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

What New York actually decides

The Home Processor Exemption is not a licence you can apply for after the fact. You need it before you sell, it costs nothing, and it is tied to the address you bake at, so moving house means reapplying. The department is currently quoting up to sixteen weeks to process a request. That is the single most important planning fact on this page: if you want to be selling at a spring market, this is a winter job.

There is no sales cap, which makes New York unusually open at the top end. The constraint is the approved list instead, and it is specific. Breads, cookies, cakes, brownies, high-acid fruit jams, dried spices, confections, popcorn and vegetable chips are in. Cream-based frostings, cheesecake, cream and meringue pies are out. So are pickles, sauces, salsas, mustards, pepper jellies, chutneys, nut butters and tempered chocolate used for coating. The registration becomes void the moment you make something off the list.

The kitchen rules are stricter than most states and easy to trip over. You may use only the ordinary kitchen you cook your own dinner in, and commercial equipment is not permitted. Every item has to be packaged at home, so packing boxes at a craft fair breaks the exemption. If your water comes from a private well, it must test clean for total coliform and E. coli at a certified lab before you register.

The exemption does not override local zoning, and the department says so. Check with your zoning officials before you commit, then start with the Agriculture and Markets page below.

One caveat on the sourcing. The agency's own page did not spell out the training requirement, so those came from the statute and secondary sources rather than from New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets 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