A health inspector is on your front porch with a clipboard and a polite question. A customer reported your sourdough on a community-recall thread last week, and the regional office sent her out. She wants three things: your food handler certificate, a sample of your label, and your gross-sales log for the calendar year. You have about ten minutes to find each of them before she writes notes that follow you for two years.
Texas runs one of the most permissive cottage food regimes in the country. The 2025 legislative session — through SB 541, signed into law and effective September 1, 2025 — made it more permissive still. The cap tripled to $150,000, a wholesale path opened up, and a label-privacy option arrived. It is also still one of the most misunderstood laws in food production, partly because the rule changes faster than the Facebook posts about it do. Producers who get into trouble usually do so not because they were defying the rule, but because they read advice that was three legislative sessions out of date.
This guide is the long version of the rule as it stands in 2026. It walks through what Texas actually permits, where the $150,000 ceiling is and how to keep your books clean against it, the new wholesale-through-cottage-food-vendor path, the labels that pass an inspection, the carve-outs for acidified and pickled goods that confuse most makers, and the local-jurisdiction rules that quietly add costs the state law never mentions.
The short version: Texas cottage food permits direct-to-consumer sales of approved foods up to $150,000 gross per calendar year (adjusted annually for inflation), allows wholesale to registered cottage food vendors who can then place product in retail, requires an accredited food handler course, requires a state-mandated label including a home-kitchen disclosure, allows certain acidified and pickled goods if pH-tested, prohibits out-of-state shipping, and operates under Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 437.
Why Texas matters in the cottage food landscape
Cottage food laws exist in all 50 states, but they are not equal. Some states (Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah) have effectively eliminated revenue caps under "food freedom" frameworks. Some (Massachusetts, with effectively unlimited household kitchen sales but tight venue rules) sit in odd middle territory. Texas, post-2025, sits at the top of the high-cap states. Three things distinguish it:
- The cap is now genuinely commercial-scale. $150,000 in gross sales — adjusted annually for inflation — is enough to support a real business, not just a side hustle. The cap tripled in the 2025 session, and the inflation adjustment means the line moves with the rest of the economy instead of drifting backward year after year.
- Acidified and pickled goods are allowed. Most states explicitly exclude acidified products from cottage food. Texas allows them with documented pH controls, which opens the door for hot-sauce makers, picklers, salsa producers, and kombucha-adjacent ferments who would be illegal at home in California or New York.
- There is now a wholesale path. Before SB 541, Texas cottage food producers could only sell directly to the consumer. SB 541 created a new "cottage food vendor" classification — a registered intermediary who can buy from cottage food producers and resell at farmers markets, farm stands, food service establishments, and retail stores. This is the most consequential structural change to cottage food in any state in recent years.
The flip side: Texas does not permit interstate shipping under cottage food, and TCS (time and temperature control for safety) foods are excluded from both the direct and wholesale paths. The moment a producer needs to ship across state lines, they are out of cottage food and into commercial-kitchen territory — a transition that involves licensing, inspections, capital, and a different cost structure.
What Texas cottage food law actually permits
The legal authority is Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 437, with implementing rules in 25 TAC §229.661. The Department of State Health Services (DSHS) administers the program at the state level. Local health departments enforce labeling and complaint response, but they do not issue cottage food production permits — there is no production permit to issue.
Texas defines a "cottage food production operation" as an individual (or, after SB 541, certain nonprofit organizations operating from a director's or officer's home) operating out of a home, who produces specific approved foods, sells directly to consumers or to a registered cottage food vendor, and stays under the gross-revenue ceiling. Every word in that definition matters:
- An individual or qualifying nonprofit. SB 541 expanded the definition to include nonprofit organizations operating out of an officer's or director's home. For-profit partnerships, LLCs, and corporate structures are still excluded.
- Operating out of a home. Production happens in a residential kitchen. Not a rented commercial kitchen, not a separate building on the property licensed for food production. The home kitchen is the regulated space — and is, by statute, not inspected.
- Specific approved foods. Anything outside the allowed list is not cottage food, regardless of how harmless it seems. Pet treats, dog cakes, herbal supplements, and CBD-infused goods are all outside the list, even though they look like cottage food categories.
