Indiana Home Based Vendor Law: What You Can Sell, the Vanished Revenue Cap, and the Labeling Rules After HEA 1149

It's a Saturday in late June at a farmers market just off the courthouse square in a mid-sized Indiana town. The light is still cool. A vendor is arranging her table: a row of honey jars catching the sun, a basket of high-acid fruit jams with hand-lettered labels, a stack of sourdough boules, a cooler-free crate of maple syrup from a cousin's sugarbush, and a small chalkboard with a Venmo handle and the words "we ship anywhere in Indiana." Two tables down, a mushroom grower is unloading flats of oyster and shiitake. Across the aisle, a retired schoolteacher is selling caramels and chocolate-covered pecans in cellophane bags.

Four years ago, almost none of this would have been legal the way it's being done now. The honey vendor would have been capped at $2,500 in annual sales. The Venmo-and-ship sign would have been flatly prohibited — no online orders, no mail. The whole market would have been the only place most of these producers could legally sell, because direct-from-home and shipped orders weren't allowed. And a county health department could have layered its own permit on top of the state rules.

Then Indiana rewrote the law. If you make food in an Indiana home kitchen and want to sell it, the good news is that the state went from one of the more restrictive cottage food regimes in the Midwest to one of the friendliest — and it did so in a single 2022 reform. The slightly-less-good news is that the reform left two specific restrictions standing, and those are exactly the two that trip up new producers. This guide walks through what the Home Based Vendor law actually allows now, the unusually ag-forward food list that makes Indiana different from its neighbors, the verbatim label, the in-state-only shipping line, and the outdated rules that online guides still repeat as if they were current.

The short version

What Indiana's Home Based Vendor law does: The law lives at Indiana Code IC 16-42-5.3 and was substantially rewritten by House Enrolled Act 1149, effective July 1, 2022. A "Home Based Vendor" (HBV) prepares and sells non-potentially-hazardous food made at their primary residence. No revenue cap. No license, registration, permit, fee, or inspection. No local add-on rules — HEA 1149 preempted county and city health departments. The one affirmative requirement: a food handler certificate from an ANSI-accredited issuer. Allowed foods are non-TCS only — baked goods (cakes without cream/custard filling), candy, whole produce, tree nuts and legumes, honey, molasses, sorghum, maple syrup, agriculturally-grown mushrooms, and traditional high-acid, full-sugar jams and jellies. Acidified foods (pickles, salsas, sauces) are excluded — a key difference from Tennessee. Sales are direct to the end consumer only — the label must say "NOT FOR RESALE," so no wholesale. You may sell in person, by phone, or online, and deliver in person, by mail, or by third-party carrier — but only within Indiana. No interstate shipping. The label must carry the verbatim disclaimer below in at least 10-point type. Source: the Indiana State Department of Health Home-Based Vendors guidance.

How Indiana got here

The reason so much advice about Indiana cottage food is wrong is that the law changed dramatically and recently, and a lot of guides — and a lot of well-meaning farmers market veterans — are still describing the regime that existed before July 2022.

For years, Indiana's home-food framework was one of the tightest in the region. A Home Based Vendor could sell only at farmers markets and roadside stands. Online sales were not permitted. Mail and shipping were not permitted. And annual gross sales were capped at $2,500 — low enough that the law functioned more as a hobby allowance than a business framework. If you wanted to grow past a few thousand dollars a year, or sell to customers who couldn't drive to your market booth, you had to leave the cottage tier entirely and rent a commercial kitchen or license a retail food establishment.

House Enrolled Act 1149, passed in the 2022 session and effective July 1, 2022, rewrote the framework at IC 16-42-5.3. The headline changes were substantial:

• The $2,500 cap was eliminated. No annual sales ceiling of any kind.
• Online and phone sales were authorized. A Home Based Vendor can now take orders over the internet or by telephone.
• In-state shipping and delivery were authorized. Orders can be delivered to the customer in person, by mail, or by a third-party carrier — as long as the destination is inside Indiana.
• Local governments were preempted. Counties and cities can no longer add registration, inspection, permit, or fee requirements, and cannot ban Home Based Vendor sales outright. The state rule is now the ceiling and the floor.

What HEA 1149 did not change is just as important. It did not open the food list to acidified products. It did not authorize time-and-temperature-controlled (TCS) foods. It did not permit wholesale — the "NOT FOR RESALE" rule stayed. And it kept the food handler certificate requirement. The 2022 reform was generous on scale and channel — how much you can sell and where you can reach customers — while staying conservative on food safety category — what you're allowed to make in the first place.

