Cottage food rules
Michigan's Cottage Food Law PA 113: What to Check Before You Sell
Know exactly which numbers to look up, which rules to write down, and what to keep on file before your first Michigan order.
On this page
If you searched for PA 113, you are probably standing in your kitchen with a cooling rack full of cookies and a text from a neighbor asking what you charge. Good. That is the right moment to check the rules, not after you have taken money.
Here is the honest part. The specifics of what PA 113 allows are published by the state, and they are the kind of details that get repeated wrong in Facebook groups. So this guide does not hand you a number I cannot stand behind. It shows you exactly where to get the real answers and what to do with them once you have them.
What to remember
- PA 113 is the shorthand for Michigan’s cottage food law. The state page is the source of truth. - Four things matter most: what you can sell, where you can sell it, how you label it, and the sales limit. - Copy required label wording word for word from the state page instead of paraphrasing it. - Write down the date you last checked, because these rules get updated. - Keep your sales records from day one. It is much easier than rebuilding them later.
What PA 113 actually covers
Cottage food laws exist so that small home producers can sell certain foods without running a commercial kitchen. What counts as covered, and what does not, is set by the state and can change. That is why the only safe move is to read the current page at the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, then treat your own notes as a summary and the page as the final word.
Read it once all the way through. Then read it again with a pen.
The four numbers to write down
Every cottage food question you will get from a customer or a market manager comes back to four things.
Find the sales limit
Look for the section on how much you are allowed to sell in a year. Write the figure and the year it applies to. If there is no figure listed, write “not stated” and call the department.
Find the labeling rules
Copy the required wording exactly as it appears, including any statement about the food being made in a home kitchen. Do not tidy up the phrasing.
Find where sales can happen
Check what the page says about selling in person, at markets, and online. Where you sell changes what you are allowed to do.
Find the contact
Save the phone number or email on the page. When something is unclear, one call beats an hour of scrolling.
Match your menu to the rules
Before you set prices, list every item you want to sell and check each one against what the state page says is covered. Some foods sit outside cottage food rules entirely, and it is far easier to find that out now than after a customer orders a hundred of them.
The cottage food approved list guide walks through how to check a specific item, and which food cannot be sold under the cottage food law covers the categories that usually fall outside.
Selling online and taking payment
Selling from a website raises its own questions, and the answers live in the same place. Read the section on sales and delivery before you post a menu anywhere public. If you plan to take orders through a link, the guide on whether you need a license to sell baked goods online goes through the questions to settle first.
Keep records like you mean it
Track two things from your very first sale: your running sales total and the date you last checked the state page. The total tells you how close you are to any limit. The date tells you whether your notes are still fresh.
A simple folder works. A notebook works. What matters is that if someone asks you a question in eight months, you can answer it in two minutes instead of two days.
Before your next order
Reread the state page at the start of each season, update your label template if anything changed, and confirm your menu still fits. Then get back to baking. The rules are there so you can sell with a clear head, and once you have checked them properly, you can stop thinking about them for a while.
Sources
This is general information for home bakers, not legal advice. Cottage food rules change. Confirm what applies to you on the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development cottage food page or with the department directly before you sell.