- Directly to consumers, or wholesale to a registered cottage food vendor. Direct sales remain the core path. Wholesale is the new alternative — but only to registered vendors, only for non-TCS foods, and only with the production-date label addition.
- Under the cap. $150,000 gross per calendar year, no exceptions, no rolling 12-month average. The figure adjusts annually for inflation.
The food list
The list of permitted foods has expanded session by session. As of 2026, after SB 541, Texas cottage food permits the following:
| Category | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Baked goods | Breads, cookies, cakes, muffins, scones, pastries, pies (fruit-only fillings), tortillas, biscuits | Excludes anything requiring refrigeration. Cream cheese frostings, custard fillings, and meat pies are excluded. |
| Candies and confections | Chocolate, fudge, brittle, caramels, hard candy, marzipan, cake pops, cake decorations | Excludes anything with raw eggs, alcohol-filled candies, or refrigerated fillings. |
| Coated and uncoated nuts | Spiced pecans, candied almonds, brittles | Texas pecans are a major cottage food category. |
| Dehydrated produce | Dried fruits, dried vegetables, fruit leather, herb blends | Must be properly dried to a safe water activity. |
| Dried herbs, herb mixes, and seasonings | Spice blends, rubs, tea blends (non-medicinal) | Cannot make medicinal claims. |
| Cereals, granola, and trail mixes | Granola bars, popcorn, kettle corn | |
| Dry mixes | Cookie mixes, soup mixes, brownie mixes, pancake mixes | Must be packaged dry. |
| Vinegar and flavored vinegar | Herbed vinegars, fruit vinegars | |
| Mustard | Whole-grain, flavored | |
| Roasted coffee or tea, dry | Whole bean, ground, loose-leaf tea | Brewed beverages excluded. |
| Fruit butters | Apple butter, pumpkin butter, pear butter | Must meet pH requirements. |
| Jams, jellies, and preserves | Fruit-based, with proper pH/sugar | Tomato jams and pepper jellies are allowed if pH-controlled. |
| Pickled fruits and vegetables | Pickles, pickled okra, pickled peppers, pickled garlic | Must document equilibrium pH ≤ 4.6 with a calibrated meter. |
| Acidified canned goods | Salsas, hot sauces, relishes, chow-chow | Same pH requirements. Low-acid canned goods (green beans, corn, soups) are not allowed. |
| Fermented vegetable products | Sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented hot sauce | Same pH and acidification requirements. |
| Frozen raw and uncut fruits and vegetables | Whole strawberries, cut peaches | A 2021 addition; subject to labeling rules. |
The list excludes anything that requires time-temperature control for safety. That means no meat (jerky included, despite folk belief), no fresh dairy, no soft cheeses, no fresh juice, no kombucha as a standalone product, no fish, no products containing raw seafood. It also excludes anything regulated as a dietary supplement under federal law — herbal tinctures, CBD products, and "wellness" products generally fall outside the cottage food umbrella.
Sidebar — Pet treats are not cottage food in Texas. Dog cookies, horse treats, and similar products are governed by Texas Feed and Fertilizer Control Service rules, not the cottage food law. Even a "human-grade" dog cookie made in a home kitchen falls outside the state cottage food exemption and into AAFCO labeling territory. If you make pet products, treat them as a separate regulatory track.
The $150,000 cap and how it works
The cap is the most misunderstood part of Texas cottage food law, and the source of more producer trouble than any other element. Three facts are worth memorizing:
It is gross, not net. Every dollar of receipts from cottage food sales counts. Sales tax that you collect and remit to the state? Counts. Shipping fees that you charge and pass through to the carrier? Counts. The cost of the flour you bought to make the bread? Does not reduce the gross figure. A producer with $80,000 in gross sales and $30,000 in COGS is at $80,000 of cap usage, not $50,000.
It is calendar year, not rolling. The cap resets January 1 every year. A producer who hits $150,000 in November can resume on January 1. A producer who hits $150,000 in February has nine months without cottage food sales. This is also why some producers schedule heavy production into Q4 of one year and the spring of the next, even though the work is continuous — the calendar boundary is real.
It adjusts annually for inflation. SB 541 attached an inflation index to the cap. The $150,000 figure is the September 1, 2025 floor; subsequent years adjust upward. DSHS publishes the current-year figure on its cottage food production page — verify the line every January, not annually-by-memory.
