Virginia Cottage Food Laws: Sales, Labels, and Local Licensing

Virginia’s cottage food laws let you sell certain home-produced foods — shelf-stable baked goods, candies, jams, honey, pickles, and similar low-risk items — directly to Virginia customers without a state permit, inspection, or fee. The exemption is written into Virginia Code § 3.2-5130(C), and it covers three product categories, each with its own conditions on what you can make, how much you can sell, and where the sale can happen.¹

What You Can Sell From Home

Low-Risk Shelf-Stable Foods

The largest category covers foods that stay safe at room temperature after preparation. The statute specifically names candies, jams and jellies that aren’t low-acid or acidified, dried fruits, dry herbs and seasonings, dry mixes, coated and uncoated nuts, vinegars, popcorn, cotton candy, dried pasta, dry baking mixes, roasted coffee, dried tea, cereals, trail mixes, granola, and baked goods.¹

Baked goods are the most common choice, but the test is whether the finished product needs refrigeration. A loaf of banana bread qualifies. A cream-filled éclair does not. There is no annual revenue cap on this category.

Pickles and Acidified Vegetables

Pickles and other acidified vegetables qualify only if the finished product has an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or lower. That acidity level prevents the growth of dangerous bacteria, botulism in particular, and it isn’t something you can estimate by taste. You need to test your recipes and confirm the pH before selling.¹

This category carries a $9,000 annual gross sales cap. Once you hit that ceiling in a calendar year, you must stop selling until January, and VDACS expects you to keep sales records available for review.²

Honey

Honey from hives you personally maintain gets its own exemption. You can sell fewer than 250 gallons per year, and VDACS currently places no restrictions on where or to whom honey may be sold. That makes honey the one cottage food product not bound by the in-person, in-state sales limits that apply to everything else.¹²

What You Cannot Sell

Anything requiring refrigeration or temperature control after preparation is off the table. Meat, poultry, dairy products, custard-filled pastries, and cheesecakes all fall under commercial food manufacturing rules and require a VDACS-inspected facility and permit.³

Low-acid canned goods like soups, sauces, and most canned vegetables also don’t qualify. Foods with a pH above 4.6 that haven’t been properly acidified carry serious botulism risk and require commercial processing oversight. If your product sits in a gray area, call VDACS Food Safety before investing in supplies.

Where and How You Can Sell

For low-risk foods and acidified vegetables, sales are limited to three locations: your own home, a farmers market, or a temporary event lasting no more than 14 consecutive days. Every sale must be in person, within Virginia, directly to someone buying for personal consumption.¹

Sales to grocery stores, restaurants, or any other retail business are prohibited. So are wholesale, consignment, and resale arrangements. You cannot ship products by mail or courier, which effectively blocks out-of-state sales for everything except honey.²

Online Advertising vs. Online Ordering

You can advertise online. Maintain a website, post photos, list prices, share the dates and locations where you’ll be selling in person, and give out a phone number or email for inquiries. What you cannot do is accept orders or payments through an online platform. No order forms, no electronic checkout, no shipping options. The actual transaction has to happen face to face.²

During the in-person sale itself, you can accept electronic payment through Venmo, Square, PayPal, or similar services. The restriction is on how the order is placed, not how the money moves.

Labeling Rules

Every cottage food product needs a label. For low-risk foods and acidified vegetables, the main display panel must carry your name, physical address, and telephone number, the date the food was processed, and this statement in these exact words: “NOT FOR RESALE — PROCESSED AND PREPARED WITHOUT STATE INSPECTION.”¹ If the packaging is too small for a label, you can display a sign with the same information at the point of sale.

Honey uses different wording: “PROCESSED AND PREPARED WITHOUT STATE INSPECTION. WARNING: Do Not Feed Honey to Infants Under One Year Old.”¹

Standard food labeling rules apply on top of the exemption disclaimer. Include the product name, net weight in both standard and metric units, and a full ingredients list in descending order by weight.⁴

Allergen Disclosure

Federal law requires disclosure of nine major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame.⁵ You can list the allergen in the ingredients statement itself or add a separate “Contains” statement. When a tree nut is used, name the specific type. This is a safety issue, not just a labeling technicality.

No Permit, No Application, No Fee — But Still Regulated

If your operation fits the exemption, you do not need to submit an application to VDACS, undergo a kitchen inspection, or pay a state fee. The exemption is self-qualifying. Meet the statutory requirements for product type, labeling, and sales location, and you are legal to operate.²

That is not the same as being unregulated. The Commissioner retains enforcement authority, and if VDACS receives a complaint or suspects a violation, inspectors can investigate. The exemption removes the upfront permitting step, not the ongoing obligation to follow food safety law.¹

If you want to sell products that fall outside the exemption, you move to a different track entirely: VDACS inspection, permit, and annual fee under the rules for home and commercial kitchen-based businesses.³

Local Business License and Zoning

The state exemption does not override local requirements. Many Virginia counties and cities require a business license, a home occupation permit, or both before you start selling, and costs and processes vary widely. Some jurisdictions, Fairfax County among them, require a supplemental form specific to home-based food production on top of the general home business permit.

Check with your local Commissioner of the Revenue for business license rules and your county or city zoning office for home occupation requirements before your first sale. Local fines can hit even when you’re fully compliant with state food safety law.

Well Water Testing

If your home runs on well water rather than a municipal supply, Virginia requires annual testing for total coliform and nitrate. A positive coliform result triggers follow-up testing for E. coli, and you must notify the health department within two calendar days of a coliform-positive result. If E. coli is detected, the notification window shrinks to 24 hours.⁶ Keep dated lab results on file in case VDACS asks for them.

Taxes

Cottage food income is taxable. If your net earnings from self-employment reach $400 or more in a year, you owe self-employment tax covering Social Security and Medicare, on top of regular income tax.⁷ You’ll report income and expenses on Schedule C and figure the self-employment tax on Schedule SE.

A home office deduction is theoretically available if part of your kitchen is used exclusively and regularly for the business, but the “exclusive use” requirement is strict.⁸ A kitchen that doubles as your family’s everyday cooking space won’t qualify.

Liability Insurance

Virginia doesn’t require cottage food producers to carry liability insurance. Operating without it still means personal exposure if a customer has an allergic reaction or claims they got sick from your product. A general liability policy with product liability coverage typically runs between $300 and $2,500 per year depending on sales volume and product type. Some farmers markets require proof of insurance before they’ll give you a booth, so check with any market you plan to sell at.

One Boundary Worth Knowing: Interstate Sales

The FDA does not recognize state cottage food exemptions, and the moment your food crosses state lines, federal rules apply. Ship cookies to a customer in Maryland or sell at a market in West Virginia, and you’d need to operate as a licensed food business under federal standards.⁹ For cottage food sellers, the practical rule is simple: keep every sale inside Virginia.

1
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 3.2-5130 – Inspections Required to Operate Food Establishment
2
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Virginia’s Home Kitchen Food Processing Exemptions
3
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Home and Commercial Kitchen-Based Businesses
4
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Basic Labeling Requirements
5
FDA. Food Allergies
6
Virginia Code Commission. 12VAC5-421-2100 – Sampling
7
Internal Revenue Service. Self-Employment Tax (Social Security and Medicare Taxes)
8
Internal Revenue Service. Business Use of Home
9
FDA. How to Start a Food Business