BioTrack New York: What Happened and Why NY Uses Metrc

You picked a BioTrack-compatible vendor by January 17, 2025. You sat through OCM's API webinars, priced out 16-digit tags, and penciled in your integration date. Then, on August 5, 2025, the whole plan stopped. If you're still holding a BioTrack NY login, a vendor contract, or a stack of printed tags, this page is for you.

The short answer: New York no longer uses BioTrack. The Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) paused BioTrack integration on August 5, 2025, said in early September 2025 that the state would move to Metrc, and required every active licensee to be credentialed in Metrc by December 17, 2025. Metrc is New York's seed-to-sale system today. We checked every date below against OCM and Metrc bulletins in October 2026.

Does New York Still Use BioTrack?

No. Metrc is New York's official seed-to-sale (STS) system, and BioTrack NY has no compliance role anymore. OCM's September 22, 2025 memo said Metrc "becomes New York's official seed-to-sale system" and set a goal of getting every licensee into Metrc by the end of December 2025.

Quick definition so we're on the same page. A seed-to-sale system is the state's database of record for every plant, package, transfer, and sale. Your ERP or POS runs your business. The state system is what the regulator sees. In New York, that state system was supposed to be BioTrack. It ended up being Metrc.

What Happened to BioTrack in New York? The Short Timeline

BioTrack was New York's pick for almost three years, but it never reached full go-live. These are the milestones that matter. For every deadline, delay, and tag change in detail, see our NY BioTrack delay to Metrc timeline.

• December 20, 2022: New York selects BioTrack as its cannabis track-and-trace system, the same month its first adult-use dispensary opens.
• November 18, 2024: OCM launches the BioTrack NY API and tells licensees to report their chosen inventory software vendor by January 17, 2025.
• May 15, 2025: OCM sets deadlines by license type: real-time electronic tracking from June 15, 2025, then full BioTrack integration by August 1 (cultivators, microbusinesses, registered organizations, labs), September 1 (processors, distributors), and October 1 (dispensaries).
• August 5, 2025: Metrc and BioTrack announce a partnership. That same day, OCM pauses the integration deadline, four days after the cultivator deadline.
• Early September 2025: OCM says New York will move to Metrc, targeting an early 2026 go-live (reported September 8, 2025).
• December 17, 2025: Every active licensee must be credentialed in Metrc. Cultivators, processors, distributors, and labs must have all existing inventory in Metrc.
• January 12, 2026: Dispensaries must have all existing inventory in Metrc, after OCM pushed the date back from December 17.

Here's the part that surprises people outside New York. The state opened adult-use sales in December 2022 with no working seed-to-sale system at all. For three years it ran on weekly portal reports and paper manifests.

Why Did New York Switch From BioTrack to Metrc?

The trigger was a business deal, not a failed test. On August 5, 2025, Metrc and BioTrack announced a strategic partnership. BioTrack moved its government-facing operations into a new, independent company, BT Government, Inc., and kept its commercial ERP and POS business.

That left OCM mid-rollout with a state system vendor that had just been restructured. OCM paused integration, ran what it called a full assessment of the systems implications, and concluded that moving to Metrc was in the best interest of New York's regulated market. It didn't publish a longer list of reasons.

A few practical factors made the call easier to live with:

• Metrc has its own user interface. When OCM expanded seed-to-sale support on December 15, 2025, it noted that licensees no longer need third-party software to report inventory. BioTrack NY was built API-first, so every licensee needed an integrated system.
• Metrc already runs most U.S. markets. Metrc lists 29 jurisdictions and 31 regulatory contracts, including Illinois, which finished its own BioTrack-to-Metrc move in 2025.
• Free Retail Item IDs. Metrc committed 20 million Retail Item UIDs at no cost through 2026, which works out to 30,000 per processor.

OCM's acting executive director put it plainly: "The transition from BioTrack to Metrc was sudden." Retailers felt that, with the first Metrc deadlines landing in the middle of the holiday rush.

Is BioTrack Reliable? How Well Does It Support State Regulations?

BioTrack's state system is still the official tracking system in several states, so it can support state cannabis rules. New York's problem wasn't outages. It was a rollout that dragged on for nearly three years and then lost its vendor structure in the middle of launch.

