Confita
What Arizona actually decides
Most cottage food rules are a list of things that keep at room temperature. Arizona stopped being one of those in September 2024. Tamales, burritos, soups and stews, jerky, fermented foods and prepared meals are all inside the program now, subject to in-person delivery, temperature control, a single destination and a two-hour transport limit. Very few states go this far.
The trade is that Arizona actually registers you. It costs nothing, but you may not sell before the certificate issues, its number prints on every label, and ADHS quotes four to six weeks. You register with the street address of your home kitchen, and a PO box will not do. Display the certificate any time you sell somewhere other than your own kitchen.
What catches people is that you register a menu, not a category. Adding a product beyond the approved list needs prior approval by email before you sell it, and any change to your registration details is reported within 30 days. Your food handler certificate has to stay active for the whole life of the registration, because letting either one lapse ends the exemption.
Two things sit outside the program entirely and are worth knowing before market day: open sampling and on-the-spot assembly. Samples are packaged and labelled like any other product. Pouring drinks for someone at your table is not covered.
One caveat on the sourcing. The agency's own page did not spell out the date a recent change took effect, so those came from the statute and secondary sources rather than from Arizona Department of Health Services directly. Everything else on this page was read off an official source on September 9, 2026. If one of those points decides your case, ask them.
The short version
What you can sell in Arizona
Straight from the official record. Read these as categories rather than a menu, because one recipe can cross the line on its own: a filling that needs refrigeration, a pH that needs testing, or a process that needs an authority to sign it off.
- Baked desserts and sweets: cookies, cakes and cupcakes, frosting and icing, brownies and bars, cheesecakes, pies and cobblers, pastries, donuts
- Breads and breakfast baking: sourdough, quick breads, cinnamon rolls, muffins, bagels, scones, yeast breads and rolls, focaccia, biscuits, pretzels
- Confections and candy: freeze-dried candy, chocolate-dipped treats, fudge, chamoy and Tajin candies, hot cocoa bombs, toffee and brittles, caramel apples, truffles
- Savoury prepared foods: tamales, burritos, salsa and hot sauces, tacos, pickled vegetables, meals and entrees, soups and stews, jerky, empanadas, fermented foods
- Pantry and dry goods: spice blends and rubs, roasted coffee, loose leaf tea, dry baking mixes, granola, honey, dried pasta, extracts, dehydrated and freeze-dried produce
- Jams, jellies and spreads: fruit jams and jellies, pepper jellies, fruit butters, marmalades, curds, nut butters
- Snack foods: popcorn and kettle corn, roasted and candied nuts, trail mixes, crackers, chips, dip mixes
- Beverages and drink mixes: lemonades and aguas frescas, hot cocoa mixes, syrups, fresh juices, dry drink mixes, sodas, non-alcoholic kombucha
What is outside the rule
If your product is on this list, the answer is not "ask nicely". It is a different licence, a different kitchen, or both.
- Fish, frozen, canned or fresh
- Shellfish, frozen, canned or fresh
- Raw milk, as an ingredient or on its own. You may not pasteurize it yourself
- Alcoholic beverages. Alcohol as a cooking ingredient is fine when the finished food is not intended to intoxicate
- Marijuana and CBD infused products
- Pet treats and animal feed, which the Arizona Department of Agriculture regulates instead
- Dietary supplements and capsules, and any ingredient that is not FDA generally recognised as safe
- Foraged wild produce, home-raised raw shelled eggs, hunted game and home-raised quail
