EPA registration number

Definition

The number on a pesticide label, with a distributor's company number after a dash on its product.

Why It Matters

It is the fastest way to tell whose product you are actually buying. A registrant's own number has two parts, its company number and a product number joined by a dash; a distributor product adds a second dash and the distributor's company number. On a shelf walk that distinction separates the lines the house controls from the lines it merely resells. Photograph the labels, list the numbers, and match them against the registrations the seller says it holds, because the label is the record and the spreadsheet is not.