That split is the whole shape of Indiana's law, and it's why the myths below cluster so tightly around two themes: people who underestimate how much the channel rules opened up, and people who overestimate how much the food list opened up.

Five myths HEA 1149 created (and the reality)

Because the law changed so much in one stroke, the most useful way to understand Indiana today is to take the things people still believe and check each one against the current statute.

Myth 1: "There's a $2,500 cap, so it's basically a hobby"

Reality: There is no cap at all. This is the single most common piece of outdated advice about Indiana, and it's repeated in comment threads, older PDFs, and word-of-mouth at markets. HEA 1149 removed the $2,500 ceiling entirely. A Home Based Vendor can do $2,000 or $200,000 a year in allowed-food sales and the framework doesn't change. If a guide tells you Indiana caps your sales, it is describing the pre-2022 law.

Myth 2: "You can only sell at farmers markets — no online, no shipping"

Reality: Online and phone sales are allowed, and you can ship anywhere in Indiana. The old farmers-market-and-roadside-stand-only restriction is gone. You can take orders through a website, Instagram, or over the phone, and you can deliver in person, drop them in the mail, or hand them to UPS or FedEx — provided the package stays inside Indiana. For a rural producer who used to be limited to whatever market was within driving distance, this is the change that actually grows a business.

Myth 3: "My county health department can make me register or shut me down"

Reality: Local governments are preempted. This was a real problem before 2022 — local rules varied county to county, and some added their own hoops. HEA 1149 explicitly bars local governments from imposing registration, inspection, permits, or fees on Home Based Vendors, and from prohibiting the sales. If a county official tells you that you need a local permit to sell jam at the market, the state law says otherwise. (Be polite, bring a copy of the ISDH guidance, and ask them to point to the authority — they won't be able to.)

Myth 4: "Indiana opened up, so I can sell my pickles, salsa, and hot sauce now"

Reality: Acidified foods are still excluded. This is the trap that runs in the opposite direction — producers who hear "Indiana loosened the rules" and assume the food list opened up too. It didn't. Pickles, salsas, hot sauces, BBQ sauces, and other acidified products remain off the Home Based Vendor list, because they carry process-control risks (improper acidification can allow Clostridium botulinum growth) that the cottage tier isn't set up to verify. This is a sharp contrast with Tennessee, which does allow acidified foods at the cottage level. In Indiana, if it's a pickle or a sauce, it's not a Home Based Vendor product.

Myth 5: "There's no license, so there's no paperwork at all"

Reality: You still need a food handler certificate. No license, no registration, no inspection — true. But the one affirmative requirement survived the reform: every Home Based Vendor must hold a food handler certificate from an ANSI-accredited issuer. It's an inexpensive online course you pass once, not an inspection or a recurring fee, but it is not optional. The "no paperwork" framing is close enough to true that people skip the one thing they actually owe.

What you can actually make and sell

Indiana's allowed list is genuinely distinctive. Most cottage food lists are bakery-and-confection lists with a few extras tacked on. Indiana's reads like it was written with small farms and homesteads in mind — honey, sorghum, maple syrup, agriculturally-grown mushrooms, whole produce, tree nuts, and legumes all sit alongside the usual baked goods. If you keep bees, tap maples, or grow shiitakes, Indiana is one of the more natural states to sell what you produce.

The categories below come from the Indiana State Department of Health's published Home-Based Vendor guidance.

Allowed — non-potentially-hazardous (non-TCS) foods:

• Baked goods. Breads, rolls, cookies, brownies, muffins, cupcakes, cake pops, quick breads, and custom cakes — as long as the cake contains no cream or custard filling and needs no refrigeration for safety. Buttercream and fondant decorating is fine; a cream-cheese frosting that must be refrigerated is not.
• Candy and confections. Chocolates, dipped and molded chocolate, nougats, caramels, brittles, fudge, and chocolate-covered nuts.
• Whole and uncut produce. Fruits and vegetables sold whole and intact. (Cutting or processing produce moves it toward the TCS category.)
• Tree nuts and legumes. Including roasted and seasoned nuts.
• Honey, molasses, sorghum, and maple syrup. The sweetener category that makes Indiana's list unusually farm-friendly.
• Agriculturally-grown mushrooms. Mushrooms grown as a product of agriculture (cultivated, not foraged wild mushrooms, which carry separate identification rules).
• Traditional jams, jellies, and preserves. Here's the fine print that matters: only high-acid fruit jams and jellies made with full-sugar recipes qualify. The high acidity plus full sugar is what makes these shelf-stable without process authority oversight. A standard strawberry or raspberry jam with a traditional sugar ratio is fine. A reduced-sugar, "no-sugar," or low-acid-fruit preserve is not — those fall outside the allowance.
• Dry goods and similar shelf-stable items consistent with the non-TCS standard (dried herbs, dry mixes, granola, popcorn, and the like), per ISDH guidance.

