Arkansas cottage food law (2026): what you can sell and label

What Arkansas actually decides

The Arkansas Food Freedom Act takes the whole apparatus away. No permit, licence or registration, no cap, no training requirement, and section 20-57-507(b) stops counties and municipalities from regulating the production or sale of homemade food. The state also sets no home kitchen hygiene rules: no pets rule, no separate storage, no water test.

What replaces all of that is a technical definition. A homemade non-TCS food finishes at a pH of 4.6 or less and a water activity of 0.85 or less. Biscuits, breads, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, doughnuts, pastries, fruit-filled pies, pretzels and quick breads sit inside it. Candy and confections qualify on the water activity number alone. If you are unsure where your product lands, that pair of numbers is the question to answer, not whether it appears on a list.

The channel list is wide, including shipping across state lines and wholesale, which most states close off. The exclusions are the predictable ones: anything needing time or temperature control, food of animal origin whether raw or cooked, and dairy.

The one optional piece of paper is a Department of Agriculture Business ID Number. It replaces your name, address and telephone number on the label, which is the only reason to want it.

One caveat on the sourcing. The agency's own page did not spell out the permit or registration or the training requirement, so those came from the statute and secondary sources rather than from Arkansas Department of Health directly. Everything else on this page was read off an official source on September 11, 2026. If one of those points decides your case, ask them.

What you can sell in Arkansas

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 foods that need no refrigeration and finish at a pH of 4.6 or less and a water activity of 0.85 or less: biscuits, biscotti, breads, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, doughnuts, pastries, fruit-filled pies, pretzels, quick breads
• Candy and confections finishing at a water activity of 0.85 or less: bon bons, brittle, caramels, chocolate, chocolate-covered non-TCS foods, fudge, hard candy, popcorn balls
• Jams, jellies, preserves, fruit butters and syrups, including conserves, apple butter, fruit syrup, sorghum and marmalades
• Dried, dehydrated and roasted products: baking mixes, dried fruit, fruit leathers, granola, cereals and trail mixes, dried herbs, freeze-dried fruit and vegetables, nut mixes, popcorn, potato chips, seasonings, dry soup mixes, dry tea
• Icings, fillings, frostings, sugar art and toppings: buttercream, gumpaste, fondant, glaze, royal icing, cake toppers, sugar flowers, edible images printed on icing or wafer sheets
• Pickled, acid and acidified foods canned to an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or less: acidified tomatoes, tomato juice and sauce, salsa, pickled asparagus, beets, carrots, beans, green tomatoes, okra, relish, watermelon rinds, cucumbers
• Condiments at an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or less: barbeque sauce, ketchup, fruit salsas, meatless spaghetti sauce, pepper sauce, nut-free fruit chutney, taco sauce, simple syrups
• Packaged ready-to-consume teas, coffee and soft drinks, lemonade and fruit ades, and heat-treated canned high-acid fruit juices
• Frozen products finishing at a pH of 4.6 or less or a water activity of 0.85 or less, such as fruit popsicles, sorbet and fruit-based freezer jams
• Hemp foods made with hulled hemp seeds, hemp seed protein powder or hemp seed oil, which are the only hemp products allowed in food
• Maple syrup, sorghum and honey from your own production, including creamed honey and honey flavoured with dry non-TCS ingredients such as ground cinnamon
• Whole, uncut fresh fruits and vegetables, and microgreens cut once at harvest

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.

• Any food that needs time or temperature control for safety: cream and custard pies, cheesecakes, deli salads, casseroles, tres leches, pizza
• Food of animal origin, raw or cooked: meat, poultry, seafood, wild game
• Dairy, including milk, cheese, butter and sour cream. The Health Department points at Act 698 of 2025, the separate raw milk route, instead
• Food of plant origin that is heat treated, except the items the guide’s Appendix A lists
• Raw seed sprouts, cut leafy greens, cut or sliced fresh tomatoes, cut or sliced melons, and garlic-in-oil mixtures
• Canned low-acid foods, and smoked, cured or dried meats, which both need a Health Department permit and a variance
• Anything finishing above a pH of 4.6 or a water activity of 0.85, and anything flavoured with alcohol, except candy under 5 percent alcohol by volume
• Non-baked items made with raw or pasteurized egg, such as raw cookie dough, egg noodles, soft meringue, tiramisu and mousse, plus frozen doughs, nut butters, and cake or bread baked in a jar

Where you are allowed to sell it

The researched record lists direct sales, farmers markets, online orders, delivery, in-state shipping, interstate shipping, retail or wholesale.

One channel being open does not open the rest. Shipping, delivery and wholesale each turn on the product and where it is going, so check the route you actually plan to use.

Paperwork, training and inspections

The researched record does not list a general permit for this tier. There is no permit, licence or registration, and section 20-57-507(b) stops counties and municipalities from regulating production or sale. The one optional thing is the Department of Agriculture ID number, which under section 20-57-505(a)(2) replaces your name, address and telephone number on the label where you ask for it to protect your safety. The application is a Cognito Forms page under the Arkansas Agriculture account rather than a state host, and no fee, turnaround or renewal is published. Out-of-state selling is permitted in terms by section 20-57-504(b)(2) if you comply with federal law, and the Health Department guide tells producers to "contact the United States Food and Drug Administration as well as the state and local public health authorities prior to any sale out of state".

No training is recorded as universally required. No training requirement appears in Act 1040 or in the Health Department guide, and the department never states the absence.

No inspection is what the record says about inspections. Confirm what that means for your product and your local authority, because the two can differ.

Kitchen rules people miss

None of these fit on a label, which is exactly why they get skipped. Read them before the first batch, not after.

• Arkansas sets no home kitchen hygiene rules for homemade food: no pets rule, no separate-storage rule, no water test. The Act exempts the kitchen from state licensure, certification, inspection, packaging and labelling.
• The food is processed at your own private residence, including a farm or ranch where you live.
• Pickled cucumbers and other acidified vegetables count as homemade food only if the recipe is Health Department approved or lab tested, or you test every batch with a calibrated pH meter. Each batch carries a unique batch number, and you keep records of the number, the recipe, its source or pH reading, and the date.
• Where you sell alongside inspected food, such as a shop that also stocks licensed products, homemade food has to be kept separate from it.
• The Arkansas Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act still applies: nothing adulterated, misbranded or dishonestly presented, and only ingredients the FDA treats as Generally Recognized as Safe.

What changed, and when

A dated change means an older checklist can be confidently wrong. Read the instrument itself at the official source before you trust anything written before these dates.

• 2025-04-16: Raw milk and raw milk products left the farm-only rule. They may now be sold at a farmers market or a natural food store, or delivered from the farm, under their own warning label and a signed acknowledgment of risk. Dairy still cannot be sold under the Food Freedom Act, and the Health Department guide points at this act instead. The Food Freedom Act itself has not been amended since it was enacted.

Start this weekend

In this order, so the label is the last thing you check and not the first thing you guess.

• Work out your product pH and water activity. Those two numbers are the actual boundary here.
• Get the Business ID Number if you would rather not print your name, address and phone on the label.
• Ignore a local ordinance that tries to regulate you. Section 20-57-507(b) preempts it.
• Check the destination rules before shipping. Interstate shipping is in scope here, which is unusual.
• Do not rely on raw milk guidance from this Act. Dairy stays outside it, under its own separate rule.