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

Minnesota does not issue cottage food permits. It registers people. Every home producer selling banana bread, strawberry jam, or a jar of dill pickles signs up with the Department of Agriculture once a year, takes a food safety course sized to their expected sales, and works inside a law that is strict about one thing: human food has to change hands in person. A 2025 bill loosens that, and the tiers and fees with it, but not until August 1, 2027. Here are the rules that govern your 2026 season.

The short version

Minn. Stat. Sec. 28A.152, the Cottage Foods Exemption, releases registered home producers from the food handler licensing provisions in sections 28A.01 to 28A.16. It took effect in 2015 and has been amended three times, most recently by the 2025 agriculture budget bill.

Read "exemption" narrowly. You are exempt from a license, not from food law. MDA now prints the point on its registration cards: "This is not a license. Products cannot be resold." The line reminds producers and store owners alike that cottage food cannot be wholesaled.

The program keeps growing. MDA counted 14,116 registered producers in 2025, up from 10,853 the year before, and Extension puts them in all 87 counties. The business side is covered in how to start a cottage food business.

What you can sell

The statute opens two doors, and both are about microbiology rather than product categories.

The first covers food that is not potentially hazardous, as defined in Minnesota Rules part 4626.0020, subpart 62. MDA translates that as a pH of 4.6 or below (acidic) or a water activity of 0.85 or less (dry, or bound up by sugar or salt). Breads, cookies, brittles, dry mixes, granola, and many jams and jellies land here.

The second covers home-processed and home-canned pickles, vegetables, or fruit with an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or lower or a water activity of .85 or less. That is the door for shelf-stable salsa, bread-and-butter pickles, and canned fruit. Those jars carry an extra restriction: they must be canned in Minnesota and cannot be sold outside it.

MDA's guidance is blunt about what falls outside both doors:

• Meat and dairy products, including cheese, yogurt, butter, ghee, jerky, and pickled eggs or meats.
• Tamales and egg rolls.
• Charcuterie boards, because of the meat and cheese on them.
• Chocolate-covered fresh fruit, including berries, pineapple, and melon.
• Cream cheese or flavored butter sold as a condiment with your baked goods.
• Anything containing THC or CBD, since edible cannabinoids are excluded from the definition of food in Minn. Stat. Sec. 34A.01, subd. 4.

Dairy as an ingredient is fine: butter, milk, and eggs in a cake are allowed if the finished product meets the water activity requirement. Where a recipe sits near a line, Extension and MDA point to pH meters, water activity test kits, and commercial food labs rather than guesswork.

Extension's answer on freeze-dried products is narrow. One that is not potentially hazardous qualifies if the final water activity is 0.85 or below. Freeze-drying does not kill microorganisms, so it cannot promote an ineligible food: what you could not sell fresh you cannot sell freeze-dried, and freeze-dried meat, poultry, fish, and seafood are never allowed as ingredients.

Pet treats, honey, and maple syrup

Pet treats. Baked or dehydrated treats for dogs and cats qualify if they are not potentially hazardous and safe for the species, and they are the only cottage product Minnesota currently lets you ship.

Honey and maple syrup. From hives or trees you own or rent, with nothing purchased added, these are a product of the farm or garden under Article XIII, Section 7 of the Minnesota Constitution: no registration, no license, though labeling rules still apply. Add cinnamon, or another producer's syrup, and the exclusion disappears.

Where and how sales can happen

Subdivision 2 lists the places: directly to the buyer at a farmers' market or community event, directly from your home to the extent local ordinance allows, or by donation to a fundraiser for an individual or for an educational, charitable, or religious organization.

The definitions are narrower than they sound. A farmers' market, under Sec. 28A.151, is an association of three or more people assembling at a defined public location to sell what they grow. A community event is an organized event with a start and end time and multiple vendors open to the public.

Whoever works the table has to be you or your employee, physically present at the sale or the delivery. Selling from a trailer or truck is fine if no food is prepared inside it, and an unattended stand at home is fine where zoning allows it, with labels and signage still in place.

Online orders yes, shipping no

Subdivision 2 lets you sell over the internet, and the statement "These products are homemade and not subject to state inspection." must appear on the site that offers the food. What the internet does not buy you is a carrier: MDA is explicit that human cottage food cannot go by mail or a third-party shipping service. Online orders get picked up at your home, collected at your booth, or hand delivered by you to an agreed meeting place in Minnesota.

A CSA subscription works the same way, and leaving a box at a neutral drop point is not allowed. An online storefront that routes orders to an in-person pickup, which is how our sister marketplace Local Cottage Foods works, fits the rule. Our guide to selling cottage food online covers states with different delivery rules.

Off the table entirely: selling from a retail store, even as a pop-up, unless a qualifying market or event is happening there; wholesaling for resale; and preparing food onsite at a market, which needs a license.

Registering, and the two tiers

You register with MDA before you sell, every year, at any volume. Your tier depends on the sales you expect for the year you are registering.

University of Minnesota Extension runs the Tier 2 course as a self-paced online class for $50, with access for at least 12 months; statute caps training at eight hours. A certified food manager credential does not substitute for it, because MDA requires training specific to the cottage food law and home kitchens.

