Produce Safety Rule Compliance Dates & Timeline

FSMA Produce Safety Rule Timeline

Here is the timeline of FDA’s development of the Produce Safety Rule since FSMA was passed in 2011.

Compliance Dates

Information about compliance dates for the FSMA Produce Safety Rule is available in many places, but here are all the pieces of information together so you can see the specific regulatory compliance dates for the different parts of the Rule.

  • Proving eligibility for the qualified exemption requires three years of sales records to support the exemption. If you plan to use the qualified exemption, you will need to have sales records beginning on your compliance date.

The provisions covering sprout production first went into effect at the beginning of 2017 for farms selling over $500,000 in produce annually (or later depending on the farm gross receipts for produce sales).

The other provisions of the rule went into effect at the beginning of 2018 or after 2018, depending on the provision, the size of your farm’s business, and specific policies that have been put in place by FDA.

  1. Final Rule issued on 3/18/19, extended compliance dates for Subpart E, Agricultural Water (other than sprouts), to allow an additional four years beyond the original compliance dates. This was followed by a period of enforcement discretion.
  2. A Stakeholder Update issued on 1/13/2023 described ending the period of enforcement discretion for harvest and postharvest water requirements in Subpart E, Agricultural Water (other than sprouts) with a staggered system of enforcement initiation dates that arrive one year after the previously-extended compliance dates (see above).
  3. A Final Rule issued on 5/06/24 finalized revisions to Subpart E, Agricultural water along with compliance dates for pre-harvest water uses for non-sprout covered produce.

Download the Compliance Dates chart in a printable format (Updated 11/5/2024)

Before the compliance date, every covered farm that does not qualify for an exemption must have a supervisor (such as a farm owner/operator) complete a standardized food safety training program. The Produce Safety Alliance Grower Training Course satisfies this requirement.