Tennessee Cottage Food Law: What You Can Sell Without a License in 2026

Most states cap what you can sell from a home kitchen at $25,000 or $50,000 a year. Tennessee threw the cap out entirely — along with the permit, routine inspection, and most of the red tape that makes other states painful to navigate.

The Tennessee Food Freedom Act (T.C.A. § 53-1-118) is the legal framework behind all of this, and it's been updated twice since it first took effect. If you're planning to sell anything from cookies to cheesecakes out of your home kitchen, here's what the law actually says right now.

How the Food Freedom Act Works

The original TFFA passed in 2022 and eliminated all state licensing, permitting, and routine inspection requirements for home-kitchen food producers selling shelf-stable products. No annual fee. No TDA permit. No routine kitchen inspections.

Then in July 2025, House Bill 130 expanded the law to cover time/temperature control for safety (TCS) foods — perishable items like cheesecakes, cream pies, pasteurized dairy, and even poultry. That expansion came with tighter rules on how you can sell those products, but it still doesn't require a state permit.

The law operates on a "prohibited list" system rather than an "allowed list." If an ingredient isn't explicitly banned (raw milk, red meat, fish, shellfish, alcohol over 0.5% ABV), you can make and sell it from your home kitchen.

What You Can Sell — and Where

The sales channels you can use depend on whether your product is shelf-stable or perishable:

Non-TCS (shelf-stable) products like baked goods, jams, dried herbs, candies, and granola can be sold:

• In person at farmers markets, craft fairs, and from your home
• Online with intrastate shipping (USPS, FedEx, UPS — Tennessee addresses only)
• Wholesale to grocery stores, co-ops, and specialty retailers

TCS (perishable) products like cheesecakes, cream-filled pastries, pasteurized butter, yogurt, and cooked poultry can only be sold:

• In person, directly to the consumer
• No shipping, no wholesale, no third-party retail

One absolute line the law draws: no home-kitchen food can be sold to restaurants, cafes, or food trucks for use in their menu items, regardless of whether it's shelf-stable.

The Labeling Requirement

Even without a permit, every packaged product needs a label with the producer name and home address (no PO boxes), phone number, product name, ingredient list in descending order of predominance, and the exact statutory disclaimer. Net quantity and allergen disclosure are recommended additions; TCS items also need the production date:

"This product was produced at a private residence that is exempt from state licensing and inspection. This product may contain allergens."

No modified wording. The disclaimer has to appear exactly as written.

Local Preemption — and Its Limits

The TFFA explicitly bars local governments from adding their own food regulations on top of the state law. Your county can't require a health inspection or a special food permit.

But local authorities still control two things: general business licenses (based on your gross receipts) and zoning. If your city requires a home occupation permit or your HOA restricts commercial activity, those rules still apply.

What Triggers a Commercial Kitchen Requirement

The Food Freedom Act has clear boundaries. Cross any of these lines and you'll need a full TDA-licensed commercial facility:

• Shipping food out of state (enters federal FDA jurisdiction)
• Selling TCS foods wholesale to retail stores
• Using red meat, fish, shellfish, or unpasteurized dairy
• Moving production out of your private residence

Tennessee has no sales cap — you can gross $500,000 from your home kitchen and still operate under the TFFA. But the moment your product or distribution method falls outside the protected categories, you need commercial licensing.

Getting the Details Right

The law is unusually permissive, but the details matter. The difference between shelf-stable and perishable determines your entire distribution strategy. A pH value of 4.7 instead of 4.6 can reclassify your product from "sell anywhere" to "in-person only." And the tax and business registration requirements exist independently of the food safety exemption — the TFFA doesn't excuse you from collecting sales tax or getting a local business license.

Our Tennessee Cottage Food & Home Food Business Guide maps every step from product classification through tax registration, city-by-city zoning rules for Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, and the exact triggers for commercial transition — so you can build your business on solid legal ground from the start.

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