Cottage Food Label Requirements by State

Two separate rulebooks apply to a jar of jam sold from a home kitchen, and mixing them up is the most common mistake in this category.

Your state's cottage food law decides whether you can sell the product at all, how much you can sell, and what the label must say. Your federal obligations under the FDA decide whether that label needs a Nutrition Facts panel. A state can waive its own licensing and inspection. It cannot waive the FDA's rules.

The good news for most home producers: you are probably exempt from the Nutrition Facts panel under 21 CFR 101.9(j)(1), and that exemption needs no paperwork. The catch is what the exemption does not cover, and how easily it is lost.

The two layers, in order

Work through them in this order, because the state question can stop you before the federal one matters.

1. Does your state's cottage food law permit the product? Most programs cover non-hazardous, shelf-stable foods: baked goods without cream or custard filling, jams and jellies, dry mixes, granola, candy. Most exclude anything requiring refrigeration for safety.
2. Does your state cap sales, and are you under it? Caps range from tens of thousands of dollars to none at all. Several states index the cap to inflation, so the published figure changes.
3. What must the label carry under state law? Most states require some version of a home-kitchen disclosure, in their own exact wording. The states that inspect your kitchen do not, because it would be untrue. Beyond that, requirements diverge sharply.
4. Do you need a Nutrition Facts panel under federal rules? Usually no, for the reasons above. Sometimes yes.

What nearly every cottage food label carries

Regardless of state, plan on all of these. Note that the federal small business exemption removes none of them.

• The common or usual name of the product, in plain words a buyer would recognise
• The name and address of the producer, or a state-issued identifier where the state allows one instead
• A declaration of the major food allergens present. There are nine: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame
• The state's required home-kitchen or non-inspection statement, in the exact wording the statute gives, where the state requires one at all
• Net quantity of contents, in most states

An ingredient list is required in many states and not in others, which surprises people who move a business across a state line.

Where the states actually differ

A growing number of states have their own guide here, linked throughout this page. Rather than list them, it is more useful to see the axes they vary on, because those axes are what decide whether a label template travels.

Four regulatory models, not one

The phrase "cottage food law" covers four different arrangements, and one state does not have such a law at all.

• No oversight at all. Ohio requires no licence, registration, permit, fee, or inspection, and sets no sales cap. You may start today. South Carolina is similar and goes further on selling rights.
• Register, then sell. California (county registration, Class A or B), Illinois (county health department, fee capped at $50), Minnesota (two tiers, training, annual renewal), and Texas sit here. Florida and Georgia require no state licence at all.
• Get inspected. Pennsylvania has no cottage food law; you register a Limited Food Establishment, are inspected, and pay $35 a year. North Carolina and New York run home processor programmes rather than cottage food laws.
• No law, a court order instead. Wisconsin never passed one. Home bakers sell without a licence because a 2017 ruling stopped the state enforcing licensing against them, and that ruling covers baked goods only. Fudge, chocolates and no-bake bars still need a licence.

The inspected group is worth understanding even if you are not in it, because inspection changes what the label says. An inspected kitchen carries no uninspected-kitchen disclaimer. Pennsylvania mandates no statement at all, and North Carolina makes one optional.

Who you may sell to is a separate axis from who regulates you

Most states confine cottage food to a hand-to-hand sale: your home, a farmers' market, an event, sometimes a personal delivery. Two states in this set sit at opposite ends of that range.

South Carolina permits online and mail-order sales and direct sales to retail stores, including grocery stores, with no licence and no sales cap. Minnesota forbids shipping human food entirely: orders and payment can happen online, the handover cannot, and wholesale is barred outright. Minnesota's rule changes on 1 August 2027.

Check this before you build a business model around a channel, because it is set independently of how light the paperwork looks.

The disclosure statement is never the same twice

Every state that requires one requires *its own* wording, and none of them may be paraphrased. The formatting rules attached to them vary just as much:

• Type size runs from 10-point (Florida, Georgia, Ohio) to 11-point (Michigan) to 12-point (California)
• Capitalisation is mandatory in Texas, Florida, and Georgia
• Contrast with the background is specified in Florida, Georgia, and Michigan
• Typeface is specified in exactly one state: Georgia names Times New Roman or Arial
• Hand-lettering is explicitly permitted in exactly one: Michigan, subject to size, legibility, and durable ink

• Contrast alone, with no size or typeface named, is South Carolina's rule, attached to the longest mandated sentence of any state here at 21 words in full capitals

Two states go further than a bare disclosure. Illinois folds an allergen cross-contact warning into the required sentence itself. Texas rewrote its statement entirely on 1 September 2025, so a good deal of published guidance now shows wording that is simply wrong.

