Termite Letter Requirements, State by State

A termite letter is a report from a licensed pest control company saying whether it found termites or other wood-eating insects at a house. Your lender will usually want one before you close. Most states let the inspector use a national form called the NPMA-33. Eight states require their own form instead, and in those states it is the only one that counts.

Someone has probably told you the letter is good for 90 days. In seven of these eight states that is wrong. Their rules put no expiry date on the report at all.

Who this is for

You are buying or selling a house in one of these states and someone has asked you for a termite letter, or you have one already and you are being told it has gone stale.

If you are holding a report and trying to work out what the boxes on it mean, read what a WDI report says and what it doesn’t instead. If the argument is over who picks up the bill, that is a separate question.

How long is a termite letter good for?

In seven of these eight states, nothing in the rules says it ever stops being good. South Carolina is the only one that sets a deadline, and that deadline is 30 days.

That is not what you will hear. Ask around and someone will tell you 90 days, and they are not making it up. Three of these states do have a 90-day rule written down. It just does not say what people think it says.

Here is Georgia’s, which is typical. The rule says the report carries “a guarantee that, if an infestation of wood destroying organisms from which apparent freedom is certified, is found within ninety (90) days from date of issuance, the infested structure(s) shall be treated by the licensee, free of charge.” Alabama and Louisiana each have their own version of the same promise.

Read that again and you will see it is a warranty, not a deadline. It is a promise about what the company owes you if termites turn up shortly after it told you there were none. It says nothing about how long you can keep using the paperwork.

Louisiana makes this clearer than the other two, because its rules make it a violation for a company to claim the report covers a longer period than it really does. That is a rule about overstating a guarantee. It only makes sense if the 90 days is a guarantee in the first place.

So why does the number get repeated so confidently? Part of it is that misreading. The rest of it is real, and it comes from a different piece of paper. The NPMA-33, the national form used in most other states, does carry a genuine 90-day limit, and that one really is about whether the report can still be used. The form says it is invalid for securing a mortgage or settling a property transfer if it is not used within 90 days of the inspection. That is true, it is printed on the form, and in these eight states you are not filing an NPMA-33.

Florida’s regulator settled the question in writing. Its own guidance for the state form says the report “is not required to be guaranteed by the licensee nor is it required to be good for any set period of time.”

So if you are told your letter has expired, the useful question is which document says so. Outside South Carolina it will be your lender, your escrow company or your purchase contract. Those are real deadlines and you still have to meet them, but they are the kind of deadline you can sometimes talk about.

Find your state

State	The form you need	The rule that requires it	Expires?
Alabama	Official Alabama Wood Infestation Inspection Report	Ala. Admin. Code r. 80-10-9-.18	No
California	Wood Destroying Pests and Organisms Inspection Report (43M-41)	Cal. B&P Code § 8516; 16 CCR § 1996	No
Florida	Wood-Destroying Organisms Inspection Report (FDACS-13645)	Fla. Stat. § 482.226; rule 5E-14.142	No
Georgia	Official Georgia Wood Infestation Inspection Report	Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 620-6-.03	No
Louisiana	Wood Destroying Insect Report (LPCA 143 / 143 A)	La. Admin. Code tit. 7, Pt. XXV, § 121	No
North Carolina	Wood-Destroying Insect Information Report (WDIR 100)	02 NCAC 34 .0602	No
South Carolina	Official South Carolina Wood Infestation Report (CL-100)	S.C. Code Regs. 27-1085(K)	30 days
Texas	Texas Official Wood Destroying Insect Report (SPCS/T-5)	4 Tex. Admin. Code § 7.176	No

Alabama

Alabama requires the Official Alabama Wood Infestation Inspection Report, which comes in two parts, A and B. There is no form number to look for, because the rule prints the form itself at Ala. Admin. Code r. 80-10-9-.18.

It does not expire. The 90 days in Alabama’s rule is a promise of free re-treatment, not a shelf life.

The rule also does not require you to get an inspection at all. It describes a report “which may be required as a condition of sale financing or refinancing,” which is the state saying plainly that this is a lender’s requirement rather than its own.

California

California requires the Wood Destroying Pests and Organisms Inspection Report, form 43M-41. It sits under Business and Professions Code section 8516 and 16 CCR section 1996.

It does not expire.

The part worth knowing in California is how the report is divided. Section I is visible evidence of active infestation. Section II is conditions that could lead to one. That split is written into the regulation, at 16 CCR 1990(f), including the exact wording that has to appear on the report.

You will hear people talk about Section 3. There is no Section 3. The regulation calls those items “further inspection items” and says specifically that they cannot be classed as Section I or Section II. They are places the inspector could not get to.

Florida

Florida requires the Wood-Destroying Organisms Inspection Report, form FDACS-13645, under section 482.226 of the Florida Statutes and rule 5E-14.142.

It does not expire, and Florida is the state that says so most directly. FDACS guidance for the form states the report “is not required to be guaranteed by the licensee nor is it required to be good for any set period of time.” Nearly every Florida pest control website will tell you 30 days.

