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North Dakota 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 and no sales cap — and since 2025 you can reach almost anyone. Senate Bill 2386 rewrote the list of things a cottage food transaction may not do, and what it did was delete two of them.

Gone: the ban on interstate commerce, and the ban on selling "over the internet or phone, through the mail, or by consignment". One new prohibition came back in their place, and it is narrow — poultry products may not be sold interstate. Everything else can now cross the state line.

What SB 2386 removed, in its own strikethroughs

North Dakota's Food Freedom Act works by listing what a transaction may not involve. Here is subsection 3 of N.D.C.C. § 23-09.5-02 as the bill rewrote it:

Involve interstate commerce
Deleted.
Be conducted over the internet or phone, through the mail, or by consignment
Deleted.
Uninspected meat products
Still prohibited, except as provided for poultry.
Uninspected poultry
Still prohibited unless you slaughter no more than 1,000 birds you raised in the calendar year, you do not buy or sell poultry products other than from your own birds, and the product is not adulterated or misbranded.
Poultry across state lines
NEW prohibition. "Include the sale of poultry products if the transaction involves interstate commerce."

Read those five rows together and the shape is clear. North Dakota opened the door to internet, phone, mail, consignment and out-of-state sales for ordinary cottage food, and then closed exactly one window — poultry — because poultry is where federal inspection law bites hardest.

The Act was passed as an emergency measure, which in North Dakota means it took effect immediately rather than waiting for the usual date. The votes were 45–2 in the Senate and 90–1 in the House. Enrolled SB 2386

Where you may sell now

Annual limit
None. The Food Freedom Act sets no cap.
License, permit, inspection
None for cottage food under this chapter.
Internet and phone
Allowed since 2025.
Mail order
Allowed since 2025.
Consignment
Allowed since 2025 — unusual; Kansas and Wisconsin both forbid it.
Across state lines
Allowed for everything except poultry products.
Poultry
In-state only, and only from your own flock of fewer than 1,000 birds a year.

A word of realism about the interstate permission. North Dakota lifting its own ban does not suspend federal law, and it does not bind the state your customer lives in. Once a package crosses a state line the FDA has oversight, and the receiving state's rules are its own. Arkansas puts the same point plainly on its page: the permission comes with the federal rulebook attached.

Consignment being allowed is worth pausing on too. It means a shop can hold your product and pay you when it sells, which several states in this guide expressly forbid precisely because the shop is not the end consumer.

What you can make

The Food Freedom Act is built around selling to an informed end consumer rather than around a list of approved products, which makes it broader than a typical cottage food law.

What the statute excludes is the short part: uninspected meat products, with the narrow poultry exception above. Raw milk sits under its own separate rules rather than this chapter.

We are deliberately not printing a long "allowed" list here. The chapter does not work that way, and a list copied onto a third-party page is a list that goes stale. The Century Code chapter is linked below and is short enough to read in full before you commit to a menu. N.D.C.C. ch. 23-09.5

Labels and the informed end consumer

The Act's mechanism is disclosure to an informed end consumer — the person who buys the product, does not resell it, and has been told it was made in a kitchen the state does not license or inspect.

We are not quoting a label sentence on this page. We read the amending bill in full and the chapter listing, but not a current official statement of the exact label wording. A disclaimer is the one piece of text where approximate equals wrong, so take it from the Century Code chapter or the Department of Agriculture rather than from us.

Now that mail order and interstate sales are allowed, the label matters more than it used to: a customer who never meets you has only the package to read.

Local rules

The Act preempts local permitting for cottage food, so a city or county cannot impose its own cottage food permit or fee on top of the state scheme.

That is the usual shape of a food freedom law and it is worth knowing, but it is not a blanket exemption from everything municipal — zoning and ordinary business licensing are separate questions. Ask your city before you start.

Sales tax

No license is not no tax. Whether what you sell is taxable, and whether you need to register to collect, belongs to the North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner, and we are not going to print a rate that could change.

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 North Dakota?

No. The Food Freedom Act requires no license, permit or inspection for cottage food, and sets no sales cap.

Can I ship my products out of state?

Yes, for everything except poultry. Senate Bill 2386 deleted the ban on interstate commerce in 2025, and added one narrow prohibition in its place: a transaction may not include the sale of poultry products if it involves interstate commerce. Bear in mind that once a package crosses a state line the FDA has oversight and the receiving state's own law applies — North Dakota lifting its ban does not bind anyone else.

Can I sell online or take orders by phone?

Yes, since 2025. The Act used to prohibit transactions conducted over the internet or phone, through the mail, or by consignment. Senate Bill 2386 deleted that subdivision entirely, so all four routes are now open.

Can a shop sell my products on consignment?

Yes. Consignment was in the list of prohibited transaction types and SB 2386 removed it. That is unusual — Kansas and Wisconsin both expressly forbid consignment, on the ground that the shop is not the end consumer.

What about chicken and eggs?

Poultry is the one category that did not open up. Uninspected poultry may be sold only if you slaughter no more than 1,000 birds you raised yourself in the calendar year, you do not buy or sell poultry products other than those from your own birds, and the product is not adulterated or misbranded. And since 2025 there is an explicit new rule that poultry products may not be sold in a transaction involving interstate commerce.

Can I sell meat?

Uninspected meat products remain prohibited, apart from the narrow poultry exception. Raw milk is governed by its own separate rules rather than this chapter.

How much can I sell in a year?

There is no cap. The Food Freedom Act sets no limit on sales, which puts North Dakota among the most open states in the guide on that point as well as on where you may sell.

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