Worknest Business

Oklahoma 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 at all — and from 1 November 2026 the ceiling is $250,000 a year. House Bill 3720 was approved by the Governor on 5 May 2026. It raises the cap from $75,000, renames the Homemade Food Freedom Act the Local Food Freedom Act, and lets you produce at any location except a restaurant rather than only in a residence.

Check your labels before 1 November. The required sentence changes from "produced in a private residence" to "produced in a facility". A label printed under the old wording no longer matches the statute, so a reprint is the one piece of work this change forces on everybody.

The cap, and where you may now work

The Act works through a definition. A local food establishment is "a business at any location, including on the premises of a residence but excluding restaurants, in which local food products are created for sale or resale if the business has gross annual sales of prepared food of less than Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($250,000.00)".

Two things in that sentence do real work. The figure replaces $75,000. And "at any location" replaces "a residence" — so a rented commercial space, a church hall or a shared kitchen is now inside the Act, where before only your home was. The one place excluded by name is a restaurant.

Annual limit
$250,000 from 1 November 2026, up from $75,000. "Gross annual sales includes all sales of prepared food produced by the business at any location" — so it is the whole business, not one kitchen.
License
None. Production and sale are "exempt from all licensing and other requirements of the State Department of Health and the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry".
Registration
Optional, and cheap — see the label section.
Penalty
A violation is "a fine not exceeding Three Hundred Dollars ($300.00)".

Enrolled HB 3720 · bill status: approved by the Governor 5 May 2026

Where you may sell — and Oklahoma is generous

The Act splits on whether the food needs temperature control. TCS means time or temperature control for safety: food that has to be kept hot or cold to stay safe. Non-TCS food is shelf stable — a pH of 4.6 or below, or a water activity of 0.85 or less.

Shelf-stable food travels furthest. You may sell it yourself, "either in person or by remote means, including, but not limited to, the Internet or telephone". You may also sell it through a designated agent or a third-party vendor — the Act names "a retail or grocery store, farm, farm stand, farmers market, membership-based buying club, craft fair or flea market" — as long as the vendor displays a placard carrying the disclosure.

And it may be delivered "by a third-party vendor or a third-party carrier, such as a parcel delivery service". That is a real shipping permission, and it puts Oklahoma well ahead of Minnesota, where human food has to be handed over in person, or Wisconsin, which bans internet sales of home-canned food outright.

Refrigerated food stays close to home. TCS products are "sold by the producer directly to the consumer, either in person or by remote means" and "delivered by the producer directly to the consumer". You may take the order online; you may not hand the parcel to a courier.

Never allowed: seafood, meat, meat by-products or meat food products as defined in 9 CFR 301.2, and poultry or poultry products under the Poultry Products Inspection Act. Alcoholic beverages, unpasteurized milk and cannabis are outside the definition of a local food product.

The label changes on 1 November 2026

Every label carries the producer's name and phone number, the physical address where the product was produced, a description of the product, the ingredients "in descending order of proportion", a statement naming any of the eight most common allergens, and this sentence:

This product was produced in a facility that is exempt from government licensing and inspection.

That sentence is new. Until 31 October 2026 it read "produced in a private residence". The change follows the change to where you may produce, and it means labels printed under the old wording need updating — it is the one unavoidable task this Act creates. The placard a shop displays beside your products carries the same sentence plus "This product may contain allergens."

The format is prescribed too: "at least 10-point font", and then depending on how you sell —

You can keep your home address off all of this for $15. A producer may obtain a registration number from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry for "an annual fee of Fifteen Dollars ($15.00)", good for one year, and "the assigned registration number may be used on product labels instead of the producer's name, phone number, and the physical address". Maryland, South Carolina and Oregon offer something similar; Oklahoma's is the cheapest and it replaces all three details at once.

Food safety training — only for refrigerated food

If everything you make is shelf stable, the Act requires no course.

If you make TCS food, training is required before you produce and sell it — and the 2026 Act widened who needs it from "the producer" to "any person producing the local food". So a family member who helps with a refrigerated product needs it too.

The course comes from a list approved by the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry, "including the ServSafe Food Handler Training". It "shall be available to complete online and shall not exceed eight (8) hours in length".

No license — and what the state can still do

There is no license, no permit and no routine inspection. What the Department keeps is a set of checking powers, and they are worth knowing because they tell you what to have ready.

On a consumer complaint, the Department "shall have the authority to request proof of completion of the food safety training, verify a producer's gross sales, and ensure a producer has complied with the act's labeling and delivery requirements". Nothing in the Act impedes the State Department of Health investigating a reported foodborne illness.

Two limits on your own town, and one new duty. Counties may enact ordinances regulating local food establishments, "provided such ordinances do not conflict with the provisions of the Local Food Freedom Act or impede or restrict the sale of local food products in compliance with the law". But the 2026 Act added a condition to the exemption itself: "The producer complies with all local zoning and building code laws." Zoning is no longer a separate question you could ignore — it is part of qualifying.

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 Oklahoma Tax Commission, 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 Oklahoma?

No. Production and sale of qualifying local food products are exempt from all licensing and other requirements of the State Department of Health and the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry. There is no permit and no routine inspection. A $15 annual registration number exists, but it is optional and its purpose is to keep your address off your labels.

How much can I sell in a year in Oklahoma?

$250,000 from 1 November 2026, raised from $75,000 by House Bill 3720, which the Governor approved on 5 May 2026. The figure is gross annual sales of prepared food, and it includes all sales produced by the business at any location — so it is the whole business, not one kitchen.

My labels say "produced in a private residence". Do I need to reprint them?

Yes. From 1 November 2026 the required sentence is "This product was produced in a facility that is exempt from government licensing and inspection." The old wording named a private residence, and it changed because the Act now lets you produce at any location except a restaurant. It is the one unavoidable task this change creates, so check your stock before 1 November.

Can I ship my products?

Shelf-stable food, yes — it may be delivered by a third-party vendor or a third-party carrier such as a parcel delivery service. Refrigerated food, no: a TCS product must be delivered by the producer directly to the consumer. You may still take the order online either way.

Can a grocery store sell my products?

Yes, for shelf-stable food. The Act names a retail or grocery store, farm, farm stand, farmers market, membership-based buying club, craft fair or flea market as third-party vendors who may sell your products, provided the vendor displays a placard with the required disclosure. Refrigerated food cannot go that route — it is producer-to-consumer only.

Can I still work from my kitchen, or do I need premises now?

Your kitchen is fine. The change widened the Act rather than narrowing it: a local food establishment is now a business at any location, including on the premises of a residence, but excluding restaurants. Before 1 November 2026 only a residence qualified, so this opens up rented space and shared kitchens without closing anything.

Do I need a food safety course?

Only if you make food that needs time or temperature control. For shelf-stable products the Act requires none. For TCS food, any person producing it must complete and pass approved training before production and sale — the 2026 Act widened that from the producer alone. The course is available online, comes from a list approved by the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry including ServSafe Food Handler Training, and may not exceed eight hours.

Other states

Tools

More guides

Ready to take orders?

Once you are set up, take orders with your own Worknest page — your customers order from one link, you get notified, and you can take the money at pickup.

Get the app

No monthly fee. Your customers order in their browser — they never need an app.