Here's the thing a lot of operators miss when they ask whether BioTrack is reliable: there are two BioTracks now.

• The state system, now run by BT Government, is what regulators use in BioTrack states like Connecticut and Florida. New Mexico said in a June 15, 2026 bulletin that it's building a successor system and that BioTrack stays in effect there until further notice.
• BioTrack's commercial software is a POS and ERP product operators can buy, separate from any state contract.

So the answer depends on which one you mean and what your state requires. If you're comparing the two state systems across markets, our BioTrack vs Metrc breakdown covers tags, APIs, and manifests side by side.

BioTrack vs Distru: What's the Difference?

They aren't the same kind of tool. A state seed-to-sale system like BioTrack or Metrc records what the regulator needs. Distru, a Cannabis AI ERP with a built-in B2B wholesale marketplace, runs the business around it: inventory, production, costing, sales orders, fulfillment, and accounting, with a two-way sync to the state system.

Distru integrates with Metrc and with BioTrack. That's exactly why it mattered in New York. Operators who set up Distru for BioTrack NY didn't have to change ERPs when the state switched. They connected Metrc instead and kept working from the same item, batch, and customer records.

If you're weighing Distru against BioTrack's commercial ERP or POS, ask every vendor the same three questions. Which state systems do you sync with today? Does the sync run two ways? What happens to my data if my state changes vendors? New York proved that last one isn't hypothetical.

What Should You Do If You Set Up for BioTrack NY?

Treat your BioTrack work as history, keep the records, and make sure everything current lives in Metrc. Here's the checklist we'd run:

1. Confirm your Metrc credentials. Every active licensee had to be credentialed by December 17, 2025, operating or not. If you got your license after that, credentialing comes first.
2. Keep your old tracking records. During the pause, OCM's integration pause FAQ told licensees to keep all past tracking and inventory data in their own systems and make records available on request. Don't delete BioTrack-era data.
3. Stop sending data to BioTrack NY. OCM asked integrated licensees to log out of the API during the pause. Nothing sent there counts for compliance now.
4. Retire your BioTrack tags. The 16-digit BioTrack NY identifiers don't carry over to Metrc, which uses its own Plant UIDs, Package UIDs, and Retail Item IDs. OCM never promised refunds for BioTrack tags, and its state-paid Metrc tag program doesn't reimburse past purchases.
5. Review your vendor contract. If you signed with a vendor only for BioTrack NY, check whether it integrates with Metrc today. Our Metrc New York page shows what Distru supports in the state.
6. Train on Metrc workflows. Retail Item IDs, Finished Goods designation, and test status checks are the new daily habits. Our New York Metrc integration guide walks through them.

What Does New York's Metrc System Require Today?

As of October 2026, every New York licensee reports in Metrc, and finished goods going to dispensaries need a Retail Item ID and a passing test status. The big milestones after go-live:

• February 28, 2026: Last day distributors could send product to dispensaries without a Retail Item ID on each unit.
• April 1, 2026: Each unit sent to a dispensary also needs a Finished Goods designation and a TestPassed or RetestPassed status in Metrc, per Metrc bulletin NY_IB_0011.
• May 5, 2026: Manual retail inventory and sales reporting through the OCM portal ends.
• September 1, 2026: State-paid Metrc tags begin, funded by the 2026-2027 state budget.
• September 15, 2026: Delinquent payment (C.O.D.) reporting moves into Metrc.

Bookmark OCM's seed-to-sale page. New bulletins still land every few weeks.

How Distru Helps New York Operators on Metrc

Most New York teams we talk to don't want to live in Metrc. They want Metrc to match what actually happened on the floor. Distru keeps a two-way, real-time sync with Metrc that runs on your command, so your inventory, packages, and transfers stay in step without retyping package tags at 11 PM.

Only three actions need Metrc directly: accept package, transfer package, register manifest. Distru handles everything around them, from production and costing to sales orders and invoices. If Metrc goes down, you keep working in Distru and sync when it's back.

Distru is the #1 Metrc integration partner by API call volume, with 440+ customers across 30+ states and 3 to 4 week onboarding. If you still have BioTrack-era setup to clean up, book a demo and we'll show you what a New York Metrc workflow looks like in Distru, start to finish.