Excluded — regardless of how it's made:

• Anything requiring refrigeration (TCS foods). Cheesecakes, cream pies, custard-filled pastries, anything with a perishable filling or topping.
• Acidified foods. Pickles, salsas, hot sauces, BBQ sauces, relishes, and other acidified products. (This is the big one — see Myth 4.)
• Low-acid canned foods. Canned vegetables, green beans, pumpkin butter, and similar low-acid shelf-stable canned goods.
• Reduced-sugar or low-sugar jams and jellies, and preserves made from low-acid fruit.
• Fermented foods. Sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented sauces, kombucha.
• Meat, poultry, fish, and seafood products, and dairy products (including cheese and anything containing unpasteurized milk).
• Juices and beverages requiring time-temperature control, and alcoholic products.

The pattern is consistent: if a food is shelf-stable because it's dry, baked, sugar-preserved, or naturally high-acid, it's probably allowed. If it's shelf-stable because someone acidified or canned it — or if it needs a refrigerator — it's probably excluded. When you're unsure about a specific product, the ISDH Home-Based Vendors FAQ is the place to check before you bake a batch you can't legally sell.

Where and how you can sell

This is the half of the law that opened up dramatically in 2022. The channel rules are now broad — with two firm boundaries: every sale must be direct to the end consumer, and every sale must stay inside Indiana.

The two boundaries are worth saying plainly because each one catches producers coming from a different direction.

Direct-to-consumer only. Indiana's "NOT FOR RESALE" rule means the buyer must be the eater. You cannot sell a case of cookies to a coffee shop to resell, and you cannot stock a gift shop's shelf. This is a real limit, and it's where Indiana is more restrictive than several southern neighbors — Tennessee, Georgia, and Texas all permit some form of wholesale-to-retail at the cottage tier. If wholesale is your growth plan, Indiana's Home Based Vendor law isn't the vehicle; you'd need a licensed commercial operation.

In-state only. You can ship — but the package cannot cross the state line. A Home Based Vendor in Evansville can mail jam to a customer in Fort Wayne. The same vendor cannot mail it to a customer in Henderson, Kentucky, fifteen minutes across the river. The instant a food package enters interstate commerce, FDA jurisdiction under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act applies, and FDA does not recognize any state's cottage food exemption. Out-of-state customers will ask — politely decline, or point them toward a future licensed version of your business.

What the label has to say

The Home Based Vendor law requires a specific, verbatim disclaimer on every product. The wording is statutory — you can't paraphrase it, shorten it, or soften it. Copy it onto your label word-for-word:

"This product is home produced and processed and the production area has not been inspected by Indiana Department of Health. NOT FOR RESALE."

This statement must appear in at least 10-point type on the label. Both halves matter: the home-production/no-inspection clause and the "NOT FOR RESALE" clause. Leaving off the resale clause is the most common labeling mistake, and it's the one a market manager will catch first.

Beyond the disclaimer, an Indiana Home Based Vendor label should carry the standard elements that apply to any packaged food in commerce:

• Product name. "Strawberry Jam," "Sourdough Boule," "Sea-Salt Caramels."
• Your name and address. The vendor's name (or business name) and address.
• Ingredient list, in descending order by weight.
• Allergen declaration. The major allergens defined by federal law under FALCPA — milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame — must be disclosed in plain language, either in the ingredient list or a "Contains:" statement. Federal allergen rules apply to all foods in commerce regardless of state cottage food status, and Indiana's allowed list is heavy on tree nuts, so this matters.
• Net weight or quantity.

Purdue Extension publishes a clear Home-Based Vendor labeling overview (FS-35-W) that walks through each element with examples — a useful companion when you're designing your first label.

Three Indiana producers and how the law fits each one

Three composite Home Based Vendors — none real, all built from common Indiana patterns — make the framework concrete.