A few examples of how the cap math actually plays out across a year:
| Scenario | Gross sales | Cap usage | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cottage baker, mostly farmers markets, side income | $12,200 | 8% of cap | Well under |
| Custom-cake decorator with corporate orders | $36,500 | 24% | Comfortably under |
| Hot-sauce maker selling online statewide + at three festivals | $84,000 | 56% | Mid-range; healthy |
| Sourdough seller hitting wholesale-curious orders | $128,000 | 85% | At-risk; track every sale and consider commercial kitchen for Q4 |
| Multi-product baker scaling fast | $172,000 | 115% | Over by $22,000 — out of compliance for that calendar year |
The mistake at the bottom of the table is the most common pattern across cottage food enforcement actions, and the wider $150,000 ceiling does not eliminate it — it just postpones it. Producers run a profitable operation for two or three years, the orders pile up, and they cross the cap mid-year without noticing. By the time they do notice, they have either stopped accepting orders, started running shipments through someone else's licensed kitchen, or kept selling and hoped the gap closed. The third option ends careers. DSHS does not audit every producer, but a single complaint can trigger a review that pulls bank statements, marketplace payouts, and farmers market organizer records.
The practical defense: track gross revenue every single week, against a cap counter that everyone in the household can see. A simple spreadsheet column or a dashboard widget set to flag at 80% of the annual cap is the difference between landing safely and stopping mid-November because the books were not watched.
Sidebar — Sales tax counts toward the cap. Producers sometimes argue that sales tax is a pass-through and should not count against gross. The DSHS interpretation is that the cap is gross receipts, period. Sales tax collected from a customer is part of gross receipts. If you charge a customer $10.83 ($10 product + $0.83 sales tax), that $10.83 is $10.83 of cap usage, not $10.
Sales venues: where Texas lets you sell
The Texas cottage food law is unusually flexible on venues compared to peer states, and SB 541 added a meaningful new path. The full venue picture as of 2026:
| Venue | Direct? | Wholesale via vendor? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Producer's home | Yes | n/a | Direct sale to a buyer who comes to pick up. |
| Farmers markets and craft fairs | Yes | Yes (vendor) | Most common venue. Vendors selling at markets must be registered. |
| Online sales (within Texas) | Yes | Yes (vendor) | Buyer must be in Texas; product delivered or shipped within the state. Disclosure must be communicated to the buyer before purchase. |
| Mail order (within Texas) | Yes | Yes (vendor) | USPS or carrier, in-state delivery. |
| Roadside stands / farm stands | Yes | Yes (vendor) | Including pop-up markets. |
| Charitable bake sales | Yes | Yes (vendor) | Different sub-rule, but generally permitted. |
| Food service establishments (restaurants, cafes) | No (direct) | Yes (vendor) | New under SB 541 — a registered cottage food vendor can place product on a restaurant menu or shelf. The cottage food producer cannot sell directly to the restaurant. |
| Retail stores, supermarkets, convenience stores | No (direct) | Yes (vendor) | Same pattern — vendor-mediated only. |
| Out-of-state shipping | No | No | Federal jurisdiction; FDA does not recognize cottage food. |
| Interstate online sales | No | No | Same reason. |
The wholesale-through-cottage-food-vendor path is the structural change worth understanding. Pre-2025, a Texas cottage baker who wanted their bread on a local grocery shelf had to either move into a commercial kitchen or stop trying. Post-2025, they can sell wholesale to a cottage food vendor — which can be a separate business, an existing distributor, or in some cases a structured arrangement the producer's family operates — and the vendor places the product. Three constraints matter:
- The vendor must register with DSHS. Not the producer — the vendor. Registration is a separate process from any producer-level voluntary registration.
- TCS foods are excluded from wholesale. If a product requires time-temperature control for safety (and most jams, hot sauces, baked goods, and dry mixes do not, but anything with cream cheese, custard, or meat does), it cannot be wholesaled.
- Wholesaled product must include the production date on the label. This is in addition to the standard cottage food label requirements. Direct-to-consumer cottage food does not require a date — wholesaled product does.
The two restrictions that survived SB 541 are interstate shipping and direct retail sale by the producer. Producers who want to sell on Etsy, Amazon Handmade, or Shopify with national reach still hit the wall — those platforms can route orders to any state. Some producers solve this by setting their shop to Texas-only delivery, which works but caps the customer base.
