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

What Nebraska actually decides

Registration costs nothing but it is genuinely mandatory, and it wants specifics: your name, address and telephone number, the food safety course you took and when you finished it, and proof of well testing for nitrate or bacteria if you use well water. That means the course and the test both happen before you register, not after.

The course requirement is flexible about provider. A nationally accredited food safety and handling course counts, so does a certified course at a culinary school, so does whatever course your county, city or village requires for a food handler permit, and so does a department-approved course. You are unlikely to need to buy something specific.

LB 262 in July 2024 was the substantive change. It carried the cottage food provisions into the Nebraska Pure Food Act and, importantly, allowed time and temperature controlled foods such as cheesecake and cream-filled pastries to be sold directly to consumers in person. It also closed the gap that had let a mobile trailer making product on site use the exemption.

Two operational limits sit alongside that. Every product is prepared in a private home, and nothing may be made on site at the point of sale. Drinks made at home may be dispensed, which is a narrow but useful allowance at a market.

One caveat on the sourcing. The agency's own page did not spell out the permit or registration, so those came from the statute and secondary sources rather than from Nebraska Department of Agriculture directly. Everything else on this page was read off an official source on September 13, 2026. If one of those points decides your case, ask them.

What you can sell in Nebraska

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 goods
• Traditional jams and jellies, as long as they are made with pectin
• Candies and confections, chocolate-covered strawberries included
• Dried herbs and dry mixes
• Freeze-dried food, as long as the underlying food is not excluded
• Ice cream, cheese, cheesecake and pudding made with licensed, approved-source dairy, kept refrigerated or frozen
• Cream pies, custards and cream-filled pastries
• Cooked-egg items such as egg burritos and cheese Runzas, with no meat
• Drinks prepared at home and dispensed with no more on-site preparation than adding ice
• Any other unadulterated food not on the statutory exclusion list

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 part of an animal, vertebrate or invertebrate, or an animal byproduct: meat, lard, tallow, bone broth, bone meal
• Fluid milk or milk products as the Grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance defines them, including milk, cream, sour cream and yogurt
• Raw eggs
• Unpasteurized juice
• Infused oils and infused honey
• Sprouts of every kind
• Low-acid canned food and hermetically sealed acidified food, which rules out a sealed barbecue sauce
• Tofu, tempeh and similar meat substitutes, and kimchi, kombucha and similar fermented foods

Where you are allowed to sell it

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

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 lists Cottage Food Producer registration with the Nebraska Department of Agriculture before you sell; the listed cost is Free. Register before your first sale, giving your name, address and telephone number, the food safety course you took and when you finished it, and proof of well testing for nitrate or bacteria if you use well water. The carve-out is the fact most likely to save you an afternoon: a producer selling only non-hazardous food directly to consumers at a farmers market needs neither registration nor training. This is a registration rather than a permit, so there is no number for the label, and the Department publishes a public list of registered producers that takes up to ten days to appear. How you deliver depends on the food: non-hazardous food may go by post or a commercial delivery service, while food needing temperature control may be delivered only by you in person, held at Pure Food Act temperatures, with no more than two hours in transport. Wholesale and retail are out. The registration portal makes you attest that you may not wholesale or sell in a retail establishment, and the Department answers no to a friend's coffee shop selling your goods. Nebraska publishes no sales limit.

Training is required: A nationally accredited food safety and handling course, a certified course at a culinary school, a course your county, city or village requires for a food handler permit, or a department-approved course. Registration cannot complete without a course on file. The same farmers market carve-out applies: selling only non-hazardous food at a market needs no training. Named providers include ServSafe, StateFoodSafety, the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department and the University of Nebraska, whose own online course runs in English and Spanish for roughly $20 to $25 and a few hours. The statute requires it once; extension best practice is every three years.

Only on a complaint 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.

• Every cottage food product is prepared in a private home. LB 262 closed the gap that let a mobile trailer making product on site use the exemption.
• Nothing may be made on site at the point of sale. Drinks made at home may be dispensed with no more preparation than adding ice.
• Private well water is tested for nitrate and bacteria, with proof filed at registration.
• Food needing temperature control is held at or below 41 degrees Fahrenheit or at or above 135 degrees through transport and sale, with no time-as-a-control and no more than two hours in transport.
• Follow the food safety requirements of the county, city or village where you sell at a public event. The statute otherwise preempts local ordinances that conflict with it.

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.

• 2024-07-19: LB 262 carried the cottage food provisions into the Nebraska Pure Food Act. Producers may now sell time and temperature controlled foods such as cheesecake and cream-filled pastries directly to consumers in person, and the act now says plainly that every cottage food product must be prepared in a private home. Wholesale to restaurants and grocery stores stays barred.

Start this weekend

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

• Take the food safety course before registering. The registration asks which one and when you finished it.
• Test well water for nitrate or bacteria first if that is your supply. Proof goes in with the registration.
• Register before your first sale. It is free, so there is no reason to leave it.
• Sell temperature-controlled items in person only. That is the condition LB 262 attached.
• Prepare everything at home. Making product on site at the point of sale is not allowed.