A beekeeper in southern Indiana (composite)

She sells raw honey and a high-acid blackberry jam made from her own berries. Before 2022 she was capped at $2,500 and could only sell at the Saturday market. Today she has no cap, takes orders through a simple website, and ships honey and jam to customers across Indiana by USPS. Her labels carry the verbatim disclaimer, her name and address, ingredients, and a "Contains: tree nuts" note on the almond granola she also sells. She holds an ANSI-accredited food handler certificate she earned online in an afternoon.

The law is, for her, almost frictionless — the cap removal and shipping authorization substantially widened the customer base she can reach, no longer limited to whoever could drive to the Saturday market, and the only paperwork she owes is the certificate and a compliant label.

A retired teacher selling caramels and chocolate (composite)

He makes sea-salt caramels, chocolate-covered pecans, and molded chocolates for the holidays. Everything he sells is non-TCS confection, squarely on the allowed list. He sells direct at two markets and takes Christmas pre-orders by phone for in-person pickup. His one constraint is the resale rule: a local gift shop asked to carry his caramels for the holiday season, and he had to decline — Home Based Vendor products are "NOT FOR RESALE," and stocking a shop's shelf is wholesale. He's now weighing whether the gift-shop channel is worth stepping up to a licensed kitchen, which is exactly the decision the cottage tier is designed to make visible.

A mushroom grower in central Indiana (composite)

She cultivates oyster and shiitake mushrooms and sells them whole and fresh. Agriculturally-grown mushrooms are on Indiana's allowed list, and whole produce is permitted, so her core product is fine. The line she has to watch is processing: whole fresh mushrooms are allowed, but the moment she wants to sell a value-added product — a marinated mushroom jar (acidified — excluded), a refrigerated mushroom spread (TCS — excluded), or a cream-of-mushroom soup base (TCS — excluded) — she's outside the Home Based Vendor allowance. Her dried mushroom packets and a dried-mushroom-and-herb seasoning blend stay shelf-stable and non-TCS, so those she can add. The framework rewards her for keeping products dry and whole.

How Indiana compares to its neighbors

Indiana borders four states, and the contrast sharpens what's distinctive about the Home Based Vendor law — particularly the no-cap rule and the no-wholesale rule.

Comparison reflects publicly available information as of June 2026; state cottage food laws change frequently. Sources: Kentucky (Forrager, $60,000 cap); Michigan (Public Act 51 of 2025 / HB 4122, which raised the cap from $25,000 to $50,000 effective in March 2026); Illinois (Forrager); Ohio (Forrager). Verify each state's current rules with its official agency before making business decisions.

The headline: Indiana is uncapped, like Illinois and Ohio — while Kentucky ($60,000) and Michigan ($50,000, raised from $25,000 by HB 4122 in March 2026) still hold their producers to a ceiling. On resale, Indiana's firm "NOT FOR RESALE" rule keeps Home Based Vendors direct-to-consumer only — the same position Illinois and Kentucky take; Ohio is the outlier that allows limited wholesale to grocery stores and restaurants. And on acidified foods, Indiana excludes them outright, like Michigan and the Ohio cottage tier, rather than routing them through the pH-testing or process-authority pathway that Illinois and Kentucky use.

For a producer deciding where they fit, the practical read is: if you want maximum sales volume direct to consumers with minimal paperwork, Indiana is excellent. If your plan depends on selling pickles and sauces, or on wholesaling to shops, the Home Based Vendor tier isn't the right tool — and you'll want to look at a licensed operation instead.

A simple records system the law doesn't require (but you'll want anyway)

Indiana doesn't require Home Based Vendors to keep production records, register batches, or document sales. There's no inspection to prepare for. But "not required" and "not worth doing" are different things — and the day a customer reports a reaction or a market manager asks a pointed question, a small records habit turns an anxious afternoon into a five-minute lookup.

A workable system has four parts and takes a few minutes per batch:

1. A production log. Date, product, batch identifier, quantity made, and ingredients used (with the supplier and lot for anything you bought). A notebook works; an inventory and batch-tracking tool works better once you're shipping orders across the state and can't reconstruct from memory.
2. A sales log. Date, channel, quantity, and — for online and shipped orders — the customer or order reference. Your shipping platform already captures most of this; a tally sheet handles the market booth.
3. A label archive. One dated copy of every label version you've used, so a question about a product bought in March is answered by the March label, not your best guess.
4. A certificate and ingredient file. Your current food handler certificate, plus receipts and lot information for ingredients, so you can trace a problem to a specific supplier batch if you ever need to.

