Oregon Cottage Food Laws: Sales Cap, Labels, and Where to Sell

Oregon cottage food law lets you sell homemade, shelf-stable food directly from your kitchen without a license, an inspection, or formal registration. Under ORS 616.723, your gross sales can reach $52,700 in 2026 as long as your products don’t need refrigeration and you follow the labeling, food handler, and sales rules the statute sets out.¹ Senate Bill 643, passed in 2024, raised the old $20,000 cap, opened online and mail-order sales within Oregon, and let producers sell to retail stores for the first time.

The exemption is self-executing. You don’t apply, and the Oregon Department of Agriculture doesn’t inspect your kitchen before you start. Meet the conditions in the statute and you’re exempt from the licensing rules that apply to commercial food establishments. ODA can still contact you if a customer complains or an illness is traced to your product, and in that case you may need to turn over samples or allow officials into your kitchen.

Foods You Can Sell

The core rule is that your product has to be shelf-stable. The statute names specific categories but doesn’t make the list exhaustive; anything packaged and not potentially hazardous can qualify.¹ The named products include:

Baked goods such as bread, cookies, brownies, muffins, and fruit pies without cream or custard fillings.
Confections, including candy, fudge, caramels, marshmallow bars, and chocolate-covered treats.
Jams, jellies, and fruit butters made only from fruits with a natural pH of 4.6 or lower, which covers most berries, stone fruits, and apples. Spreads made with low-acid vegetables like pumpkin or hot peppers do not qualify.
Plain honey, or honey with commercially processed dried ingredients. Raw fruit infused into honey is not permitted.
Fruit-based, maple-style, or flavored syrups with a Brix measurement of at least 65 degrees.
Dry goods like popcorn, nut mixes, coffee beans, teas, granola, and powdered drink mixes.
Freeze-dried and dehydrated foods from commercial sources that you repackage for sale.

Foods You Cannot Sell

Anything that needs refrigeration after production is out. That rules out cream-filled pastries, custard pies, cheesecakes, and baked goods with cream cheese frosting. Focaccia-style breads loaded with vegetables or cheese also fall outside the exemption, because those additions make the product potentially hazardous.

Products containing meat, fish, or shellfish are prohibited, so no meat pies, jerky, or seafood pastries. Cannabis-containing products are explicitly excluded. Low-acid canned goods, including canned vegetables, salsas, and pickles, need commercial processing controls to prevent botulism and don’t qualify. If you want to sell any of these from your home, Oregon’s Domestic Kitchen License is the path, not the cottage food exemption.

The $52,700 Sales Cap

SB 643 set a base cap of $50,000 and told ODA to adjust it each year using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (West Region). The 2026 figure is $52,700.²

That number is gross sales, meaning total revenue before you subtract ingredients, packaging, or anything else. Track every transaction. If you cross the cap, you’ll need to stop selling until the next calendar year or move up to a Domestic Kitchen License.

Where You Can Sell

You can sell directly to customers from your home, at farmers’ markets, at community events, online, and through the mail within Oregon.¹ Many other states still restrict cottage food producers to face-to-face sales, so Oregon’s inclusion of shipping and online orders is a meaningful opening.

You can also sell to retail stores and coffee shops, provided the retailer stores and displays your products separately from commercially produced food and clearly labels them as homemade. This retail channel is new as of 2024.

Institutional buyers remain off-limits. You cannot sell to restaurants, caterers, schools, day care centers, hospitals, nursing homes, or correctional facilities. Shipping across state lines is also a different legal picture; each state has its own cottage food rules, and federal food safety regulations apply the moment a product crosses the border.

What Your Labels Must Include

Every package you sell has to carry specific information. Skipping any of it puts the exemption at risk.

Every label must carry this exact disclaimer: “This product is homemade, is not prepared in an inspected food establishment and must be stored and displayed separately if merchandised by a retailer.”³ Beyond that, the label needs:

Your business name and phone number.
Your address, or a unique ODA identification number in place of the address. SB 643 removed the requirement to print your home address on every label; you can request an ID number from the Department of Agriculture and use that instead.
The product name.
Ingredients listed in descending order by weight.
Net weight or net volume.
Allergen warnings that follow federal labeling requirements, covering wheat, milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish, shellfish, and sesame.
A pet disclosure if you have pets in your home, naming the species and displayed prominently rather than hidden behind a logo or artwork. The disclosure is about the dwelling, not the production area, so even a cat that never enters the kitchen counts.⁴
Full nutritional information if, and only if, your label makes a nutrient content or health claim like “low fat” or “high fiber.”

Food Handler Card

Every person involved in preparing cottage food must hold a valid Oregon food handler certificate before starting production. It’s one of the five conditions you have to meet to qualify for the exemption. If a spouse or teenage child helps, each needs their own card. You can get one through your county environmental health office or an approved online course; the training covers temperature control, handwashing, cross-contamination, and storage.⁵

Record-Keeping

The statute doesn’t dictate a format, but good records are the only way to show you’re inside the exemption. Track every sale with the date, product, and price, and keep a running total of annual gross revenue so you can see how close you are to the cap. Production records matter too: what you made, when, and with which ingredients. If a customer reports an illness, being able to trace a batch back to its ingredients and production date is the difference between a manageable inquiry and a serious problem.

When You Outgrow the Exemption

If your sales exceed the cap, or you want to sell products the exemption doesn’t cover, Oregon’s Domestic Kitchen License through ODA is the next step. The license covers cream-filled baked goods, refrigerated items, and acidified foods like pickles, though acidified foods need additional FDA and ODA certification.

The process is more involved than the self-executing cottage food exemption. ODA inspects the kitchen before you can apply. Inspectors may request construction plans for any modified space, process and label information, a land use compatibility statement from your local jurisdiction, and well or septic testing if you’re not on municipal water. Annual license fees start around $157 for bakery operations and scale with sales volume. The Domestic Kitchen License also allows out-of-state shipping, which the cottage food exemption does not.

Local Zoning, Business Registration, and Liability

State law may allow your cottage food operation, but your city or county can add rules. Many Oregon municipalities require a home occupation permit for a business run out of a residence. Portland, for example, doesn’t require a permit for a home business with no employees or on-site customers, but zoning rules still apply; a business where customers come to the door may require a Type B home occupation permit, neighborhood notification, and periodic zoning inspections. Check with your city or county planning department before you start, and read any homeowner association CC&Rs, which can restrict home-based food businesses regardless of what state or local law allows.

If you operate under a name other than your own, Oregon requires you to register that assumed business name with the Secretary of State.⁶

The exemption does not shield you from liability if a customer gets sick. You’re personally responsible for harm your food causes, and standard homeowner’s insurance almost always excludes business claims. Product liability policies designed for cottage food operations are available through specialty providers; premiums are modest relative to the exposure, since a single allergic reaction lawsuit can run many times your annual revenue. Foodborne illness claims tied to cottage food remain rare, but the financial downside of one incident is serious enough that coverage is worth pricing out, especially as your sales grow.

1
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 616.723 – Exemption From ORS 616.695 to 616.755 for Establishments in Residential Dwellings
2
Oregon Department of Agriculture. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – Cottage Food Inflation Rule Update 2026
3
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 616 – Food Establishments
4
National Agricultural Law Center. Oregon Code 616.723 – Exemption From ORS 616.695 to 616.755 for Establishments in Residential Dwellings
5
Oregon Health Authority. Food Handler Cards
6
Oregon Secretary of State. Assumed Business Name (DBA) Registration Forms