Cottage food law
Tennessee cottage food law for home bakers
The Tennessee cottage food law, known as the Food Freedom Act (Tenn. Code Ann. § 53-1-118), lets you make food in your home kitchen and sell it inside Tennessee with no license, no permit, no inspection, no fee and no sales cap, as long as you follow its selling and labeling conditions. Shelf-stable baked goods like cookies, breads and decorated cakes with buttercream can be sold in person, online, by phone, through stores, and delivered or shipped anywhere in the state. Most foods that need refrigeration for safety are allowed too, but only sold in person. Every sale needs your name, home address, phone number, the food's name, its ingredients and a fixed statement saying it was made in a private residence. This page explains each rule, gives a worked pricing example, and is not legal advice.
| Rule | Tennessee |
|---|---|
| Law | Food Freedom Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 53-1-118, amended effective July 1, 2025 |
| Sales cap | None |
| Permit, registration or fee | None required for food made at your private residence |
| Inspection | None, except during a Department of Health foodborne illness investigation |
| Allowed foods | Non-TCS foods such as baked goods and candy; most TCS foods, sold in person only |
| Not allowed | Alcohol, meat, fish, shellfish, unpasteurized milk; poultry only under federal exemptions |
| Online and phone sales | Allowed for non-TCS foods; TCS foods must be sold in person |
| Delivery and shipping | Allowed within Tennessee for non-TCS foods, including by third-party carrier; no out-of-state sales |
| Stores and resellers | Non-TCS foods may be sold through a retail shop or grocery store |
| Labeling | Name, home address, phone, food name, ingredients and the private residence statement |
| Training | Not required |
| Sales tax | Not exempt; check with the Tennessee Department of Revenue |
| Local rules | Counties and cities may not ban or regulate homemade food sales; home business rules may apply |
Last verified October 11, 2026
This page is general information, not legal advice. Rules change: check them with your state or local authority before you sell.
What the Tennessee cottage food law allows
Tennessee replaced its older domestic kitchen rules with the Food Freedom Act in 2022, and the legislature widened it again with changes that took effect on July 1, 2025. The core idea has stayed the same: a homemade food item, produced and packaged at the producer's private residence, is exempt from the state's licensing, permitting, inspection, packaging and labeling laws, except when the Department of Health is investigating a reported foodborne illness.
There is no registration with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, no application fee, no kitchen inspection and no yearly income limit written into the law. You can start selling the week you decide to, provided you meet the conditions on how the food is sold, delivered and labeled. Those conditions are where most bakers slip, so the sections below go through them one by one.
Which foods you can sell
The law splits homemade food into two groups. Non-time/temperature control for safety foods (non-TCS) are foods that stay safe at room temperature. TCS foods need refrigeration or other temperature control to stay safe, such as cheesecake, custard and cream pies, cream cheese frosting, or anything with fresh cream fillings.
Non-TCS foods have the most freedom. For bakers, that covers most of what sells: cookies, brownies, breads, rolls, muffins, scones, cakes with shelf-stable frosting, fruit pies, granola, candy, fudge, and dry mixes.
TCS foods became broadly allowed in 2025, with limits. The law still excludes unpasteurized milk and foods that are or contain alcoholic beverages, fish, shellfish, meat, meat byproducts or meat food products. Poultry is only allowed under the specific federal poultry exemptions the statute names. Everything else in the TCS group can be sold, but only in person.
- Non-TCS, sold any way the law allows: cookies, bread, cupcakes with buttercream, fruit pies, brownies, candy, granola
- TCS, sold in person only: cheesecake, cream pies, custard tarts, cakes with cream cheese frosting or whipped cream
- Not allowed: anything with alcohol, meat or fish, and products made with unpasteurized milk
How and where you can sell homemade food in Tennessee
Non-TCS food can be sold by you directly to the customer in person or remotely, which the statute says includes sales by telephone or over the internet. It can also be sold by your agent or a third-party vendor, such as a retail shop or grocery store, to the consumer. Delivery can be done by you, your agent, a vendor, or a third-party carrier, so shipping cookies by mail within Tennessee is covered.
TCS food is narrower: it can only be sold in person, by you or by an agent of yours, such as a farm stand on the property where the food was made. A customer can find your cheesecake on Instagram, but the sale itself has to happen face to face, not through a third-party shop or a shipped box.
The whole exemption applies only to sales made within Tennessee. Shipping to a customer in Georgia or Kentucky is not covered by this law, and you would fall under federal rules and the other state's own laws. If you sell online, make sure your checkout only accepts Tennessee addresses.
