Plant biostimulants are not regulated under a dedicated standalone framework in Burundi. In practice, they are treated under the broader categories of fertilisers, soil amendments, or biofertilisers depending on composition and label claims. The key legislation is Loi n°1/05 du 12 mars 2010 portant réglementation de la production et de la commercialisation des fertilisants et des amendements de sols (Law No. 1/05 of 12 March 2010 regulating the production and marketing of fertilisers and soil amendments), which governs the manufacture, importation, marketing, and quality control of fertilisers and soil amendments.

Registration is required before any product may be legally sold on the Burundian market. Companies must follow a three-step pipeline : first, the product must undergo scientific research assessing its effects on soils and plants, carried out by an accredited public or private research institute at the promoter's cost. The results are then submitted to the Comité National des Fertilisants et Amendements, which reviews them and recommends approval or rejection to the Ministers of Agriculture and Commerce.

Finally, approved products are formally homologated and published annually by joint ministerial order. Selling a non-homologated product is a criminal offence, and any conviction leads to confiscation of the stock.

Publicly available official information on registration costs and timelines is extremely limited. No published fee schedule, dossier guideline, or statutory evaluation timeline has been identified. The World Bank notes an absence of formal fertiliser product registration procedures in practice.

For imported products, we would expect that companies would typically need to provide import authorisation, conformity and composition documentation, labels, safety data, and certificates of analysis, but all this, we recommend, is to be checked on a case by case basis with the Ministry of Agriculture. Based on East African regional practice, obtaining an import permit may take from a few days to several weeks, while a full product market authorisation, where required, may take several months. Costs are not publicly available and appear to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

The primary authority is the Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock (Ministère de l'Environnement, de l'Agriculture et de l'Élevage), which is responsible for fertilisers, agricultural inputs, import permits, and phytosanitary control. ABREVPA, created by Presidential Decree No. 100/083 of 18 July 2022, oversees pesticides, veterinary products, and foods, and may have relevance for certain biological agricultural inputs depending on product classification.

Given the lack of published procedures and timelines, early engagement with the Ministry of Agriculture is strongly recommended.

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