Illinois Cottage Food Law: What You Can Sell, How to Register, and What the Rules Require (2026 Guide)

Illinois runs its cottage food program through local health departments rather than a single state office. Since January 1, 2022, a registered home cook has been able to sell most shelf-stable foods, plus a defined set of acidified, fermented, and refrigerated products, directly to consumers anywhere in the state, with no cap on annual sales. Getting registered asks more of you than the phrase "cottage food" suggests: a Certified Food Protection Manager credential before your application is approved, an annual registration fee of up to $50, and a label carrying seven statutory elements plus net weight. This guide works through Section 4 of the Food Handling Regulation Enforcement Act (410 ILCS 625/4) alongside the state's 2026 Cottage Food Guide.

Who the law covers

The statute defines a "cottage food operation" as a person who produces or packages food or drink, other than the prohibited items, in a kitchen in their primary domestic residence, or in "another appropriately designed and equipped kitchen on a farm," for direct sale by the owner, a family member, or an employee. Three things fall out of that definition. Your kitchen has to be in the home you actually live in; the 2026 guide says farmers may use an outbuilding on farm property, and non-farmers may not. The sale has to be direct, made by you, a family member, or a paid employee, never by a shop that bought from you. And one registration covers one kitchen, so two friends cannot pool their kitchens under a single business. Non-TCS baked goods made for a religious, charitable, or nonprofit fundraiser are exempt from the section entirely.

How the law got here

The marked-up text of the Home-to-Market Act shows how much the 2022 rewrite did. Before it, sales were limited to farmers markets, with an exception for on-farm sales and delivery when a locally grown product was the main ingredient. Registration was free unless a local health department opted in to regulate cottage food, in which case it could charge up to $25. The credential was a Food Service Sanitation Management Certificate, and the label said the product was "not subject to public health inspection." All of that is gone.

What can you sell?

Since the 2018 expansion, the question is not "is my product on the list" but "is any ingredient on the prohibited list." Under paragraph (b)(1.5) of the statute, a cottage food operation may not sell, or sell foods containing:

• meat, poultry, fish, seafood, or shellfish;
• dairy, except as an ingredient in a baked good or candy that is not a TCS food (caramel, for instance), or in a baked good frosting such as buttercream;
• eggs, except as an ingredient in a non-TCS food such as dry noodles, or in a frosting, and never raw;
• pumpkin pies, sweet potato pies, cheesecakes, custard pies, creme pies, and pastries with TCS fillings or toppings;
• garlic in oil, or oil infused with garlic, unless the garlic oil is acidified;
• low-acid canned foods;
• sprouts;
• cut leafy greens, unless dehydrated, acidified, or blanched and frozen;
• cut or pureed fresh tomato or melon, dehydrated tomato or melon, and frozen cut melon;
• wild-harvested, non-cultivated mushrooms;
• alcoholic beverages; and
• kombucha.

Everything else is fair game: breads (the guide specifically blesses sourdough and starters, with no fermentation paperwork), cookies, cakes with buttercream, jams and jellies, pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, hot sauces, salsa, dried herbs and spice blends, roasted coffee, granola, dehydrated and freeze-dried foods, and flavor extracts made with alcohol, as long as the result is not intended as a beverage. Pre-bottled drinks and fresh-pressed juices are allowed if bottled and labeled at home and held at 41°F or below; unpasteurized juice carries the federal warning statement, and drinks may not be squeezed, brewed, or dispensed on site. The guide treats plain honey as outside the cottage food law and mushroom growing kits as not food at all. For how other states draw these lines, see what counts as cottage food.

Foods that come with homework

Acidified and fermented foods. The statute gives you two routes. Submit a recipe already tested by the USDA or by a cooperative extension system in any state (the guide points to the USDA National Center for Home Food Preservation). Or submit a written food safety plan for each category of product where you use the same process (pickles, kimchi, hot sauce) along with a pH test on one representative product from that category. The plan is resubmitted every year at registration, the pH test every three years. If the product is canned, it must be processed in a boiling water bath in a Mason-style jar or glass container with a tight-fitting lid. If it is not canned, it goes in a new, clean, sealing container and must be stored, transported, and sold at or below 41 degrees. The guide puts a lab pH test at $15 to $40, and a water activity test at $20 to $60.

