Ingredient Index

Is Atrazine banned in Europe?

Banned in EU

Yes: the EU withdrew atrazine in 2004 because it kept turning up in groundwater above Europe's strict pesticide limit. In the US it remains the second most-used herbicide, at over 70 million pounds a year.

CAS: 1912-24-9 Also seen as: AAtrex, Gesaprim, Atrazine herbicide

What the EU does

Banned since 2004, on a groundwater rule. Commission Decision 2004/248/EC excluded atrazine from the EU's approved pesticide list, and the reason is more procedural than most people expect: EU law caps any single pesticide in groundwater at 0.1 micrograms per liter, a precautionary blanket standard rather than a substance-specific toxicology verdict, and atrazine's persistence and mobility made staying under that line impossible.

That nuance matters for honest comparison. Europe did not conclude atrazine at trace levels poisons people; it concluded the chemical could not be kept out of drinking water sources at the concentration Europe decided any pesticide should be held to. Germany and Italy had banned it nationally back in 1991 on the same logic.

Citation Commission Decision 2004/248/EC (non-inclusion under Directive 91/414/EEC); Drinking Water Directive 0.1 µg/L single-pesticide limit

What the US does

Legal and everywhere corn grows. Atrazine is America's second most-used herbicide at more than 70 million pounds per year, mostly on corn, sorghum, and sugarcane. The EPA's enforceable drinking-water limit is 3 micrograms per liter, thirty times the EU's effective ceiling, and seasonal spikes in Midwestern water systems are a recurring monitoring story.

The science fight centers on endocrine effects, most famously the frog studies showing feminization at low doses, findings industry-funded work disputes and the EPA has not accepted as establishing human harm; the agency does not classify atrazine as a human carcinogen. In its ongoing registration review, the EPA proposed updated mitigations in December 2024 that would raise the aquatic-life concern threshold, moving American policy looser in the same decades Europe's stayed shut.

Citation EPA Interim Registration Review Decision (2020) and updated mitigation proposal (Dec 2024); EPA MCL 3 µg/L

Products that commonly contain it

Atrazine is not a food ingredient; exposure runs through water and residues:

Tap water in corn-belt communities, peaking in spring runoff season
Trace residues on corn, sorghum, and sugarcane products
Lawn and turf products in some regions
Essentially absent from EU-grown food and water since 2004

What to look for on a label

No label lists a herbicide, so the practical moves are:

Check your utility's annual water quality report (Consumer Confidence Report) for atrazine
Standard carbon filters certified for VOC/pesticide reduction remove most of it
USDA Organic corn and sugarcane prohibit atrazine use
EWG and USGS both publish atrazine monitoring maps for US water systems

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Frequently asked questions

Is atrazine banned in Europe?

Yes, since 2004. The formal ground was groundwater contamination: atrazine could not be kept below the EU's blanket 0.1 µg/L limit for any pesticide in groundwater.

Is atrazine in American drinking water?

In corn-growing regions, commonly, with seasonal peaks. The EPA's legal limit is 3 µg/L as an annual average, and utilities must report detections in their annual water quality reports.

Did Europe ban it because it turns frogs female?

No, that is a common conflation. The EU decision was about groundwater persistence under a precautionary limit. The frog endocrine findings are a separate, still-contested scientific debate that mostly plays out in US regulatory fights.

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Last reviewed July 13, 2026 · How we assign statuses