The label every Texas cottage food package needs
The label is non-negotiable. A producer can be otherwise perfectly compliant and still receive a notice for a missing label element. The required components, post-SB 541:
| Element | Specification |
|---|---|
| Producer name | Individual's name. A business name can appear too, but the individual's legal name must be present. |
| Producer address OR registration number | One of: (a) street address with city, state, zip; (b) city, state, zip alone if the producer prefers not to disclose street; or (c) the DSHS-issued cottage food production registration number, in lieu of a physical address. The registration option is new under SB 541 and is the option of choice for producers concerned about putting a home address on a public package. |
| Product name | Common name of the product (e.g., "Sourdough Bread," "Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce"). |
| Ingredient statement | All ingredients in descending order by weight. Sub-ingredients must be listed for compound ingredients (e.g., "chocolate chips (sugar, cocoa, soy lecithin)"). |
| Allergen statement | A "Contains:" statement for any of the major nine allergens (milk, egg, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, sesame). Sesame was added by federal law in January 2023 and is now mandatory. |
| Net weight or volume | In both metric and US customary units (e.g., "Net Wt 4 oz (113g)"). |
| State-required disclosure | Verbatim: "This food is made in a home kitchen and is not inspected by the Department of State Health Services or a local health department." |
| Production date | Required only for product wholesaled through a cottage food vendor. Direct-to-consumer cottage food does not require a date on the label, though many producers include one for inventory reasons. |
For pH-controlled products (jams, pickles, acidified goods), the label must additionally state the pH if the product is sold beyond a farmers market. For online sales, the disclosure statement must be communicated to the buyer at or before checkout — typically through a banner, a checkbox, or a confirmation email. A Shopify store that ships cottage food in Texas without showing the disclosure is technically out of compliance even if the physical label on the package is correct.
Sidebar — Allergen labeling is where most enforcement actions land. A label missing a "Contains: wheat, eggs" statement is the single most common reason DSHS sends a producer a notice. The reason is straightforward: when a customer with a wheat allergy reacts to an unlabeled cookie, the complaint chain is fast, documented, and unambiguous. Treat allergen statements as the first thing you double-check on every label, not the last.
Required training: the food handler course
Every cottage food producer in Texas must complete a food handler training course accredited by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The course is online, runs about two hours, and costs roughly $7 to $15. You receive a certificate that is valid for two years.
The certificate must be retained by the producer and produced on request. There is no central registry where DSHS looks up your status — the burden of proof is yours. Most producers keep a digital copy on their phone, a printed copy in their home file, and a third copy with their tax records. When the certificate expires, you renew before continuing to sell. Producing without a valid certificate is a basic violation that can be cured, but a complaint discovered during a lapse is a more serious record.
A short list of accredited providers, all online and self-paced:
- StateFoodSafety
- Learn2Serve / 360training
- ServSafe (Texas)
- Always Food Safe
The course covers basic food safety: handwashing, time-temperature, allergen control, cross-contamination, sanitation. Most producers find it educational rather than punishing, especially the allergen and labeling sections.
The acidified and pickled-goods carve-out
This is the section that separates Texas from almost every other state's cottage food law. Texas allows producers to sell pickles, fermented vegetables, salsas, hot sauces, fruit butters, and similar acidified products under cottage food rules — but only when the producer can document that each batch achieves an equilibrium pH at or below 4.6.
The rule is real, and it requires real equipment:
- Calibrated potentiometric pH meter. Test strips are not acceptable for documentation. A meter that reads to 0.01 units, calibrated daily against pH 4.0 and 7.0 buffer solutions, is the standard. Decent meters start around $80.
- Hold time before measurement. Most acidified products require a 24-hour equilibration before the pH is stable. A measurement taken five minutes after bottling is misleading because the acid is still penetrating the solids.
- Per-batch logging. Date, batch number, recipe version, ingredient lot numbers, equilibrium pH reading, meter calibration log for that day, operator initials. The records are not filed anywhere by default — but they must exist if a complaint is investigated.
If a producer cannot or will not maintain pH records, they should not sell acidified products under cottage food. The Texas allowance is conditional, and the condition is documentation. Hot sauce sold without pH records is a fast track to a regulatory action that ends with the operation shutting down.