This is the part of the operation where Ardent Seller earns its place. It's a multi-tenant inventory and production tool built for small makers and home food businesses — lot-level batch tracking, per-product costs, channel-by-channel sales, and a tidy record of what you made and where it went. The free Maker Plan covers the record-keeping side of the Home Based Vendor law at no cost, which is exactly the right price for paperwork the state doesn't even require but that protects you when good faith gets tested.

Related reading

• Tennessee Food Freedom Act: A Cottage Food Maker's Guide — The instructive contrast to Indiana: Tennessee allows acidified foods and wholesale-to-retail at the cottage tier, exactly the two things Indiana excludes. Worth reading to see how differently two no-cap states draw their lines.
• Michigan Cottage Food Law: Caps, Allowed Foods, and Labeling — Indiana's northern neighbor, which still holds producers to a revenue cap (raised to $50,000 in 2026) — a useful look at the capped-revenue model Indiana left behind.
• Batch Tracking for Food Sellers — The records system above, expanded into a full lot-tracking guide for anyone shipping enough orders that a recall would mean reconstructing where each batch went.

Sell more, with less to worry about

Indiana did something unusual in 2022: it made its cottage food law dramatically more generous and easier to understand at the same time. No cap, no license, no inspection, no local rules — and an ag-forward food list that fits beekeepers, maple tappers, and mushroom growers as naturally as it fits bakers. If you've been holding back because you remember the old $2,500 cap or thought you couldn't sell online, the framework you're actually operating under is far friendlier than its reputation.

The discipline that remains is small and specific: earn the food handler certificate, keep your products non-TCS and non-acidified, label them with the verbatim disclaimer, keep your sales direct and inside Indiana, and — if you're smart — keep a light set of records the law doesn't even ask for. Read the rules once at the source, set up your system, and then go sell.

If you're an Indiana Home Based Vendor figuring out what to track and how to stay tidy as your orders grow, Ardent Seller handles the inventory, batch, cost, and sales side so the paperwork never becomes the reason you stop. Start free on the Maker Plan and keep the records that turn a good-faith law into a protected business.

Free resources

Free companion downloads if you want to put any of this into practice:

• Cottage Food Laws by State — The full 50-state-plus-DC quick reference PDF, with Indiana's post-HEA-1149 no-cap Home Based Vendor framework captured alongside every other state's rules.
• Cottage Food Revenue Cap Tracker — Indiana has no cap, so the tracker mostly confirms you're staying inside the in-state-only and direct-to-consumer boundaries — but it's already set up if you ever expand into a capped neighbor like Kentucky or Michigan.
• Home Bakers Order and Delivery Tracker — Keeps order, pickup, and in-state shipping details in one place once HEA 1149's new online and mail-order channels start filling up your week.

Sources & methodology

This guide is based on the Indiana State Department of Health's published Home-Based Vendor guidance and on the text of the Home Based Vendor law (IC 16-42-5.3) as amended by HEA 1149, effective July 1, 2022, reviewed as of June 2026.

• Indiana State Department of Health — Home-Based Vendors guidance documents — the state's official guidance hub.
• ISDH — Home-Based Vendors FAQ — allowed foods, label disclaimer, food handler certificate, and sales/distribution rules.
• House Enrolled Act 1149 (2022) — the Indiana General Assembly record for the enrolled act that removed the $2,500 cap, opened online sales and in-state shipping, and preempted local governments.
• Purdue Extension — Home-Based Vendor Food Product Labeling Overview (FS-35-W) — element-by-element labeling guidance.
• FDA — Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) — the federal allergen-labeling rules that apply regardless of cottage food status.

Neighbor-state comparison figures (verify before relying on them; these change every session):

• Michigan Public Act 51 of 2025 (HB 4122) — the enacted statute raising Michigan's cap from $25,000 to $50,000 ($75,000 for units priced ≥ $250), effective in March 2026.
• Forrager — Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio — secondary summaries used to populate the neighbor-state comparison table; confirm against each state's official agency before relying on a specific figure.
• Forrager — Indiana Cottage Food Law — secondary third-party summary used only to cross-check the Indiana food list and venue framework against the primary ISDH sources above.

Data freshness: IC 16-42-5.3 was substantially amended effective July 1, 2022. This guide reflects the law and ISDH guidance as of June 2026. Cottage food rules change; confirm current requirements with the Indiana State Department of Health before making product or labeling decisions.

This article is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, regulatory, food-safety, or health advice. Cottage food laws, labeling requirements, allowed food categories, and food handler requirements vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Consult the Indiana State Department of Health, your local health department, or a qualified compliance attorney before making compliance, labeling, or product decisions based on this content.