Buying or selling a cannabis business in Missoula, Montana

A shrinking store count behind a tightening zoning rule

Missoula is Montana’s most competitive retail cannabis market and its most regulated at the city level. The city had about 50 dispensaries in January 2026, down from a peak of nearly 60, with a council member describing the decline as slow attrition. Missoula County recorded $3,252,607 of cannabis sales in June 2026, third in the state behind Yellowstone and Gallatin, of which $2,922,665 was adult-use.

Fifty stores sharing roughly $3.25 million a month works out to an average near $65,000 of monthly revenue per store. Averages hide a wide spread, but they set expectations: this is a market of modest single-store businesses, not a handful of large ones.

The 1,000-foot rule and why the address is the asset

Missoula first created a cannabis business category in its code, which brought licensing, tracking, building-code treatment, and an initial 500-foot separation between dispensaries, along with a ban on frosted front windows justified on pedestrian-safety grounds.

On 21 January 2026 the council went further and doubled the separation. A dispensary must now keep 1,000 feet, roughly two downtown blocks, from:

• another dispensary
• schools
• churches
• youth-serving facilities
• parks and recreation facilities
• substance use treatment centres

and 250 feet from residentially zoned parcels. Dispensaries are allowed in mixed-use and industrial zones and barred from residential ones.

In a city of Missoula’s size, a 1,000-foot mutual separation is close to prohibitive for new sites. The city’s approach when it created the business category was to establish legal nonconformities, so existing stores keep their locations. That produces the single most important fact for a transaction here: you are buying an address, and the address does not travel. Relocating a licence may be permitted by the state, which allows an existing premises to move during the statewide freeze, but a Missoula store that moves is unlikely to find a conforming site. Treat the lease and the grandfathered siting as core deal assets and read landlord consent and cannabis lease clauses before signing anything.

Two moratoria, one outcome

Missoula ran a municipal moratorium on new recreational dispensary licences through August 2026. The statewide freeze on new marijuana licences runs to 30 June 2027 under the 2025 legislative changes. Between them, there is no application route into Missoula retail in the near term. Acquisition is the only entry, which supports pricing for operating stores even as the total count falls.

Buyers should note the date rather than the sentiment: the state freeze has a published end. A buyer paying a scarcity premium in 2026 is paying for roughly a year of protection, after which new state licences resume, though Missoula’s 1,000-foot rule would still limit where any new store could go. That local buffer is the more durable constraint.

Local taxes

Missoula County applied a 3% local-option tax to adult-use marijuana after voters approved it by roughly 78% to 22%. Voters rejected the parallel 3% medical tax by 51.57% to 48.43%. The tax took effect on 31 January 2022. So in Missoula County the stack is 23% on adult-use and 4% on medical, and a store with a meaningful medical book carries a measurably lighter tax load on that portion.

Outside the city: unzoned county land

Missoula County has separately worked through cannabis zoning for dispensaries and indoor cultivation in unzoned areas, covering separation between dispensaries and energy requirements for indoor cultivation. If the target premises sits outside the city boundary, the county’s framework governs rather than the city’s, and the two are not the same. Confirm which applies at the exact parcel before you value it. See local control and municipal approvals.

What this means for sellers

Your alternative to selling is often closure, and buyers know it. Counter that by making the position, not the profit, the headline: a conforming grandfathered site inside the 1,000-foot regime, a lease with a term long enough to matter and a landlord who will consent to a change of control, and clean Metrc and tax records. Because Montana licences are not transferable, your buyer purchases the entity and the state must approve the new owners first, so screen for buyer eligibility early. See preparing a cannabis business for sale.

What this means for buyers

Do the zoning check yourself at the parcel level, then check the lease. Those two documents carry more of the value here than the profit and loss. Verify revenue against Metrc, model the tax split between adult-use and medical rather than applying one blended rate, and price against the June 2027 reopening of state licensing. Compare the very different set-up in Billings, where the city banned adult-use retail outright. A free 20-minute intro call is a sensible first step.

This page is educational and is not legal or tax advice. Missoula’s code has changed repeatedly; confirm the current buffers and licence availability with the city before you commit.