Canned tomatoes and anything canned that contains tomatoes. Either follow a USDA or extension-tested recipe exactly, or send the recipe to a commercial lab for a pH test, use only the tomato varietals in the tested recipe from then on, and hand over the annual test documentation at registration and to any inspector who asks.

Baked goods with cheese. A local health department may require a lab test, at your expense, to verify the product is not a TCS food before it lets you sell it. The guide's rule of thumb is a finished water activity of 0.85 or less, and its examples are aged cheddar sourdough, Asiago bagels, and Parmesan croissants. Cheesecake is prohibited outright, so no test will rescue it. Watch the cheese itself: the 2026 update singles out cheddar, which can be a hard aged cheese or a young high-moisture one, and notes that a recipe approved for one cheese has to keep using that variety or brand.

Frostings. Buttercream is explicitly allowed, and butter and cream are fine in it. Raw eggs are not, even pasteurized ones; meringue powder is the workaround. Your health department may ask for a water activity test, and cream cheese and whipped cream frostings will usually have to be kept at 41°F or below.

Private wells. If your kitchen is not on municipal water, the local health department may require a coliform and E. coli water test at your expense (the guide estimates $10 to $30).

TCS foods that are not prohibited. Vegan soups, cut or spiralized vegetables, hummus, refrigerator pickles, and vegan meals-to-go are legal, but if your health department treats them as time/temperature control for safety foods, they have to be stored, transported, and sold at or below 41°F. The 2025 amendment added an escape hatch: a pH and water activity assessment can show a product does not need temperature control. The 2026 guide sets the bar for relying on one test alone at a water activity below 0.88 or a pH below 4.2; short of that, expect to be asked for both.

Where and how can you sell?

Direct to consumers, anywhere in Illinois

Paragraph (b)(11) says cottage food must be sold "directly to consumers for their own consumption and not for resale," then lists the ways that can happen: farmers markets; fairs, festivals, public events, or online; pickup from your home or farm; delivery to the customer; pickup from a third party's private property with the owner's consent; and, since 2025, mobile farmers markets. You register in your own county but may sell in any county, and the guide recommends carrying your certificate and giving the destination county's health department a courtesy heads-up.

The 2026 guide's FAQ fills in the gray areas. A craft mall booth, a pop-up in a retail space, and even a pop-up inside a licensed bakery or coffee shop are all fine, provided you or your employee is present for every transaction and the cottage food is clearly separated from the licensed business (a separate checkout, station, or menu). Renting the space and leaving product there unattended is not allowed, and neither are vending machines. A sidewalk cart is a direct sale, but your municipality may require a peddler's license. One Chicago wrinkle: Extension reports that the city's DCASE-run farmers markets prohibit the sale of home-prepared foods under the cottage food law, while independent Chicago markets may allow them. Market operators everywhere set their own vendor terms; our farmers market vendor guide covers that side.

Online orders, delivery, and shipping

Online sales are written into the statute as a form of direct sale, and the guide confirms that Etsy shops and online farmers markets qualify as long as every sale stays inside Illinois. Two conditions attach. Your online sales interface must display the point-of-sale notice (quoted in the labeling section below) where the customer checks out. And shipping is limited: only non-TCS food may be shipped, nothing may be shipped out of state, and each shipped product must be sealed in a way that reveals tampering, such as a sticker or pop top. Delivery by you or an employee has no such restriction beyond the temperature rules for TCS foods. An online order handed over at your door or a market table, the model our sister marketplace Local Cottage Foods runs on, fits inside these rules as long as the notice appears on the ordering page and your labels are complete.

