Ohio Cottage Food Law: What You Can Sell, What Labels Must Say, and When You Need a Home Bakery (2026)

Starting a cottage food business in Ohio costs nothing. There is no license, no registration, no fee, no required course, no inspection, and no cap on sales. The catch is on the other side: the state publishes a closed list of twenty food categories, and if your product is not on it, you are not a cottage food production operation in Ohio and a different law applies. Almost every practical question here comes back to that trade.

Who the law covers, and the short version

ORC 3715.01(A)(19) defines a cottage food production operation as a person who, in the person's home, produces food items that are not potentially hazardous, including bakery products, jams, jellies, candy, fruit butter, and similar products specified in rules. Meet that definition and two licenses fall away: you are not a food processing establishment under Sec. 3715.021(A), and Sec. 3717.22(B)(6) exempts you from retail food establishment licensing when you sell directly from the site where you produce.

What is left, as OSU Extension's law bulletin puts it, is four obligations: label your product, skip reduced oxygen packaging, sell only where the law allows, and submit to ODA sampling. That is the whole regulatory program. For the business side, see our guide to starting a cottage food business.

"Home" is a defined term, and it is narrower than it sounds

Sec. 3715.01(A)(17) defines "home" as "the primary residence occupied by the residence's owner," on the condition that it contains only one stove or oven used for cooking, which may be a double oven, designed for common residence usage and operated in an ordinary kitchen. ODA repeats that definition word for word on its cottage food page.

Two limits hide in there. Only one stove or oven may be in cooking use, and a double oven counts as one, so a second range in the basement or a deck oven in the garage puts you outside the definition. The other is owner occupancy. We found no ODA guidance addressing renters, so if you rent, ask before you build a business on the assumption.

What you can sell

OAC 901:3-20-04 names twenty approved items, and the list is exhaustive. Grouped:

• Non-potentially-hazardous bakery products
• Jams, jellies, fruit butters, and fruit chutneys
• Candy, but not fresh fruit dipped, covered, or otherwise incorporated with candy
• Granola, granola bars, and granola bars dipped in candy, with commercially dried fruit only
• Popcorn, flavored popcorn, kettle corn, popcorn balls, and caramel corn, but not un-popped popping corn
• Unfilled baked donuts
• Waffle cones, including candy-dipped
• Pizzelles
• Dry cereal and nut snack mixes with seasonings
• Roasted coffee, whole bean or ground
• Dry baking mixes in a jar, including cookie mix in a jar
• Dry herbs and herb blends, dry seasoning blends, and dry tea blends
• Dry soup mixes containing commercially dried vegetables, beans, grains, and seasonings
• Flavored honey and maple sugar, but only from a beekeeper or maple syrup producer exempt under ORC 3715.021(A)

That last one has a catch. The Sec. 3715.021(A) exemptions apply only when at least seventy-five per cent of the honey comes from the beekeeper's own hives, or at least seventy-five per cent of the sap is collected directly from trees by the processor. Buying bulk honey and adding flavoring does not qualify. One packaging restriction rides on top: cottage food products may not be packed using reduced oxygen packaging, meaning vacuum sealing and modified atmosphere packaging.

What is not a cottage food

OAC 901:3-20-05 prohibits acidified foods, low-acid canned foods, potentially hazardous foods, and, critically, any item not expressly listed above. ODA keeps a companion list of foods that are not cottage foods, reproduced in the OSU Extension law bulletin: anything requiring refrigeration, fresh fruit garnishes and fillings, candy-covered fresh fruit, freezer jams, sugar-free jams and jellies and fruit butters, hot pepper and nut and pumpkin butters, pickles and relishes and other acidified foods, salsa, fresh pasta, raw cookie dough and pizza dough, cheesecake, cream pie, pumpkin pie, fry pies, waffles, cream cheese frosting, hummus, dehydrated fruits or herbs, beef jerky, and meals.

Several of those look like obvious cottage foods until you check. A fruit pie is fine; a pumpkin pie is not. A plain baked donut is fine; a filled one is not. Cream cheese frosting sits on the wrong side of the line.

One entry is genuinely confusing. ODA lists "dehydrated fruits or herbs" as not a cottage food, while OAC 901:3-20-04 approves "dry herbs and herb blends." Drying produce yourself is probably the distinction, but no published ODA guidance says so. Get an answer in writing before you build on it. Our explainer on what counts as cottage food covers how other states draw these lines.

Where and how you can sell

The hardest limit is geographic. OAC 901:3-20-05(F) bars a cottage food operation from selling cottage food products outside Ohio, and ODA puts it just as bluntly: cottage food products may only be sold in Ohio. That forecloses out-of-state customers and any marketplace built on shipping.

Inside Ohio the channels are broad:

• Direct to the consumer from the home where the products are produced
• At farmers markets, where Sec. 3717.22(B)(2)(b) exempts a cottage food vendor from retail food establishment licensing
• Through licensed grocery stores, registered farm markets, and licensed restaurants
• At festivals organized by a political subdivision of the state that last no longer than seven consecutive days, under Sec. 3717.22(B)(15)

Wholesale is expressly allowed. Sec. 3715.023(B) makes a properly labeled cottage food an acceptable product for a licensed retail food establishment or food service operation to sell or cook with. If markets are your first channel, our farmers market vendor guide covers applications and booth requirements.

Online orders, delivery, and shipping

Neither the statute nor Chapter 901:3-20 mentions internet sales, phone orders, or delivery. Nothing prohibits taking an order online and handing the food to an Ohio customer at pickup or on a delivery route. What the rules settle is the border: a shipment to an out-of-state buyer is a sale outside Ohio. We found no ODA guidance on carrier shipping within Ohio, so treat that as an open question. Our guide on selling cottage food online explains the pattern across states.

