Jackdough
The Cottage Food Law Directory · US & Canada
Type your state below. Every entry on Jackdough is freshly audited every 90 days by an ex-FDA cottage food inspector, so what you read here matches what's enforceable on your counter this week — not what some 2019 blog post guessed.
No credit card required · Database last audited January 2026 · 11,400+ bakers enrolled
All 50 States, Alphabetized
Every tile below is a deep-linked page with a last-audit timestamp, a one-line status note, and the full Jackdough summary: allowed foods, sales caps, labeling rules, pet food carve-outs, and the exact state statute. Refreshed every 90 days by our regulatory team.
Every state page is a deep-linked summary written for bakers, not lawyers. Don't see your state audited within the last 90 days? Tell us — we refresh the database quarterly.
A Note On Freshness
Cottage food law is not a static list. Between 2023 and 2025 alone, 31 states revised their sales caps, 14 changed their labeling requirements, and 9 legalized new food categories — including acidified pickles, low-sugar jams, and frozen baked goods. A blog post that hasn't been touched since 2019 isn't just stale; it's a liability you could bake into your first invoice.
Jackdough's database is co-developed with a former FDA cottage food inspector who spent four years at the Illinois Department of Public Health reviewing home bakery applications. Every state entry is audited every 90 days — last audit January 2026 — and we publish the timestamp on every page so you can see exactly how fresh the rule you're reading is. If a bill is moving through a state legislature, we flag it in the status note (look for "Pickle bill pending" or "HB-2070 updates in effect") so you can plan around it instead of being blindsided after you've already invested in labels and packaging.
This is also why graduates of our flagship Breadwinner Academy report a 97% first-attempt approval rate on their cottage food license applications: they walked into the county clerk's office with paperwork that matched what was actually enforceable that month, not what a Reddit thread remembered from 2021. The law changes. The database should too.
Want the same compliance-grade templates our bakers use to file? The free Cottage Bakery Profit Roadmap walks you through the exact forms, label language, and cost sheets for your state — no credit card required.
No legalese. No 40-page PDFs. Just the rules that decide whether you can sell a loaf from your kitchen this Saturday — written by our curriculum team and reviewed by a former FDA cottage food inspector.
Texas allows up to $50,000 in annual gross sales from a home kitchen, with no permit required for non-potentially hazardous foods like bread, cookies, and fruit jams — one of the most generous cottage food laws in the country.
Read the full Texas guide in our directory →California's AB-626 Microenterprise Home Kitchen Act lets you serve up to 90 meals a week from your home — but only as a full county-permitted operation, not a casual side hustle.
See California's full rules →Florida requires a $50 annual registration and a passed food safety inspection, but allows sales across county lines — including internet and mail orders shipped within the state.
See Florida's full rules →New York is one of the strictest: only non-potentially hazardous baked goods, no internet sales, $25,000 annual cap, and a written lease is required before you can register.
See New York's full rules →Illinois baked-goods-only home kitchen act caps sales at $1,500/month and demands a 1-hour food safety course — but you keep your dogs, your children, and your day job.
See Illinois's full rules →Selling food without the right permit is a misdemeanor in most states and a public health risk in all of them. We treat this directory like the legal document it is — with a verified author, an audit trail, and an actual review process.
Every state's rules are re-audited from primary state-government sources every 90 days. The last full pass was January 2026, covering all 50 state Departments of Public Health.
Our curriculum was co-developed with a former cottage food inspector who spent 4 years at the Illinois Department of Public Health. She is the lead author of every state summary on this site.
Awarded by the International Association of Culinary Professionals — the same body that recognizes top culinary schools — for the accuracy and clarity of our regulatory content.
Named in The New York Times' "Skills You Can Actually Learn Online" (March 2024) and Food & Wine's "Best Online Cooking Classes" in both 2024 and 2025.
You've checked your state — that's the hardest part done. The Cottage Bakery Profit Roadmap is a free, 5-day mini-course that walks you through the four numbers every home baker needs to know before they bake their first paid loaf: cost of goods, sell price, monthly volume, and the actual legal ceiling in their zip code.
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