Sidebar — Texas is the exception, not the rule. California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and most of the northeast prohibit acidified products under cottage food entirely. A maker who learns the Texas rule and assumes it applies in their next state is in for an unpleasant surprise. The Cottage Food Laws by State reference is the easiest way to check the actual rule for any other state. For a deeper compliance walk-through specific to hot sauce makers, see the hot sauce compliance guide.
What Texas cottage food law does not cover
The state law is one layer. Three other layers can apply on top of it, and producers are responsible for finding them.
Local zoning and HOA restrictions
Texas state cottage food law does not preempt municipal zoning. A residential zone that prohibits commercial activity can — depending on the city — restrict cottage food production even when state law permits it. Most jurisdictions interpret cottage food as a permitted home occupation, but some HOAs have language that prohibits any commerce on the property. Read your deed restrictions before you sell, especially in master-planned communities and condo associations.
Local health department additions
Some Texas counties and municipalities require additional registration or zoning sign-offs even though state law does not. Travis County, Bexar County, Harris County, and a few large cities have published cottage food guidance pages with their own forms. The state rule is the floor, not the ceiling — local jurisdictions can add, they just cannot subtract.
Sales tax (state and local)
The Texas sales tax rule is independent of cottage food. Most prepared baked goods are taxable at retail. Some grocery-style items (a whole loaf of bread sold for home consumption) are exempt. The combined state plus local rate can exceed 8.25%. To collect sales tax legally, you need a Texas Sales and Use Tax Permit (free to apply for through the Comptroller). Failing to collect tax on taxable sales is a separate violation from cottage food, and the Comptroller is more aggressive on enforcement than DSHS.
Federal labeling for shipping (which you can't do anyway under cottage food, but)
If a cottage food producer transitions to a commercial kitchen and starts shipping interstate, federal labeling rules add nutrition facts panels (with exemptions for small businesses), bilingual labeling for imported goods, and FDA facility registration. None of that is required under Texas cottage food, but the moment a producer crosses into commercial production, the federal floor lifts.
Common mistakes Texas cottage food producers make in year one
Patterns repeat. The five most common compliance failures, in rough order of frequency:
- Missing or incomplete allergen statement. A "Contains:" line absent on a product with wheat, eggs, or dairy. The cure is mechanical — every label, every batch, every time.
- Untracked gross revenue. A producer assumes they are at "maybe $40,000" and is actually at $112,000 by November because the farmers market booth was busier than memory suggests. The cure is a weekly revenue log. The wider $150,000 ceiling makes this less catastrophic — but only marginally, because cap-blowers tend to undercount by a wide margin.
- Out-of-state shipping by accident. A Shopify store with no shipping geofence accepts an order from Oklahoma. The producer ships it. The order is technically illegal — and the platform retains the record.
- Mass-market platform listing. A producer lists cottage food on Etsy or Amazon Handmade and accepts orders nationally. Same problem, scaled up. Some producers solve this by setting "ship to Texas only" filters; others by moving production to a commercial kitchen.
- Acidified goods without pH records. Hot sauce or pickled product sold without a meter, without calibration logs, without per-batch records. The product may be safe in fact, but it is not legal in Texas without documentation.
A sixth, post-SB 541: producers attempting to sell direct to retail without a registered cottage food vendor. The new wholesale path requires the vendor to be registered with DSHS, which the producer cannot substitute for. A handshake arrangement with a local grocer is not the same as a registered vendor relationship — and if the product is on a retail shelf without that intermediary in place, the cottage food exemption does not cover it.
A simple records system that satisfies an inspector
Records do not need to be elaborate. They need to be available. A producer with a clear set of files can satisfy an inspector in fifteen minutes; a producer without can spend weeks reconstructing what they should have saved.
The minimum file set:
| File | Contents | Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Food handler certificate | Current accredited certificate | Until two years post-expiration |
| Gross sales log | Every sale, every venue, by date — total tracked against the current-year cap | 4 years (matches Comptroller retention) |
| Sales tax filings | Quarterly or monthly returns and payment confirmations | 4 years |
| Ingredient sourcing records | Receipts and lot numbers for ingredients used in pH-controlled products | 2 years past shelf life of the product |
| pH logs (acidified producers only) | Per-batch pH reading, meter calibration log, batch number | 2 years past shelf life |
| Label samples | At least one sample of each label version used during the year | 2 years |
| Cottage food vendor records (wholesalers only) | Vendor registration number, invoice records, production-date logs | 4 years |
| Customer complaints, if any | Date, customer, product, complaint, resolution | Indefinitely |
A spreadsheet works. A binder works. Software made for inventory and recipe-tracking works better, especially when the same ingredient lot, batch number, and label flow into a sales record automatically — that integration is the difference between fifteen minutes of inspector time and three frantic hours.