Package it at home, not at the table

OSU Extension's May 2026 farmers market fact sheet is specific: cottage food products must be packaged where they are made, in the quantities they will be sold. Slicing bagels at your booth or scooping spice mixes into bags on the table is not permitted. Portion everything before you load the car.

Licensing: none for cottage food, $10 for a home bakery

ODA does not license or inspect cottage food operations, and no state fee applies. Nothing in ORC 3715.025 or Chapter 901:3-20 requires training, so no food handler card or manager certification either.

Two things push you to a different registration: refrigeration and the state line. A home bakery is registered with and inspected by the ODA Division of Food Safety, and it makes exactly the potentially hazardous baked goods a cottage food operation cannot.

ODA's conditions are concrete: no carpeted kitchen floors, no pets in the home, a mechanical refrigerator with a properly located thermometer holding 45°F or below, and, on a private well, an annual coliform test with a negative result on file. The $10 fee sits in ORC 911.02. House Bill 96 rewrote that section effective September 30, 2025, swapping a tiered commercial bakery fee for a flat $200 and leaving the home bakery line at the ten dollars it has held since 2001.

A home bakery covers baked goods and nothing else. Salsa, jerky, hummus, and the rest of the not-a-cottage-food list run into food processing or retail food establishment licensing, and OSU Extension notes some of those foods cannot legally be made in a home at all.

What has to be on the label

ORC 3715.023(A) sets five elements, and OAC 901:3-20-02 layers the federal rules in 21 CFR Part 101 on top:

1. Statement of identity. The common or usual name of the food.
2. Net quantity of contents. The net weight in both US customary and metric units, using "NET WEIGHT" or a standard abbreviation, in the bottom thirty per cent of the principal display panel.
3. Ingredient list. Common names in descending order of predominance by weight, with sub-ingredients in parentheses.
4. Statement of responsibility. The business name and street address, city, state, and ZIP, kept continuous, with nothing inserted between the ingredient list and this block.
5. The home production statement, in ten-point type: "This product is home produced." (ORC 3715.023(A)(5))

ODA translates that sentence for shoppers: the food was produced in a private home not subject to inspection by a food regulatory authority. Allergens go either in the ingredient list or in a "Contains" statement immediately after it, and ODA names nine: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, sesame, and soybeans. A Nutrition Facts panel is required only if you make a nutrient content or health claim.

One label exemption exists, and it is narrow: under ORC 3715.022(B), the labeling rules do not apply to fruit butter produced at a festival organized by a political subdivision and sold during the event from the production site. ODA's fact sheet has an annotated example label, and our cottage food labeling guide covers layout and proofreading.

Sales limits, sampling, and enforcement

There is no sales limit. We read ORC 3715.025, all five rules in Chapter 901:3-20, ODA's cottage food page, and its fact sheet, and none names a dollar figure. Ohio regulates the food, not the revenue, the opposite of the states covered in our sales limits explainer. Your income is still taxable. Sales tax usually is not owed: ORC 5739.02(B)(2) exempts food for human consumption off the premises where it is sold, which describes a market table and a porch pickup. Confirm your own case with the Ohio Department of Taxation.

Enforcement runs through product sampling rather than inspection. ORC 3715.022(A) and OAC 901:3-20-03 let ODA sample any cottage food product to determine whether it is misbranded or adulterated, and 901:3-20-05 makes refusing sampling a violation in itself. Your label is therefore the thing most likely to be checked, at random or after a complaint.

Local rules still apply

Ohio's cottage food law contains no clause preempting local government, and ODA does not claim one. OSU Extension advises cottage food producers to check local zoning for restrictions on home-based retail sales. A home occupation ordinance can limit customer traffic, signage, or deliveries at a residence. Call your city or township zoning office before you advertise porch pickup.

Farmers markets, festivals, and stores are private operators. They can require liability insurance or a copy of your label, and those are contract terms rather than regulations. ODA's home bakery page makes the parallel point about retail: stores carrying home-produced goods stay subject to local health department and zoning rules of their own.

What could change: House Bill 134

House Bill 134 would add a second, much broader option alongside the cottage food law. As passed by the House, it would create a microenterprise home kitchen operation registration covering most homemade foods, including potentially hazardous ones, with a $25 annual fee, a mandatory ODA inspection of the home kitchen, an inspection fee of up to $50 a year, required food safety training, and a $150,000 annual cap on gross receipts from potentially hazardous items. Delivery would split by product: items with no dairy, meat, poultry, or seafood could be sold remotely and shipped by carrier, while dairy, meat, poultry, and seafood would have to be handed to the customer in person. The bill keeps the current cottage food law in place for anyone who prefers to stay unregistered.

It is not law. The House passed it on November 19, 2025, and the Senate referred it to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on February 11, 2026, with no later action posted. Plan around current law.

Chapter 901:3-20 itself carries a January 22, 2016 effective date and a five year review date of November 27, 2028. The approved food list has not changed since it took effect, and any change would come through ODA rulemaking rather than the legislature.

Where to get official help

• ODA Division of Food Safety: 614-728-6250 or foodsafety@agri.ohio.gov. The cottage food page links the printable fact sheet with a sample label; the home bakery page links the inspection request form.
• Ohio Laws: OAC Chapter 901:3-20 and ORC Sec. 3715.023 are short enough to read in full, which is the fastest way to settle an argument with a market manager.
• OSU Extension: the cottage food law bulletin and the farmers market food safety fact sheet on Ohioline.

Before you commit to a product line, check every item against OAC 901:3-20-04, then price a $10 home bakery registration against the products the list pushes you away from. If one item you want to sell needs refrigeration, or you want customers past the state line, the registration usually costs less than dropping the product. To see how the same questions get answered a state away, browse our state-by-state guides.