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Kentucky cottage food law: selling food from home

General information, not legal advice. Rules change, and counties add their own. Check with your state and county before you start selling.

"Cottage food" is the term most states use for food made in a home kitchen and sold directly to customers. What it covers, and whether your state uses the phrase at all, differs by state.

The short answer

Yes, with no license — but you do register, and the date to write down is 31 March. A home-based processor registers with the Department for Public Health, Food Safety Branch, on form DFS-250 with a $50 fee, and the registration "shall expire March 31 of each year". That is a fixed calendar date, not an anniversary of your signup.

Kentucky runs two programs, and which one you are in decides what you may make. A home-based processor handles shelf-stable food. A home-based microprocessor handles acidified food — pickles, salsas — and has to attend a food processing school. Both share a $60,000 ceiling on gross income from sales.

The cap, the fee and the March deadline

Annual limit
$60,000. The statute limits eligibility to a person "who has a gross income of no more than sixty thousand dollars ($60,000) annually from the sale of the products".
Registration
"Beginning January 1, 2020, a home-based processor shall register with the Department for Public Health, Food Safety Branch." Form DFS-250.
Fee
$50.
Expiry
31 March, every year. Renewable, valid one year.
Inspection
"Inspection of a home-based processor facility shall be made upon complaint." No routine visit.

The 31 March date is the thing people get wrong. Register in February and your first registration year is six weeks long. Minnesota does the same thing with the same date, and in both states it is the most common way a careful cook accidentally stops being registered. Put it in your calendar the day you file. 902 KAR 45:090

What a home-based processor can make

The regulation lists what is in, and it is more specific than most states bother to be:

Two conditions sit on the candy: it must be "produced without added alcohol" and "made with no bare-hand contact". The second one is a handling rule rather than a recipe rule, and it is worth reading twice if you dip or roll by hand.

Pecan pie being named is a small kindness. Elsewhere a nut pie is a judgment call about the filling — Kansas makes you test its water activity. Kentucky simply lists it.

What a home-based processor may not do: "produce or process for sale acid foods, acidified food products, formulated acid food products, or low-acid canned foods". That is the microprocessor's territory, and it is a different registration.

The microprocessor program — pickles, salsa and a school

If you want to sell acidified food, you are a home-based microprocessor, and the requirements step up.

Attendance at a food processing school "shall be required every three (3) years or upon any change or addition of food products to be processed". So the training is not a one-off: adding a new salsa restarts it.

And the reach is shorter. Microprocessor products may not be offered through interstate commerce — the regulation says so directly, where for the ordinary processor it simply does not address the question.

This split is the shape of Kentucky: the state is relaxed about shelf-stable food and careful about anything where the acid has to be right. If your plan includes pickles, budget for the school before you budget for jars.

Where you may sell

A home-based processor may sell "direct to the consumer through pick-up or delivery", and at:

Online ordering is explicitly fine. The regulation allows you to "accept orders and payments in person, electronically, or via the internet or phone" — so a storefront that takes the order and the money is squarely within the rules.

Shipping is a different question, and we are not going to answer it for you. The regulation names "pick-up or delivery" and says nothing about mail or a parcel carrier. Silence is not permission — it is silence. Minnesota forbids shipping human food outright, Oklahoma names parcel carriers as allowed, and Kentucky simply does not address it. Ask the Food Safety Branch before you post a box.

Labels

Products must "be labeled as required by KRS 217.136(3)" and "contain allergen information as specified by 21 U.S.C. 343(w)" — the federal allergen rule.

We are not printing a label sentence here. The regulation points at the statute for the wording rather than setting it out, and we did not read the statutory subsection in full from an official source. A label disclaimer is exactly the kind of thing where approximate is the same as wrong, so get the current wording from the Food Safety Branch when you file form DFS-250 — you are talking to them anyway.

Food safety training

For a microprocessor, yes: a food processing school every three years, or whenever you change or add products.

For an ordinary home-based processor, the regulation imposes none — and here we have to be honest about a conflict. Some extension material says a food safety class is required for processors; a University of Kentucky extension page says no training or workshop is required. The regulation we read sets none.

So: the rule as written requires nothing of a processor, and the sources disagree about practice. Confirm it with the Food Safety Branch rather than taking either answer from us. It is one question on the same phone call as your registration.

Sales tax

Registration is not tax registration. Whether what you sell is taxable, and whether you need to register to collect, belongs to the Kentucky Department of Revenue, and we are not going to print a rate that could change.

The repeal that did not happen

We check the legislature as well as the department, and Kentucky is the reason that habit is worth keeping.

Two bills proposed repealing KRS 217.136 outright — HB 768 in 2025 and HB 756 in 2026. HB 756's last recorded action is a referral to the House Agriculture committee on 4 March 2026, and nothing after it.

Meanwhile SB 73 amended the same section and became law on 8 April 2026, without the Governor's signature, as Acts Chapter 52. What it does is let home-based processors make tallow-based cosmetic products, subject to registration and regulation set by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

So nothing about your food changed in 2026 — but the chapter that governs it is demonstrably alive, which is the thing a reader of the repeal bills would have got wrong. SB 73 (2026), Acts Ch. 52

Official sources

Last verified: 31 October 2026. Every number on this page is linked to the official page it comes from.

Questions people actually ask

Do I need a license to sell food from home in Kentucky?

No license, but yes registration. A home-based processor registers with the Department for Public Health, Food Safety Branch, using form DFS-250 and a $50 fee. There is no routine inspection — the regulation says inspection of a home-based processor facility shall be made upon complaint.

How much can I sell in a year in Kentucky?

$60,000. The statute limits eligibility to a person who has a gross income of no more than sixty thousand dollars annually from the sale of the products. That figure covers the home-based processor and microprocessor programs.

When does my registration expire?

31 March, every year, regardless of when you registered. It is a fixed calendar date rather than an anniversary, so registering in February gives you a very short first year. Minnesota uses the same date for the same reason, and in both states it is the most common way a careful cook accidentally stops being registered.

What is the difference between a processor and a microprocessor?

What you are allowed to make. A home-based processor handles shelf-stable food and may not produce or process acid foods, acidified food products, formulated acid food products or low-acid canned foods. A home-based microprocessor handles exactly those — pickles, salsas — and must attend a food processing school every three years or whenever products change or are added. Microprocessor products may not be offered through interstate commerce.

Can I sell online?

You can take the order online. The regulation allows a home-based processor to accept orders and payments in person, electronically, or via the internet or phone. Whether you may then ship it is a different question that the regulation does not address — it names pick-up or delivery and is silent on mail. We are not going to read permission into that silence, so ask the Food Safety Branch before you post a box.

Do I need a food safety course?

As a microprocessor, yes — a food processing school every three years or on any change or addition of products. As an ordinary home-based processor the regulation imposes none, but extension sources disagree with each other on whether one is expected in practice. Confirm it with the Food Safety Branch when you file your registration.

Did Kentucky repeal its cottage food law?

No. Two bills proposed repealing KRS 217.136 — HB 768 in 2025 and HB 756 in 2026 — and HB 756 was last referred to House Agriculture on 4 March 2026 with no action after it. SB 73 then amended the same section and became law on 8 April 2026 as Acts Chapter 52, allowing home-based processors to make tallow-based cosmetic products. The food rules are unchanged and the chapter is in force.

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