This is where Ardent Seller fits for cottage food producers who are tired of chasing the records: ingredient lots flow into batches, batches into finished items, finished items into sales — and a single dashboard widget shows gross revenue against the current-year cap in real time. Recipe scaling, allergen detection, and label-ready ingredient statements are part of the same system. See features or pricing — the free tier covers most cottage food producers, and the recipe and batch tools are not premium-gated.
Stay close to the source
Texas cottage food law is a living document. The legislature touches it most sessions, and DSHS updates the implementing rules accordingly. The two primary sources every producer should bookmark:
- Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 437 — the underlying statute, available through the Texas Constitution and Statutes site.
- DSHS Cottage Food Production Operations — the agency page with current FAQ, registration links, the food handler course list, and the inflation-adjusted cap figure for the current year. Available at Texas DSHS.
Anything you read on a blog (this one included) is a snapshot of the rule on a specific date. SB 541 alone reshaped four major elements of the law in a single session — the cap, the wholesale path, the registration option, and the nonprofit eligibility — and the next session can do the same. Before you commit to a production decision that depends on the rule, verify against those two sources.
If your goal is a side income from sourdough or a meaningful business from hot sauce, the Texas rule is workable, generous, and clearer than most. The producers who succeed under it are the ones who treat documentation as part of the work, not an afterthought. Build the records as you build the product, and the inspector at the door is a fifteen-minute conversation.
Get started with Ardent Seller free and bring your gross-sales tracking, batch records, ingredient logs, and label generation into one place — without giving up the cottage food exemption that makes the math work.
Related reading
- Hot Sauce Compliance — The deep dive on FDA acidified-food rules, pH testing, and Better Process Control School for hot sauce makers stepping past cottage food.
- Cottage Baker's Glossary — A 32-term glossary for the cottage food vocabulary: scheduled process, water activity, food handler, AAFCO, and the rest.
- Batch Tracking for Food Sellers — How to set up a lot-tracking system that turns a recall from a 400-jar problem into a 40-jar problem.
Free resources
A few free downloads from the Ardent Workshop library that pair well with this post:
- Cottage Food Laws by State: The 50-State + DC Quick Reference — A 17-page reference with revenue caps, sales venues, registration rules, and the most common restrictions for every state. Use it the moment you wonder whether the Texas rule applies anywhere else.
- Home Bakers Order and Delivery Tracker — A spreadsheet for tracking custom orders, delivery windows, and cumulative gross sales against the cottage food cap.
- Recipe Scaling and Batch Calculator — Scale a recipe up or down, hold ratios, and compute per-batch cost — useful for any cottage food producer who runs more than one batch size.
Sources & methodology
- Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 437 — statutes.capitol.texas.gov
- Texas DSHS Cottage Food Production page — dshs.texas.gov
- Texas SB 541 (89th Legislature, R.S., effective September 1, 2025) — bill text and analysis at capitol.texas.gov
- 25 Texas Administrative Code §229.661 (implementing rules)
- Texas Comptroller — Sales and Use Tax Permit and food taxability — comptroller.texas.gov
- FDA major food allergen list (with sesame addition effective January 1, 2023) — fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition
Note on data freshness: Texas cottage food rules are updated each legislative session (every odd year). The $150,000 cap, food list, wholesale provisions, and venue rules described here reflect the law as amended by SB 541, effective September 1, 2025, with annual inflation adjustments to the cap thereafter. Verify the current-year cap against DSHS before relying on it.
This article is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, regulatory, food-safety, or tax advice. Cottage food rules, revenue caps, allowed product lists, labeling requirements, sales tax obligations, and local zoning vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Consult the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Texas Comptroller, your local health department, a qualified food regulatory consultant, or an attorney before making compliance, financial, or production decisions based on this content.