Two states also require a sign as well as a label, with different wording on each. Minnesota's label says "These products are homemade and not subject to state inspection" while its point-of-sale sign says "These foods are homemade". Wisconsin's pickle bill pairs a sign reading "These canned goods are homemade and not subject to state inspection" with a container statement reading "This product was made in a private home not subject to state licensing or inspection". In both states these are two separate sentences and printing one does not satisfy the other.

Ingredient lists are not universal

Most states require ingredients in descending order by weight. Texas does not require an ingredient list at all, which surprises producers arriving from almost anywhere else. Georgia states explicitly that sub-ingredients must be carried through.

Fields nobody else asks for

Illinois is the outlier, requiring the unit of local government you operate in, your registration number, and the date the product was processed. That last one means your labels cannot be fully pre-printed, which is a workflow constraint rather than a design one.

Dual-unit net quantity, US plus metric, is required in Michigan, New York, and North Carolina.

Sales caps, where they exist

Several set no cap at all: Ohio, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Wisconsin's baked goods, and Georgia, the last having removed a $5,000 ceiling in 2025. Florida is the highest of those that do cap, at $250,000. California and Michigan tier theirs, and Michigan's upper tier applies only where every product you sell is priced at $250 or more per unit. Minnesota caps at $78,000 and re-indexes it to the Consumer Price Index every two years.

Where a state runs more than one exemption, the caps can differ wildly between them. Wisconsin's court order puts no ceiling on baked goods, while the separate pickle bill covering home-canned produce cuts off at $5,000 a year.

Several states index their caps to inflation, which is why the individual guides name the statutory base figure and send you to the regulator for the number currently in force rather than printing one that goes stale.

Where no state cap exists, the federal thresholds below are what stops you first. Nothing in the state scheme announces that moment.

The claim that ends your exemption

This failure mode is silent, which is what makes it expensive. The small business exemption disappears if a nutrient content claim, a health claim, or any other nutrition information appears on the label, in labeling, or in advertising.

"Labeling" and "advertising" are broader than the sticker on the jar. A product description on your website, a market stall sign, or a social post can carry a claim. Phrases that count include "sugar free", "low sodium", "high in fibre", "a good source of protein", and "keto friendly" where it implies a carbohydrate level.

Two practical consequences:

• If you want to make the claim, you need the panel. That is the trade, and it is a reasonable one.
• If you do not want the panel, keep the marketing descriptive rather than nutritional. "Sweetened with honey" describes an ingredient. "Low sugar" is a claim.

When a cottage food producer does need a panel

Four situations, in rough order of how often they come up.

1. You make a nutrient content or health claim. Covered above, and by far the most common trigger.
2. You grow past the sales thresholds. Above $500,000 in total gross sales, or $50,000 in food sales to consumers, the (j)(1) exemption stops applying.
3. A retailer asks for one. Many grocery buyers require a panel as a condition of shelf space regardless of what the law says. This is a commercial requirement, not a legal one, but it ends the argument just as firmly.
4. You are moving out of cottage food entirely, into a commercial kitchen or co-packer. Plan for the panel as part of that step.

If you are over the sales thresholds but still small, there is a second federal route: 21 CFR 101.9(j)(18) exempts a product where the business averages fewer than 100 full-time equivalent employees and sells fewer than 100,000 units of that product in the US in 12 months. Unlike (j)(1), it requires a notice filed with the FDA annually. The full detail is in when nutrition labels are required in the US.

What to do in Nutrifax

You do not need to be over a threshold to want a panel. A retailer request, a claim you want to make, or simply a buyer who asks are all reasons to have one ready.

1. Build the recipe, or paste it in and let the importer match ingredients. Check each match against what you actually use.
2. Set the serving size from the reference amount for your category, not from what feels like a portion.
3. Generate the panel in the FDA 2016 format, rounded per 21 CFR 101.9.
4. Export a print-ready PDF or PNG, or tile an Avery 5163 sheet if you are printing your own stickers.
5. Generate an audit report if a retailer or an inspector wants to see where each number came from.

Related pages

• When Nutrition Labels Are Required in the US
• US FDA Nutrition Label Requirements for Small Producers
• Serving Size and Rounding Rules (US FDA)
• Inspection-Ready Nutrition Audit Reports
• FDA nutrition label generator

Sources

• FDA: Small business nutrition labeling exemption guide
• eCFR: 21 CFR 101.9 (Nutrition labeling of food)
• FDA: Food allergies and the major food allergens
• California AB-1144: Cottage food operations

Disclaimer

Educational content only; not legal advice. Cottage food rules are state law and change often, and several states index their sales caps to inflation. Confirm the current requirements with your state's department of agriculture or health, and confirm the final label against current regulations for your product and jurisdiction.