Is Kratom Legal in Tennessee?
Last checked: 09/05/26
No. Kratom has been banned in Tennessee since July 1, 2026, under Public Chapter 950, the act the legislature named Matthew Davenport’s Law. Knowing possession is a crime for adults of any age, and selling is a felony.
Tennessee is the state people get wrong most often, and there’s a reason for it. Until July 1, 2026, kratom was legal here for adults 21 and over, and it was legal under a statute that had banned a version of it since 2013. Pages describing Tennessee as a regulated market were correct when they were written. They stopped being correct on July 1, 2026.
What law bans kratom in Tennessee?
Public Chapter 950 of 2026, which began as House Bill 1649 with Senate Bill 1656 as its companion.
The act rewrote Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-452, the section that used to hold Tennessee’s kratom rules, and added a new criminal section to Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 4. It defines kratom as any part of the Mitragyna speciosa plant containing mitragynine or 7-hydroxymitragynine, along with anything derived from it.
That definition reaches the leaf and the alkaloids at once, so powder, capsules, tablets, extracts, drinks and tea are all covered.
Governor Bill Lee signed it on May 7, 2026. Section 8 of the act sets the effective date at July 1, 2026, “the public welfare requiring it.”
Why do so many pages say kratom is legal in Tennessee?
Because it was, and under a law that sounds like a ban.
Tennessee scheduled kratom’s alkaloids back in 2013. Then a state attorney general opinion read that scheduling as reaching only synthetic versions of the compounds, not the plant. The Congressional Research Service records the point in its survey of state kratom law. The legislature later wrote that reading into the statute.
What § 39-17-452 said, right up until the ban took force, is set out in the General Assembly’s own fiscal note on the bill. It was a Class A misdemeanor to sell kratom unless it was labeled and in its natural form. Same for selling it to anyone under 21, or for anyone under 21 to have it. “Natural form” meant dried, cut and sifted leaf, or raw leaf powder.
The state’s own fiscal analysis put that market at roughly 38,000 users and about $19 million a year in sales, including some $1.3 million in state sales tax. So Tennessee ran a labeled, age-gated retail market for natural leaf, sitting inside a statute written against synthetic derivatives. Both descriptions of Tennessee were true at the same time, which is how the confusion started. Public Chapter 950 ended it.
What are the penalties for kratom in Tennessee?
Possession is a misdemeanor. Selling is a felony. Selling to a minor is a worse felony.
Knowingly possessing kratom is a Class A misdemeanor, which under Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-111 carries up to 11 months and 29 days and a fine of up to $2,500.
Knowingly manufacturing, delivering or selling kratom, or possessing it with intent to do any of those, is a Class C felony. That range is three to fifteen years and a fine of up to $10,000.
Selling to a minor, where the seller is an adult at least two years older, is a Class B felony.
Those numbers are the softer of two options the legislature gave itself. Two kratom bills were filed on the same day in January 2026 by the same two sponsors. House Bill 1647, with Senate Bill 1655, would have made simple possession a Class D felony. House Bill 1649, with Senate Bill 1656, made it a Class A misdemeanor. The General Assembly passed the second and left the first where it lay. Every tier in the act that became law sits one class below the bill filed beside it.
What else did the act do?
Three things that have nothing to do with arrests, and they matter more to most people than the criminal sections.
County medical examiners must test for kratom when the suspected cause of death is a drug overdose.
Physicians must include kratom in toxicology screening where an overdose or neonatal abstinence syndrome is suspected.
The commissioner of labor and workforce development is directed to write a rule adding kratom to the definition of a drug for workplace drug testing.
That last one reaches people who will never see a courtroom. If you work in Tennessee under a drug testing policy, assume kratom is on the panel, if it isn’t there already.
How did it move through the legislature?
Quickly, and with the votes to spare.
Filed on January 14, 2026. Through the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, Judiciary, and Finance, Ways and Means. Passed the House on April 8, 2026 by 78 to 9. Passed the Senate on April 16 by 23 to 2, after two amendments were withdrawn or tabled. Signed May 7. In force July 1.
The act is named for Matthew Davenport, who died in 2024. His family testified for the bill. The General Assembly’s bill history carries every step and the recorded video of every hearing.
Could Tennessee’s ban change?
Not soon, on the arithmetic. A ban that passes 78 to 9 and 23 to 2 is not one vote away from reversing.
A regulate-and-cap alternative was filed in the same session and never advanced. Tennessee has no Kratom Consumer Protection Act, and what it had instead, the labeled natural-form market under § 39-17-452, is the thing this act repealed.
The 114th General Assembly returns in January 2027. If a bill moves, the legislature’s own site shows it first. Not a store’s website. Ours included.
Can you order kratom online in Tennessee?
No. The law applies where you are, not where the seller is. Once a package crosses the state line, Tennessee law is what applies to it.
We don’t ship to Tennessee. No kratom company that follows the law does.
Is kratom legal in the states around Tennessee?
In most of them, and Tennessee has more neighbors than almost any state in the country. Eight of them.
Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia all allow kratom at the state level. Alabama and Arkansas ban it outright.
Kentucky is the one with a date on it, and the date is not the one you’ll read elsewhere. A prohibition on preparing, manufacturing, distributing, dispensing and selling kratom was enacted there in April 2026 as part of a revenue bill. Trackers report it starting January 1, 2027. The codified statute carries an effective date of July 1, 2027. Possession is untouched and the penalty is civil, so Kentucky is not becoming a second Tennessee.
Georgia went the other way. A bill to make both alkaloids Schedule I and repeal the state’s kratom rules was reported out of committee in March 2026 and the session ended without it. Georgia runs the strictest regulated market of the eight: age 21, behind the counter, labeled, no vaping formats.
Mississippi is the one to watch at street level. State law allows kratom for adults 21 and over, and a long list of Mississippi counties and cities bans it anyway. Legal at the state line is not the same as legal at the address.
Eight borders means eight chances to cross one without thinking about it. The law applies to you where you are, not where you came from. Traveling with kratom covers what that means on a drive and in an airport.
Can a city or county in Tennessee make it legal?
No. Counties and cities can add rules on top of state law. What none of them can do is undo a state ban.
There’s no reliable way to track every local rule in the country. We are not going to pretend there is. If you’re reading this from another state, check your own city and county first.
If the law changes, this page changes with it. How we check these pages.
Back to Kratom Legality or to the Kratom Guide.
