Delaware adult-use cannabis retailers reported $53.4 million in sales over the market’s first year in operation, Bay to Bay News reported Tuesday.
The state legalized adult-use marijuana in 2023 but didn’t open retail sales until Aug. 1, 2025. Since then, Delaware has collected $8 million in sales tax, state officials told to Bay to Bay.
Sales began Aug. 1, 2025 at stores run by existing medical marijuana operators that paid six-figure conversion fees for adult-use permits earlier that summer. Sales are subject to a 15% excise tax.
What are Delaware annual cannabis sales?
Cannabis sales are pacing far behind the $281 million in annual sales that Robert Coupe, the state’s first marijuana commissioner, predicted in 2023.
The two-year gap between legalization and the first sale reflects a pattern common across new markets: licensing delays, regulatory hurdles and the work of building a supply chain from scratch.
In Delaware’s case, the delay was the result of FBI background check issues and zoning restraints, the news outlet reported.
Delaware Marijuana Commissioner Joshua Sanderlin told Bay to Bay that he’s looking forward to having more retailers open.
“We’re also in the process of opening more cultivators and processors, which will help drive our prices down and create more competition in the marketplace and more available items on the shelves for selection for the customers,” Sanderlin said.
Are new cannabis business licenses available in Delaware?
A total of 38 new businesses that won licenses via lotteries are also preparing to enter the market, Sanderlin told Coast TV News
They’ll benefit from Senate Bill 75, which bars counties from denying business permits for retail license holders.
The bill also reduced buffer zones between stores to a half-mile and within 500 feet of schools, childcare centers, parks or libraries as well as allowing enclosed cultivation facilities to operate in agricultural -or industrial-use zones.
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Delaware’s first year of adult-use sales also has been shadowed by turbulence in the state’s social equity licensing process.
Regulators rejected at least 19 social-equity applications after determining they were tied to an Arizona consulting firm accused of using excessive fees and contract terms that could effectively strip local applicants of control over their permits.
Delaware was one of two states to launch non-tribal adult-use cannabis sales in 2025. Minnesota launched sales in September 2025.
