Quarterly Reporting obligations for medicinal cannabis
How to submit quarterly reports, be ready for inspections, and what can happen if you don’t comply.
It is a condition of a medicinal cannabis licence that the licence holder must give information relating to activities authorised by the licence if requested by the Secretary (regulation 17A of the Narcotic Drugs Regulation 2016). Not submitting reports, submitting reports late, or knowingly submitting false or misleading information, may be considered a breach of the relevant licence condition and may result in compliance action. Further information available in Compliance and Enforcement Framework 2025 - 2028.
All ODC licence holders who hold valid medicinal cannabis permits for cultivation and production or manufacture are required to provide periodic reports to the ODC about their activities.
This reporting process will assist with meeting Australian and international regulatory and reporting requirements.
Additionally, non-compliance may be detected through organised and planned monitoring activities undertaken by ODC such as inspections and quarterly reporting review.
Reporting
You are required to report on:
- crops
- cannabis and cannabis resin stock
- manufacturing.
Reports must be submitted quarterly using the ODC reporting template, showing monthly breakdowns.
Cannabis permit reporting template - XLSX 36KB
Reports must be submitted with the file name of 'ODC reporting Q[X year] [licence ID]_[Site ID]' (i.e. 'ODC Reporting Q1 2022 MC001_S01').
Each tab has a space at the top to include relevant permit ID under which the reported activities took place.
Separate reports must be submitted for each permitted site.
Reports should be submitted cumulatively, with running totals over the course of the calendar year.
Any tabs not relevant to permitted activities can be left blank. If any part of a tab is completed, columns that are not relevant should be filled with a zero (0) for data validation purposes.Do not make amendments to template layout.
Reports must be submitted at the end of each quarter to mcs@health.gov.au by no later than the 15th of the following month:
- Q1 report due by COB 15 April (reporting on January to March)
- Q2 report due by COB 15 July (reporting on January to June)
- Q3 report due by COB 15 October (reporting on January to September)
- Q4 report due by COB 15 January (reporting on January to December).
The Q4 report must also contain an annual reconciliation on the relevant tabs of all activities undertaken for the calendar year.
For more details on how to complete the report, please refer to
Guidance: for completing the ODC cannabis reporting template
Reporting template sections
Crops (Medicinal/Scientific)
Use the ‘Crops – Medicinal’ tab to report all plants generated for medicinal use, and/or the ‘Crops – Scientific’ tab to report all plants generated for scientific or research purposes.
The intention of the ‘Crops’ tabs is to track total plants generated, cultivated, transferred, harvested and failed/destroyed.
Cannabis stock (Cannabis stock >1% THC/ Cannabis stock ≤1% THC/ Cannabis Resin Stock)
Cannabis/resin stock (Cannabis stock >1% THC/ Cannabis stock ≤1% THC/ Cannabis Resin Stock)
The reporting on cannabis and cannabis resin stock is split into 3 tabs (>1% THC, ≤1% THC and resin stock). They are designed to record how much cannabis and cannabis resin an entity has on hand (calculated as dried flower or resin) and to record the inputs and outputs over the course of each month.
- Cannabis should be recorded as dry weight expressed as kilograms with 10% moisture content (or equivalent).
- Cannabis resin should be reported as kilograms (kg).
There is a comments field to include any items of note, such as if there is a discrepancy in balancing the inputs vs outputs over a given period.
Manufacturing
The Manufacturing tab is designed to capture inputs and outputs of manufacture activities. Extract outputs should be broken down into delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), THC isomers (excluding delta-9 THC), and cannabidiol (CBD) obtained from extraction of cannabis, including the acids. Figures should record only the active extract(s) in kilograms, not include the solution it is suspended in.
All extract is to be recorded in the appropriate column as total gross weight and its relevant cannabinoid components.