Confirm your product and your local zoning, complete the training and exam for your tier, submit the online registration, and wait for your card. You will need your name, address, contact information, and either a Social Security number or a Minnesota Tax ID, plus a signed attestation that you took the training and will follow the law.

Timing is where people trip. The statute gives the commissioner 30 days and treats a registration as accepted once those days pass. MDA asks you to allow three to four weeks, and says you may sell as soon as your name appears in its Licensing Information Search, card in hand or not. Registrations expire every March 31 and must be renewed by April 1, with a reminder and a PIN arriving about six weeks ahead. Renew online with that PIN unless your name or address changed, which requires a fresh paper form.

Out-of-state producers may register and may make the food at home in another state, but the handoff has to happen in Minnesota, and home-canned goods still have to be canned here.

Labels, and the sign on your table

Five things belong on every package, per the statute and MDA:

1. Your full name, or the cottage food business name on your registration.
2. Your registration number, or the address on your registration.
3. The date the food was made.
4. A list of ingredients, including major allergens.
5. The statement "These products are homemade and not subject to state inspection." (Minn. Stat. Sec. 28A.152, subd. 1)

Extension counts allergens as a sixth element and adds the formatting rules MDA's training teaches: no smaller than 10-point type, in English, ingredients in descending order by weight, and the nine major allergens named by common source. QR codes may sit alongside the required text but never replace it.

Signage is a separate obligation new producers miss. A clearly legible sign or placard with the same statement has to be visible at your point of sale, and on any website taking orders. One wrinkle: MDA's guidance renders the sign wording once as "These foods are homemade and not subject to state inspection," while the statute and the rest of the agency's materials say "products." Use the statutory wording on both label and sign and you satisfy either reading. Our cottage food labeling guide has layouts you can adapt.

Samples are legal without a license under Sec. 28A.151: three ounces or less, free, with a product you sell as the main ingredient, and a sign at the sampling station listing the sample's ingredients and allergens. Handling open food means a handwashing station; sanitizer does not count.

The $78,000 ceiling

Subdivision 3 limits you to gross receipts of $78,000 or less in a calendar year. MDA defines that as all sales at the sales price, not profit, and asks you to estimate it when you register. Cross it and you need a food license, which brings approved facilities, no home preparation, and no sales cap.

The 2021 amendments raised it to $78,000, and it has not moved since; nothing indexes it to inflation until the 2027 change below. The tier threshold has a different history. Subdivision 4 told the commissioner to index the original $5,000 fee exemption to the consumer price index, and $7,665 is where that landed. For how caps work in other states, see cottage food sales limits explained.

Inspection, complaints, and enforcement

No inspector shows up at your kitchen as a matter of routine. Two things can bring one: an inspector working a market or event to check that vendors are registered and selling within the law, and a complaint or reported illness. If food you sold is suspected of causing illness or injury, MDA investigates, and Minnesota law lets the agency enter, at reasonable times, any establishment where food is manufactured, processed, packed, or held. Responses scale with the violation, from a written notice to penalties or prosecution.

Keep your registration card with you when you sell. An inspector or market manager can ask for it, and MDA says a producer whose registration cannot be verified may be asked to stop selling.

Cities, counties, and market managers

Subdivision 6 is short and consequential: the exemption does not preempt any local business licensing requirement or any sanitation, public health, or zoning ordinance. That authority stays with local government.

Check your city, county, or township before you register. If an ordinance blocks food production or sales at your residence, MDA's answer is that you must comply, and that a rented commercial kitchen is a legal place to make cottage food. Our comparison of home kitchen versus commercial kitchen weighs that trade. Market rules on fees, insurance, and stalls are contracts, not regulation; the farmers market vendor guide covers applications.

What changes on August 1, 2027

The 2025 agriculture bill rewrote subdivisions 1 through 5 and added subdivision 8. Every one carries an effective date of August 1, 2027, so nothing in this table touches your 2026 or spring 2027 season. One trap: the Revisor's website already prints the amended text, flagged "[See Note.]" on each subdivision. The rules in force today are in the session law's struck-through language.

Two smaller changes are easy to miss. The amended law narrows who may hold the exemption to an individual, a sole proprietorship, a single-member LLC, or an LLC owned by two people at the same address, replacing today's permission to organize as any state-recognized entity. It also disqualifies anyone holding a food handler license under Sec. 28A.04. MDA says implementation planning starts in 2026, so watch its guidance page.

Where to get official help

• MDA licensing and food business inquiries: 651-201-6062, MDA.Licensing@state.mn.us. Its guidance page is the working FAQ; the registration page holds the Tier 1 training PDF, the application and renewal portals, and Spanish and Somali materials.
• University of Minnesota Extension: the Tier 2 course, labeling and water activity guides, and a monthly Cottage Foods Safety Hour where educators take questions.
• Minnesota Department of Revenue: 651-556-3000. Cottage food sales are subject to income tax and may be subject to sales tax; Sec. 28A.152 changes neither.

Before your first market of the season, three things: confirm your registration is current for the year that started April 1, print labels carrying the statutory statement and a made-on date, and pack the placard. If you are comparing rules across a border, our state-by-state guides show how much the answer changes at the state line.