Still off limits

No wholesale, which the guide defines as selling products to be retailed by others. That rules out coffee shops, groceries, boutiques, restaurants buying your granola as an ingredient, and a farmer reselling your jam through a CSA. And no sales across state lines, whether by shipping, delivery, or a booth at a market in Iowa; the Illinois law only reaches Illinois.

Registration, fees, and training

Registering with your local health department

You register with the local health department for the unit of local government where your kitchen sits. If your county has no health department, the 2025 amendment requires the county to contract with a neighboring county's department to handle registration. Registration is annual, and the department "may impose a fee not to exceed $50"; the guide says actual fees run from $0 to $50 and vary by county.

The guide's registration checklist tells you what to gather: your CFPM certificate, a list of the products you intend to make, a sample label for each product category, the fee, water test results if you are on a well, and, for acidified or fermented foods and tomato products, either the approved recipe or the food safety plan and pH test. The statute lets departments run a self-certification program, and in practice you will complete a Home Self-Certification Checklist covering water supply, handwashing, pets in the kitchen, pests, chemical storage, and refrigeration at 41°F or below. The guide says approval can take up to six weeks, so apply well ahead of your first market date. Adding products later means amending your registration through whatever process your department uses.

The Certified Food Protection Manager requirement

Paragraph (b)(6) requires that anyone "preparing or packaging a product" be a Department-approved certified food protection manager. The guide describes what that means: an ANSI-accredited course of roughly eight hours with a proctored exam, typically $100 to $300, valid for five years. It states plainly that food handler training is not valid for cottage food operators. Employees who only handle sales, marketing, or admin do not need the certificate; anyone who touches the food does, including a teenager working under your direction. Illinois Extension's own $25 self-paced Cottage Food Operator Training Course covers the law, labeling, and food safety, and its page says it is a supplement to the accredited CFPM course rather than a replacement for it.

Chicago

The statute singles out municipalities of 1,000,000 or more, which in Illinois means Chicago: a cottage food operator there must comply with any city law that applies equally to all home-based businesses, particularly for pickup at the home. Chicago residents register with the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), which asks for the application, the self-certification checklist, the CFPM certificate, a full menu, and labels for each product category, and says to allow six to eight weeks. The city's page says any registration fee is listed on the application; it does not publish a figure. Extension adds that Chicago operators must also obtain a CDPH food service sanitation certificate.

What has to be on the label?

Every cottage food product must be prepackaged with a prominent label that conforms to the Illinois Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and carries, per paragraph (b)(7):

• the name of your operation and the unit of local government where it is located;
• your registration number and the municipality or county where the registration was filed;
• the common or usual name of the product;
• all ingredients in descending order by weight, including any color, artificial flavor, or preservative (the guide notes that sub-ingredients of things like chocolate chips must be listed too);
• the date the product was processed, which the 2026 guide specifies as the full month, day, and year;
• allergen labeling per federal rules, which IDPH's checklist lists as milk, egg, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame; and
• this phrase, in prominent lettering: "This product was produced in a home kitchen not inspected by a health department that may also process common food allergens. If you have safety concerns, contact your local health department." (410 ILCS 625/4(b)(7)(E))

IDPH's labeling checklist and the 2026 guide both add net weight. It is not in the statute's own list; it follows from the requirement at the top of paragraph (b)(7) that packaging conform to the Illinois Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Packaging may carry "Illinois-grown," "Illinois-sourced," or "Illinois farm product" only if the product qualifies under the Local Food, Farms, and Jobs Act.

A separate notice is required at the point of sale: "This product was produced in a home kitchen not inspected by a health department that may also process common food allergens." At a physical display it is a placard, which the guide says should be at least 8 by 10 inches; online it is a message on your sales interface at checkout. For a wedding cake, a bin of donuts, or anything else hard to package, the health department where the product is sold can waive prepackaging, and you then give the buyer the same information in another prominent written form. The guide also allows reusable containers and cake safes if they meet the FDA Food Code standard for reuse and are kept clean and labeled. For layout and a printable checklist, see our cottage food labeling guide.

