The Global Pesticide Grids (PEST-CHEMGRIDS) includes a comprehensive database of the 20 most-used pesticide active ingredients on 6 dominant crops and 4 aggregated crop classes at 5 arc-minute resolution (about 10 km at the equator), estimated in year 2015 and projected to 2020 and 2025. To estimate the global application rates of specific active ingredients, spatial statistical methods were used to re-analyze the U.S. Geological Survey Pesticide National Synthesis Project (USGS/PNSP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT) pesticide databases, along with other public inventories including global gridded data of soil physical properties, hydro-climatic variables, agricultural quantities, and socioeconomic indices. The data set also includes 200 data quality maps corresponding to each active ingredient on each crop, as well as maps of the 10 dominant crops and 4 aggregated crop classes.