All guidesRules for Texas · Last updated September 9, 2026

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

Texas rewrote this rule in September 2025. If your checklist predates that, it is wrong in four separate places, and one of them is the sentence you print on every label.

Key takeaways
  • No licence, no permit, no inspection. DSHS says local health departments cannot add one.
  • SB 541 tripled the cap to $150,000 and replaced the allowed-food list with an "any food except" rule.
  • The required statement changed with SB 541 and prints in capital letters.

What Texas actually decides

Texas does not license cottage food. There is nothing to buy and no inspection to pass, and the Department of State Health Services says plainly that local health departments cannot require one either. What decides whether you are inside the rule is the food itself and how much of it you sell.

SB 541 changed the shape of that test on 1 September 2025. The old law listed what you were allowed to make. The new one flips it: any food qualifies except the named exclusions, which are meat and poultry, seafood, ice and frozen desserts, low-acid canned goods, anything containing CBD or THC, and raw milk. The income cap tripled to $150,000. Foods needing temperature control became possible for the first time, if you register first.

Two registrations exist and neither one is a licence. Registering with DSHS is mandatory before you sell anything time and temperature controlled. The second is voluntary: it gives you a unique identification number you can print instead of your home address, which is why most people bother. The food handler course is the one thing genuinely required before you produce anything at all.

The cap adjusts for inflation every year and DSHS has not published the 2026 figure, so treat $150,000 as the floor of what you are allowed rather than a number to plan a year around. Start with the DSHS page below, then check your city and county, because zoning and market permits sit outside this law entirely.

One caveat on the sourcing. The agency's own page did not spell out the permit or registration or the current sales cap figure, so those came from the statute and secondary sources rather than from Texas Department of State 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

Cottage food production operationwhat the rule is called
Only on a complaintwhen an inspector comes
150,000 USDannual sales limit

What you can sell in Texas

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.

  • Any food, except the prohibited categories
  • Baked goods
  • Candy
  • Jams, jellies, and preserves
  • Acidified canned goods
  • Fermented vegetable products
  • Pickled fruits and vegetables
  • Dried fruits, herbs, and spices
  • Time and temperature control for safety (TCS) foods, if registered with DSHS
  • Cottage foods sold at wholesale to a cottage food vendor (non-TCS only)

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.

  • Meat, meat products, poultry, or poultry products
  • Seafood, including fish, shellfish, and their products
  • Ice or ice products, including shaved ice, ice cream, frozen custard, popsicles, and gelato
  • Low-acid canned goods
  • Products containing cannabidiol or tetrahydrocannabinol
  • Raw milk and raw milk products

Where you are allowed to sell it

The researched record lists direct sales, farmers markets, online orders, delivery, retail or wholesale, restaurants.

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. No licence or permit is needed to operate, and DSHS says local health departments cannot require one. Two registrations still exist: registering with DSHS is mandatory before selling time and temperature control for safety foods, and a separate voluntary registration gives you the unique identification number that replaces your home address on the label.

Training is required: Accredited basic food safety education or training program for food handlers (Health and Safety Code ch. 438, subch. D). DSHS requires the operator to finish an accredited food handler course. The cost and how often you retake it are set by the course provider, not by DSHS.

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.

  • TCS foods must be held at proper refrigerated or frozen temperatures during storage and transport.
  • The operator must finish an accredited food handler course before producing anything.
  • Every product carries the name of the operation and either its address or its DSHS unique identification number.

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.

  • 2025-09-01: SB 541 tripled the income cap to $150,000, replaced the enumerated allowed-food list with an "any food except" rule, opened wholesale to cottage food vendors, allowed TCS foods with DSHS registration, and rewrote the label statement.

What belongs on a Texas label

Texas Department of State Health Services
checked September 9, 2026

  1. 01Product name
  2. 02Allergens
  3. 03Name and street address
  4. 04Home kitchen statement, exact wording
  5. No permit number. No state size rule; the federal 1/16 inch minimum applies.
Make a Texas label

Start this weekend

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

  • Check your product against the six excluded categories. Texas stopped publishing an allowed list, so "is it on the list" is no longer the question.
  • Finish an accredited food handler course before you make anything for sale. This one is not optional.
  • Request the DSHS unique identification number now if you want your home address off the label. It will not arrive on market morning.
  • Register with DSHS separately if you plan to sell anything that needs refrigeration or holding temperatures.
  • Print the statement in capitals, word for word, and read it back against the DSHS page before you run a full sheet.

Nearby guides

Neighbouring states look similar until the one difference that matters. Worth a read if you sell across a border, or if someone in the next state over gave you advice.

Arkansas cottage food lawWhat you can sell in Arkansas, and what goes on the label.Louisiana cottage food lawWhat you can sell in Louisiana, and what goes on the label.New Mexico cottage food lawWhat you can sell in New Mexico, and what goes on the label.Oklahoma cottage food lawWhat you can sell in Oklahoma, and what goes on the label.

Keep going

Cottage food label makerTurn your recipe, allergens and required statement into a printable label.Cottage food business guideThe wider framework: product, kitchen, sales channel, label and local checks.How to start a home bakeryA first-sale checklist for the business decisions around the kitchen.
Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions

Is this the whole Texas rule?

No, and you should not treat it as one. This is the official source read carefully on September 9, 2026 and put in one place. Your city, your county, the market you sell at and your own product can each add a layer this page does not know about. Texas Department of State Health Services is the authority, not us.

Can I just use the label maker and skip this?

The label maker opens with the fields this jurisdiction requires, so it will get the sticker right. What it cannot do is tell you whether the recipe is allowed, whether your kitchen qualifies, or whether you can sell through the channel you had in mind. A correct label on a product you are not allowed to sell is still a problem.

Does the right label make me compliant?

No. The label is the last step and the most visible one, which is why it gets all the attention. The recipe, the kitchen, the training, the registration and the sales route all sit upstream of it, and any one of them can be the thing that is actually wrong.

Sources

Details were checked against public sources on September 9, 2026. Confirm current prices, policies, or provider instructions before relying on them.

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Cottage food laws

Selling somewhere else too?

The rule changes with the kitchen, the product and the sales route. Pick another place to compare.

Rule in front of you? Make the label.

The label maker opens with these requirements already loaded. Build it, then read the finished sticker back against the official source before you print a full sheet.