Selling Food You Made at Home
Sources last read 2026-08-18.
Short answer
There is no national rule for this and anybody who gives you one is guessing. Every state sets its own, and they ask the same four questions. Which foods you may sell. Who you register with, if anyone. How much you may sell in a year. What has to be on the label. Texas and California both allow it and they answer those four questions in almost opposite ways. So the useful thing this page can give you is the shape of the rules and the list to go and check.
Why this page will not give you the answer
Because there is no national one, and pretending there is would be the most useful looking lie on this site.
Food made in a home kitchen is set state by state. The phrase to search for is cottage food.
Every state that allows it answers the same four questions. Once you know the four, you can read any state's page in about fifteen minutes.
The four questions
Which foods. Every state keeps a list of what you may sell, and a list of what you may not. The line usually sits around whether food needs to stay cold to stay safe.
Who you tell. Some states want you registered with them. Some send you to your county. Some want a short course first, and some want nothing at all.
How much. Most set a cap on what you may sell in a year. Go over it and you are a different kind of business with a different set of rules.
The label. Almost all of them say what has to be printed on the thing you sell, down to the wording. This is the part people forget and it is the easiest part to get right.
Texas, as one example
Texas allows this and puts the state in charge of it.
The state says local government may not regulate how you produce the food. Their wording is printed further down. One office to deal with instead of three.
The cap is 150,000 dollars a year, which is a long way past where anybody reading this is.
There is a list of foods that are out, and it includes things like meat, seafood, canned low acid foods and raw milk. Cold storage is the theme.
California, doing it the other way
California allows it too, and almost every detail is different.
There are two kinds. Class A is selling straight to the public, capped at 75,000 dollars a year. Class B also lets you sell through shops and restaurants, and is capped at 150,000 dollars.
And you do not start with the state. California tells you to contact your local Environmental Health Department, which means your county, not Sacramento.
Put those two next to each other
Same country. Same kind of business. Two different worlds.
One says the state decides and the county stays out. The other sends you to the county first.
One cap. Two caps, depending on who you sell to.
That is why this page has no table of fifty states in it. If you find one online, ask where the writer got each row. I looked, and no public survey covering every state appears to exist. Somebody who shows you all fifty has filled in some of them from thin air.
The two above are here as examples of how different the answers get, not because they are yours.
An example, to show the shape of it
Felix is 15 and bakes. He wanted to sell boxes of cookies and a cheesecake at a local market.
He searched it first and found a cheerful article saying home baking is legal in most states. It did not name his.
So he found his own state's cottage food page instead. The cookies were on the allowed list. The cheesecake was not, because it has to be kept cold.
Registering was a form and a small fee, handled by his county rather than the state. The label rules ran to most of a page and told him exactly what had to appear on every box.
He dropped the cheesecake and doubled the cookies. That decision took one evening of reading and it is the reason nobody has ever asked him a question he could not answer.
The list to go and check for yourself
Six things. Write the answers down with the date and where you found each one.
One. The allowed food list. And the banned one. Find your exact product on it.
Two. Who you register with. State or county. Whether there is a fee, a form or a course.
Three. The cap. What the number is, and whether it counts everything that came in or only what you kept.
Four. The label. The exact wording and what has to be on it.
Five. What your city adds. Some cities have their own rules on top of the state's, especially about selling from a home.
Six. Any age in it. If your state has something written for young people, read the law itself and look for an age. At least one state's famous law for kids stops at 16.
Last thing
Food is the part of this site where the rules bite hardest, and it is also the part where people get hurt if it goes wrong.
Do the reading before you bake for money, not after. And go through what you found with an adult, because the person who owns the kitchen has a stake in this too.
Texas, on who is in charge of a home kitchen
may NOT regulate the production of food at a cottage food production operation
Texas Department of State Health Services, cottage food
Cottage food is the phrase states use for food made in a home kitchen and sold. In Texas the state says local government may not regulate how you make it. That is unusual and it is useful, because it means the answer comes from one place instead of three. It is also only about making the food, and it is only Texas.
The federal small business agency, on why this is a local question
The licenses and permits you need from the state, county, or city will depend on your business activities and business location.
Small Business Administration, apply for licenses and permits
Food is where this sentence bites hardest. State, county and city can each have a say, and with food they often do. That is why the two states below look nothing like each other, and why the last section of this page is a list of things to go and look up rather than answers.
Questions people actually ask
Can I just sell cookies to people at school?
Ask your school first, because they will have their own rule and it has nothing to do with state law. Then ask your state, because home kitchen food is one of the few things on this site that really is watched. The answer is often yes with conditions.
Why will nobody give me a straight answer?
Because a straight answer for fifty states does not exist. Everything changes at the state line, sometimes at the county line. This page tells you what to ask instead, which is the honest version.
Does a lemonade stand law cover me?
Maybe not. The ones I read are about drinks, not baked goods, and at least one of them stops at people under 16. If somebody tells you your state has one, open the law and look for two things. What food it covers, and whether there is an age in it.
What is usually not allowed anywhere?
The pattern across the states I read is that food needing refrigeration to stay safe is the hard part. Texas leaves out things like meat, seafood, canned low acid foods and raw milk. Yours will have its own list, and the list is the first thing to open.
Does it matter that I am 15?
It might, and not always in the way you expect. Some states have exemptions written for young people that stop at an age below 18. So when you read yours, look for an age in it. Do not assume a rule for kids covers you.
Where this came from
Texas Department of State Health Services, cottage food production
dshs.texas.gov
Small Business Administration, apply for licenses and permits
sba.gov