Labeling rules under the Food Freedom Act
Every homemade food item must come with four pieces of information: your name, home address and telephone number; the common or usual name of the food; its ingredients in descending order of predominance; and this exact statement: This product was produced at a private residence that is exempt from state licensing and inspection. This product may contain allergens.
Where the information goes depends on how you sell. Packaged items need it on a label on the package. Items sold from a bulk container need a label on the container. Unpackaged items, like loose cookies at a market table, need a placard at the point of sale. If you sell only online, it goes on the web page where the item is offered.
Phone and custom orders have a lighter rule. You don't have to show the full label, but you must tell the customer that the food was made in a private residence exempt from state licensing and inspection and may contain allergens, and you must have your name, address, phone number, the food's name and its ingredients ready to give them if they ask.
Taxes and what is still your responsibility
The statute says plainly that it does not exempt you from any applicable tax law. Selling food in Tennessee generally means registering for sales tax and filing returns, and some cities and counties also require a business tax license. The rates and thresholds change, so check with the Tennessee Department of Revenue before your first sale rather than relying on a summary.
No training or food handler card is required by the Food Freedom Act. Food safety is still on you: the Department of Health can investigate a reported foodborne illness, and the exemption does not protect you during that investigation. Keeping a simple record of what you made, when, and who bought it makes an investigation, or a customer's allergy question, much easier to answer.
Pricing your baked goods: a worked example
No sales cap means a Tennessee home bakery can grow as far as its prices allow, so it pays to know your real cost per item. Here is an example with made-up but realistic numbers for a batch of 24 chocolate chip cookies sold by the dozen.
In this example the ingredients cost $6.40, two boxes with printed labels cost $2.20, oven energy is about $0.80, and the batch takes 1.25 hours at a labor rate you set of $18 an hour, which is $22.50. The batch costs $31.90, or $15.95 per dozen.
To reach a 40% margin, divide the cost by one minus the margin: $15.95 divided by 0.60 is about $26.58, so you would price a dozen at around $27. Skip the labor line and the same cookies look like they cost $4.70 a dozen, which is how many home bakers end up working for free.
Running a Tennessee home bakery with Farinu
Farinu is an app for home and micro bakers that does the costing above for every recipe: ingredients, packaging, sub-recipes like a frosting used in several cakes, labor, machines and overhead. It suggests a price from the markup you set (a 40% margin is a markup of about 67%), keeps retail and wholesale price lists for when a local shop starts carrying your bread, and alerts you when an ingredient price rise eats into a product's margin.
It also covers the paperwork the Food Freedom Act leaves to you. Your ingredient list per recipe is already there when a customer asks what is in the cake. Customers can be saved with their WhatsApp number, custom orders track the deposit and the balance due, every sale goes into a sales log, and a monthly profit and loss report shows what you actually earned. An AI assistant can import your recipes from a photo or a spreadsheet.
The free plan covers costing for up to 10 recipes and up to 50 orders a month; Team adds unlimited recipes and orders, sales, the monthly profit and loss report and the AI assistant.
Sources
- Tennessee Department of Agriculture: Food Freedom Act overview
- University of Tennessee Food Science: Tenn. Code Ann. § 53-1-118, current through the 2025 session
Questions
- Do I need a permit to sell baked goods from home in Tennessee?
- No. Under the Food Freedom Act, homemade food made at your private residence is exempt from state licensing, permits, inspection and fees, as long as you follow the selling and labeling conditions. You still need to handle sales tax with the Tennessee Department of Revenue.
- Is there a limit on how much I can earn?
- No. The Tennessee cottage food law has no annual sales cap.
- Can I sell cheesecake or cream cheese frosted cakes?
- Yes, since July 1, 2025, but these are TCS foods, so they can only be sold in person by you or your agent, not through a store, online checkout with shipping, or a third-party seller.
- Can I ship cookies to customers?
- Yes, within Tennessee. Non-TCS foods can be delivered by you, an agent, a vendor or a third-party carrier. Sales to other states are not covered by the Food Freedom Act.
- Do custom cake orders need a label?
- For phone and custom orders you don't have to display the label, but you must tell the customer the food was made in a private residence exempt from state licensing and inspection and may contain allergens, and give your contact details and ingredients if they ask.
- Can my city stop me from selling homemade food?
- The law preempts counties and cities from banning or regulating homemade food sales. Separate home business rules, like zoning or a business tax license, can still apply, so check with your local clerk.
Related pages
Price every bake before you sell it
Create a free Farinu account to cost up to 10 recipes and set your prices and track up to 50 orders a month, then move to Team for unlimited orders and sales in one place.