Cottage food rules
How to Get a Permit to Sell Baked Goods From Home
Know which permit, if any, your state wants before you take your first paid order.
On this page
Most home bakers start this search the moment someone asks “can I order a cake?” and a hobby turns into a business question. The permit part is usually smaller than it feels. What eats the time is figuring out which office to ask, what you are allowed to make, and where you are allowed to sell it.
Work through it in that order and you will not pay for the wrong thing.
What to remember
- Find the office in your state that handles home food businesses before you touch a form.
- Check your recipes against the approved list first. A permit does nothing for a bake you cannot legally sell.
- Know your selling channels and your yearly sales limit.
- Package and label every item before it leaves your kitchen.
- Keep your paperwork and sales records together from day one.
Start with the right office
Searching for “bakery permit” will land you on forms written for restaurants and commercial kitchens. That is usually not your situation. Home based food businesses are often handled separately, and the office that handles them is not always the one you would guess.
Call or check the website of your state’s agriculture department and ask a plain question: “I want to bake from my home kitchen and sell to people nearby. What do I need?” Write down the name of whoever answers.
Check your bakes against the approved list
Before you buy labels or print a menu, list every item you plan to sell and compare it to your state’s approved foods list. If something is not on it, you have two choices: drop it, or find out what a different category of permit would require.
In Florida, approved cottage food products include loaf breads, rolls, biscuits, cakes, pastries and cookies, candies and confections, honey, jams, jellies and preserves, and fruit pies.
Our guide to the cottage food approved list walks through how to read one of these lists without guessing.
Know where you can sell and how much
Two questions decide a lot of home bakery plans: where can you sell, and is there a ceiling on sales?
In Florida, cottage food operators may sell on their website, by mail order, and directly to consumers in person. Cottage food products cannot be sold wholesale. Gross sales for a Florida cottage food operation must not exceed $250,000 annually.
Ask your own state the same two questions in those same words.
Package and label before anything leaves your kitchen
In Florida, cottage foods must be properly packaged and labeled. Operators can serve free samples for tasting, but the samples must be prepackaged.
Find out what your state wants on the label and build it into your routine now, while you are doing small batches. It is far easier to fold a label into your process at ten orders a week than at a hundred.
Apply, register, or confirm you are exempt
Find your office
Check your state agriculture department and ask whether a home based or cottage food option exists. Note who you spoke with and what they said.
Match your recipes to the list
List every item you plan to sell. Cross off anything that is not covered before you spend money on labels or ingredients.
Confirm your channels and your limit
Ask whether selling online, by mail, at markets, or in person is allowed, and whether a yearly sales cap applies.
Sort out packaging and labeling
Get the exact wording and format your state requires, then work it into how you wrap and box.
Apply, register, or confirm you are exempt
Complete whatever your state actually requires. If no permit is needed, keep a note of who confirmed that and when.
Keep records from the first sale
Save your sales totals and your paperwork in one place so you can show you stayed inside the rules.
After the paperwork, keep it tidy
Once you know where you stand, write it down in plain language on one page: what you may sell, where you may sell it, your sales limit, and what your label says. When a customer asks whether you are licensed, you will have an answer instead of a shrug. If you are still working out whether you need a permit or a license, the difference trips up a lot of bakers, and we cover it in do I need a license to sell baked goods from home.
When you are ready to take orders
The rules part is done. Now you need a place for people to order and a way to get paid that does not eat your margin on a dozen cookies.
If you are still deciding whether you need anything at all, start with do I need a permit to sell baked goods from home, and if you are in the Sunshine State, our Florida guide covers the license question in more detail.
Sources
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Rules for home food businesses are set by your state and can change. Confirm the current requirements with your state agriculture department before you sell.