Is there a sales cap?

No. The statute contains no gross-sales limit, and the guide answers the question directly: earlier versions of the bill had limits, and they no longer apply. Your ceiling is what one home kitchen and your local market can support.

Inspections, complaints, and enforcement

Nobody inspects your kitchen when you register. Subsection (d) lets IDPH or a local health department inspect after a consumer complaint or foodborne illness outbreak, on notice from another health department, or if it has reason to believe an imminent health hazard exists or a product is misbranded, adulterated, or out of compliance. It may set a reasonable fee for that inspection, halt sales until the problem is fixed, and revoke the registration under its own written process. A complaint filed in another county gets referred back to the department where you registered. The guide notes that you can refuse an inspection, but expect your registration to be revoked if you do, and that the inspector looks only at food preparation areas, not the whole house.

Local rules: zoning, home pickup, market policies

Subsection (h) bars home rule units from regulating cottage food operations "in a manner inconsistent with" the state law, and the guide spells out what that means: a city cannot declare cottage food illegal, ban foods the state allows, or confine you to farmers markets. What it can do is regulate the things the statute does not touch. The home-pickup provision in (b)(11)(C) allows pickup only if it is not prohibited by a local law that applies equally to all cottage food operations, and the guide warns that traffic, customer counts, noise, outdoor signage, and building permits for a kitchen build-out remain local matters, with a zoning variance as the usual remedy. We found nothing in the statute or the guide about homeowners association covenants, so read yours. Farmers markets, festivals, and property owners are private parties and can require insurance, a booth fee, or a copy of your certificate; the guide notes that event organizers commonly ask to be named as an additional insured.

Caveats and recent changes

• Two amendments took effect in 2025. P.A. 103-0903 (January 1, 2025) replaced "potentially hazardous" with "time/temperature control for safety" throughout, defined an employee as someone paid by the operator, added mobile farmers markets, created the adjacent-county registration route, allowed alcohol in extracts and baked goods, and let a pH and water activity assessment prove a product is not TCS. P.A. 104-0417 (August 15, 2025) re-enacted the section in a revisory act that says it makes no substantive change.
• The guide was rewritten in May 2026. The addendum lists what moved: tighter frosting guidance, more scrutiny of high-moisture cheeses in baked goods, a ban on making drinks on site, freeze-drying treated like dehydrating, pop-ups inside licensed facilities, the full processing date, and net weight.
• Watch the label wording. The statute's phrase says "common food allergens." IDPH's checklist drops the word "food," and the sample label in the guide still uses the pre-2022 phrase "not subject to public health inspection." Use the statutory wording above; it is what the law requires.
• Local variation is real. Fees, forms, menu requirements, and which tests a department asks for all differ by county. The guide's advice for a department that goes beyond the statute is to work up the chain (inspector, environmental health director, department head, board of health) and to ask IDPH for guidance.
• Taxes and business filings are separate. The guide reminds operators to register with MyTax Illinois; nothing in the cottage food law changes sales tax or business registration.

Where to get official help

• IDPH Food Safety Program: DPH.Food@illinois.gov. The IDPH cottage food page links the guide, the labeling checklist, and the local health department directory.
• University of Illinois Extension: cottagefood@illinois.edu, the cottage food hub with the 2026 guide in English and Spanish, and the optional $25 training course.
• Chicago Department of Public Health, Food Protection Program: 312-746-8030, cottagefood@cityofchicago.org, and the city registration page.
• Illinois General Assembly: the statute text and the Home-to-Market Act.

Before you apply, the order that saves the most time: book the CFPM course first, since nothing moves without it; settle your product list and decide whether anything on it is acidified, fermented, or tomato-based, because that determines what tests you need; then print labels with the statutory phrase and send in the registration six weeks before your first sale. The business side, from pricing to insurance, is in our guide on how to start a cottage food business. If you are weighing Illinois against a neighbor, our state-by-state guides show how differently the same questions get answered across a border.