Do You Need an Arborist License in Tennessee?

Last updated: October 2, 2026

Tennessee issues no arborist license, so cutting and removing trees needs nothing from the state — no exam, no experience requirement, no background check. What changes the picture is treatment. A company providing or offering for sale any custom pesticide application must hold a pest control charter, and a charter is required for each individual location. It carries a $200 annual fee, a $10,000 surety bond, $250,000 per incident and $500,000 aggregate in liability cover, and a licensee in every category you sell.

What Tennessee Actually Requires

• No arborist license — Tennessee issues none, and ISA certification is voluntary.
• ★ A pest control charter if your company is providing or offering for sale any custom pesticide application. Offering it for sale is enough — the requirement bites at the advertisement, not the spray.
• ★ One charter per location. A charter is required for each individual location: an office in Nashville and another in Memphis each need their own.
• A pro-rated fee of $200 per year.
• ★ A $10,000 surety bond — or $50,000 for new companies holding the WDO, GRC, FUM or BDC license types.
• ★ Proof of liability insurance: minimum coverages of $250,000 per incident and $500,000 aggregate.
• At least one licensee in each category of service offered — for tree and shrub work that is the Ornamental and Turf category.
• No background check for tree work itself, since no arborist credential exists.

What It Costs

Item	Cost	Notes
State arborist license	Does not exist	Cutting and removal need no Tennessee credential
Pest control charter	$200 / year, pro-rated	Per location — a second office is a second charter
Surety bond	$10,000	$50,000 for new companies holding WDO, GRC, FUM or BDC licenses
Liability insurance	$250,000 / $500,000	Per incident and aggregate — proof required for the charter
Category licensee	Per category	At least one licensee in each category of service you offer
Tennessee LLC	$300 minimum	Filing fee is calculated per member with a $300 floor — among the higher LLC filings

A Charter Per Location, a Bond, and a Licensee in Every Category

Tennessee’s tree rules are simple until you offer to treat something, at which point they become one of the more structured schemes in this guide — and the structure is built around the business, not the operator.

The trigger is the offer. A company providing or offering for sale any custom pesticide application must have a pest control charter. That phrasing puts Tennessee alongside Ohio, where soliciting the work needs the license, and Connecticut, where advertising arboriculture needs one. Listing “disease and insect treatment” on your website is offering it for sale. If you plan to add treatment later, do not advertise it now.

The charter is per location, and that is unusual enough to plan around. The Department is explicit: a charter is required for each individual location, and it gives the example directly — an office in Nashville and another in Memphis each need their own charter. Most states license the company once and let it work statewide. In Tennessee, opening a second yard duplicates the fee, the bond arrangements and the compliance surface. For a business planning to grow across the state, that is a real cost line rather than an administrative footnote.

Then come the two financial conditions, and Tennessee is one of the few states asking for both. A charter application requires a $10,000 surety bond and proof of liability insurance with minimum coverages of $250,000 per incident and $500,000 aggregate. A bond and a policy do different jobs — the bond answers for your performance and compliance, the policy answers for the damage — and needing both is a higher bar than most states set. New companies holding the WDO, GRC, FUM or BDC license types face a $50,000 bond instead, so check which license types your services fall under before you price the bond premium.

The staffing condition is the one that shapes what you can sell. A charter requires at least one licensee in each category of service offered. Not one licensee overall — one per category. For tree and shrub work the relevant category is Ornamental and Turf. If you later add a service in another category, you need a licensee in that category too, or you cannot legally offer it. In a small company that usually means the owner accumulating categories over time, and it makes each new service line a licensing decision rather than a marketing one.

One note that has nothing to do with trees: the Tennessee LLC filing fee is calculated per member with a $300 minimum, which puts it among the more expensive formations in the country. If you are choosing between a single-member and a multi-member structure, that arithmetic is worth doing before you file rather than after.

How to Get Licensed, In Order

1. Decide whether you will offer treatment at all — and remember that advertising it already counts as offering it for sale.
2. Count your locations. Each one needs its own charter, so plan the second office as a second application.
3. Get certified in the categories you intend to sell, starting with Ornamental and Turf for trees and shrubs.
4. Arrange the $10,000 surety bond — or confirm whether your license types put you in the $50,000 bracket.
5. Bind liability cover at $250,000 per incident and $500,000 aggregate and get the proof ready for the application.
6. Apply for the charter and pay the pro-rated $200 annual fee.
7. Add a licensee before you add a service category, not after.
8. Register the business entity, budgeting the $300 minimum Tennessee filing fee.

Staying Licensed

The charter fee is $200 per year and pro-rated, so it is an annual cycle rather than a multi-year one. Three conditions have to keep holding between renewals: the $10,000 surety bond, the $250,000 per incident and $500,000 aggregate liability cover, and a licensee in each category of service you offer. That last one is the most likely to break quietly — if the person holding a category leaves, you can no longer offer that service even though the charter itself is still in date, so treat their departure as a licensing event. Expansion is also a licensing event: a new location means a new charter, not an amendment to the existing one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Tennessee require an arborist license?

No. Tennessee issues no arborist license and has no arborist board, so cutting, pruning and removing trees needs no state credential and carries no exam or background check. ISA certification is voluntary. What is regulated is pesticide application, through a business permit called a charter.

What is a pest control charter in Tennessee?

A charter is a type of permit issued by the Department of Agriculture to a business, and it is required for each individual location. A company providing or offering for sale any custom pesticide application must have one — note that offering it for sale is enough, so advertising treatment services triggers the requirement before any spraying happens.

What does a Tennessee charter cost and what does it require?

A pro-rated fee of $200 per year, a $10,000 surety bond, and proof of liability insurance with minimum coverages of $250,000 per incident and $500,000 aggregate. A charter also requires that there be at least one licensee in each category of service offered. New companies holding certain license types — WDO, GRC, FUM or BDC — need a $50,000 bond instead of $10,000.

Do I need a separate charter for a second office in Tennessee?

Yes. The charter is required for each individual location. If a company has an office in Nashville and another in Memphis, each location would be required to have its own charter — so expansion into a second city is a second charter, a second fee and a second set of conditions.

Tree work sits alongside our full guide to starting a landscaping business in Tennessee, and the wider guide to starting a business in Tennessee. Or see how every state handles tree work in our arborist license requirements by state guide.

Sources

Source	What It Covers
Tennessee Department of Agriculture — certification, licensing and charters	What a charter is, that it is required per individual location with the Nashville/Memphis example, the $200 pro-rated annual fee, the $10,000 and $50,000 bond levels, the $250,000 per incident and $500,000 aggregate insurance minimums, and the licensee-per-category requirement
Tennessee Department of Agriculture — pesticide charters	The charter program and application process
Tennessee Department of Agriculture — commercial pesticide applicators	Commercial applicator licensing and continuing education, including the Ornamental and Turf category
Tennessee Secretary of State — business forms and fees	The LLC filing fee, calculated per member with a $300 minimum