Georgia

Georgia requires the Official Georgia Wood Infestation Inspection Report. It has no form number, because the rule prints the form itself, at Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 620-6-.03. If a website gives you a Georgia form number, it has copied the number off a fact sheet about the form.

It does not expire. The 90 days in Georgia’s rule is the free re-treatment promise quoted above.

One Georgia rule catches people out. The company’s designated certified operator has to sign the report personally. A technician can do the inspection, but a signature from anyone other than that operator is not acceptable.

Louisiana

Louisiana requires the Wood Destroying Insect Report, form LPCA 143, or LPCA 143 A if it includes an arbitration clause. Both are named directly in the law, at LAC title 7, part XXV, section 121.

It does not expire. Louisiana’s 90 days is a free re-treatment promise, and the state goes further than most by making it a violation to represent the report as covering longer than it does.

Louisiana’s form is an unusual one. LPCA stands for the Louisiana Pest Control Association, a trade body, and the state agriculture department does not publish a blank copy of the form it requires you to use.

North Carolina

North Carolina requires the Official North Carolina Wood-Destroying Insect Information Report, form WDIR 100, under 02 NCAC 34 .0602.

It does not expire.

North Carolina’s rule is written more broadly than most. Any written statement about whether a building for sale has wood-destroying insects has to be made on the WDIR 100. The state’s own department does not use the phrase termite letter or clearance letter anywhere in its rules, so if you ask for one by that name you may get a blank look before you get the form.

South Carolina

South Carolina requires the Official South Carolina Wood Infestation Report, form CL-100, under South Carolina Code of Regulations 27-1085(K).

This is the one that expires. The CL-100 says on its face: “THIS REPORT IS VALID FOR 30 DAYS ONLY.” That wording is printed on the form rather than written into the regulation, which is worth knowing if it ever becomes an argument, but it is a real limit from the state’s own document.

South Carolina is also the only state here whose regulator takes a public position on who should get the report. It recommends the buyer rather than the seller, and gives its reason: it puts the person with the strongest interest in a full and honest report in charge of paying for it.

Texas

Texas requires the Texas Official Wood Destroying Insect Report, form SPCS/T-5, revised 1 September 2020, under 4 Texas Administrative Code section 7.176.

It does not expire.

Check the number on anything you are handed. Plenty of websites and form services still name the Texas form SPCS/T-4, which has been superseded. Texas also addresses the lender question head on: if the VA or another lender wants its findings on a different form, that form is “supplemental to the required department form,” so it goes on top of the SPCS/T-5 rather than in place of it.

Here’s what I’d actually do

If someone tells me my termite letter has expired, I would ask them to point at the document that says so before I paid for a second inspection. Outside South Carolina it will not be a state rule, and a deadline set by an escrow company is a different kind of thing from a deadline set by law.

The other question I would ask has nothing to do with the report. Several of these state forms carry language about transferring a warranty, and it is easy to read that as the report transferring to you. It is not. That language is about the treatment warranty on the house, which is a separate agreement with the pest control company, and whether it comes with the house is worth real money. Ask the seller for their treatment records and ask whether the warranty transfers, and ask early, because it gets forgotten in almost every one of these deals.

Sources

• Ala. Admin. Code r. 80-10-9-.18, Real Estate Transaction Inspection Report — Alabama Legislative Services Agency, official publisher of the Alabama Administrative Code. Accessed 2026-08-02.
• Structural Pest Control Act and Rules and Regulations — California Structural Pest Control Board, Department of Consumer Affairs. Accessed 2026-08-02. Section I and Section II wording is prescribed at 16 CCR § 1990(f).
• Guidelines for Use and Completion of the Form 13645, Wood-Destroying Organisms Inspection Report — Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Rev. 12/2008. Accessed 2026-08-02. Source of the “any set period of time” quotation.
• Rules of the Georgia Structural Pest Control Commission, Rule 620-6-.03 — Georgia Department of Agriculture, effective 2026-04-08. Accessed 2026-08-02. The file name carries a 2021 date; the document body does not.
• La. Admin. Code tit. 7, Pt. XXV, Structural Pest Control rules — Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, June 2025 edition. Accessed 2026-08-02.
• 02 NCAC 34 .0602, Wood-Destroying Insect and Other Organism Reports — North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings. Accessed 2026-08-02.
• Rules and Regulations for the Enforcement of the South Carolina Pesticide Control Act — Clemson University Department of Pesticide Regulation, revised July 2024. Accessed 2026-08-02. The CL-100 form is published in the same document folder.
• Texas Official Wood Destroying Insect Report, Form SPCS/T-5 (Rev. 9/1/2020) — Texas Department of Agriculture, Structural Pest Control Service. Accessed 2026-08-02.
• Form NPMA-33, Wood Destroying Insect Inspection Report (7/01/19) — National Pest Management Association, hosted by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Accessed 2026-08-02. Source of the 90-day clause described above.