MLA

Holloway, Wade. "Texas Pesticide Applicator Statistics 2026." TexasPesticideLicense.com, 2026, texaspesticidelicense.com/blog/texas-pesticide-applicator-statistics/

Sources

The counts by type, region, county and expiration year are our own tallies of the TDA spreadsheet. The AgriLife figures are quoted from its impact sheets, which label each year as the year training was conducted.

  1. Texas Department of Agriculture: Ag Pesticide Applicators Currently Licensed (report downloaded 2026-11-10) (texasagriculture.gov)
  2. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension: Pesticide Safety Education Program, economic impacts (2024) (agrilifeextension.tamu.edu)
  3. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension: Pesticide Safety Education Program, economic impacts (2021 data) (agrilifeextension.tamu.edu)
  4. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension: Pesticide Safety Education Program, economic impacts (2017 data) (agecoext.tamu.edu)
  5. Texas Department of Agriculture: Pesticide Private Applicator License (texasagriculture.gov)
  6. Texas Department of Agriculture: Pesticide Commercial/Noncommercial Applicator License (texasagriculture.gov)
  7. Texas Department of Agriculture: Certified Private Certification (texasagriculture.gov)
  8. 4 Texas Administrative Code 7.22 (licensing of applicators) (law.cornell.edu)
  9. 4 Texas Administrative Code 7.20 (license fees and terms) (law.cornell.edu)
  10. Texas Department of Agriculture: Agricultural Applicator CEU FAQ (texasagriculture.gov)