Texas cottage food laws: what changed in 2025 and how to sell online

In Texas you can make most foods at home and sell them without a permit, as long as your cottage food business grosses US$150,000 a year or less and you skip the excluded foods (meat, poultry, seafood, ice cream and other ice products, low-acid canned goods, raw milk, and CBD or THC products). Senate Bill 541 changed the law on September 1, 2025: the cap tripled from US$50,000, foods that need refrigeration became allowed with a state registration, and mail order was removed. Online orders are still fine, but you, an employee or someone in your household must deliver them in person.

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Texas cottage food rules at a glance (October 2026)

This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm with DSHS before you start.

What changed with Senate Bill 541?

SB 541 (89th Legislature) took effect on September 1, 2025. Compared with the old law:

SB 541 also lets a nonprofit run a cottage food operation from the home of one of its directors or officers.

Which foods can you sell from a Texas home kitchen?

The law now lists what you can't sell rather than what you can. Anything outside the excluded list is allowed: breads, cookies, cakes, pies, candy, jams, granola, dried mixes, pickles and more.

Excluded: meat, meat products, poultry and poultry products; fish, shellfish and their products; ice and ice products (shaved ice, ice cream, frozen custard, popsicles, gelato); low-acid canned goods; raw milk and raw milk products; products containing CBD or THC.

TCS foods (foods that need refrigeration or holding hot to stay safe, such as cream cheese kolaches or cheesecake) are allowed with three extra conditions:

1. Register with DSHS through its online licensing registry before you sell them.
2. Keep them cold or hot in storage and delivery, generally 41°F or below or 135°F or above.
3. Add the date made and a safe handling statement in at least 12-point type, on the label or on the invoice or receipt. The statement begins "SAFE HANDLING INSTRUCTIONS: To prevent illness from bacteria…"

You can't donate TCS foods or sell them wholesale.

Pickled or fermented vegetables, fruits and plant-based acidified canned goods need a unique batch number on the label and a recipe from a source DSHS accepts, such as the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning.

Can you sell cottage food online in Texas?

Yes, with two conditions:

• In-person delivery: the consumer buys from you over the internet, and you, an employee or a member of your household delivers the food, at the point of sale or a place the customer chooses. A courier service or delivery app doesn't qualify, and you can't ship.
• Disclosure before payment: post a legible statement with all the required label information on your website before you accept payment. Your address or ID number then goes on the label of the delivered product.

What goes on a Texas cottage food label?

• The name of your operation.
• Your home address, or the DSHS identification number if you registered.
• The common or usual name of the product.
• The major food allergens (eggs, tree nuts, soy, peanuts, milk, wheat, sesame and so on).
• The disclosure statement shown in the table above, in capital letters.
• For TCS foods: the date made and the safe handling statement.
• For acidified or fermented products: a unique batch number.

Unpackaged foods carry the labeling information on an invoice or receipt instead. Make printable labels with the food label maker; the 86-character Texas statement fits its "Extra line" field.

Worked example: a kolache baker near Austin

Prices are illustrative, as of October 2026. A home baker sells fruit kolaches by the dozen and delivers them herself on Saturday mornings.

If she adds cream cheese kolaches, they are a TCS food: she registers with DSHS first, delivers them in a cooler at 41°F or below, and adds the made-on date and safe handling statement. She still can't hand any order to a courier, so her delivery radius is limited to where she can drive herself. Price each item in US dollars with the menu price calculator.

How to set up a Menuthere ordering page for Texas rules

1. Put the disclosure statement in each product's description and tick its allergens (allergens and nutrition works on every plan). Customers then see the label information before they pay.
2. Offer only delivery you do yourself. Switch order types on or off in Settings → Ordering → Order types (order types). Leave off the "customer books their own courier" option, because Texas wants you, an employee or a household member to deliver.
3. Set a delivery radius you can drive in Delivery settings (delivery radius). Addresses outside it can only choose pickup.
4. Take orders ahead with prebooking on Lite, and mark cakes as dishes that need notice.
5. Track your sales against the US$150,000 cap in the orders dashboard.

Menuthere doesn't check Texas law for you; you set the options. Texas generally taxes some foods and not others, so read our guide to sales tax on restaurant food and ask the Comptroller about your products.

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Other states

Compare Texas with California, which allows mail and third-party delivery, Florida, with a US$250,000 cap and mail order, or Georgia, which has no cap at all. See all states on the cottage food laws hub.