Last verified: October 23, 2026. I’m a Texas home baker, not a lawyer — laws change, so always confirm with the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) before you sell.

LOUISIANA COTTAGE FOOD AT A GLANCE

Annual sales cap: Your gross annual sales must stay under $100,000 — raised from $30,000 effective August 1, 2026, by Act 801 of the 2026 Regular Session. Heads-up: the statute text posted on the legislature’s website still shows the old $30,000 figure as of this writing, so if you’re anywhere near either number, confirm with LDH.

License or permit: None. Louisiana’s law (La. R.S. 40:4.9) is an exemption, not a permit program — there is no application, no registration with the health department, and no approval to wait for.

Kitchen inspection: None. The law sets no home inspection. (It also doesn’t protect unwholesome food — sell something unsafe and the usual food laws still apply.)

Food handler course: Not required.

The one piece of paperwork: Before you sell, you must be registered to collect local sales and use taxes, shown by a current sales tax certificate from the sales and use tax collector for the parish where your sales occur.

Shipping and online sales: The Louisiana statute doesn’t address internet sales, mail order, or shipping one way or the other — see the sales section below before you build a business on it.

Wholesale: Breads, cakes, cookies, and pies may never be sold to a retail business or anyone else for resale. The statute doesn’t restrict the other listed foods either way.

WHY LOUISIANA IS SIMPLER THAN IT LOOKS (WITH TWO SHARP EDGES)

Louisiana doesn’t have a cottage food “program” at all, and that’s the good news. Instead of a permit system, the state simply exempts home-made “low-risk foods” from the Sanitary Code rules that govern commercial kitchens. No license, no registration with the state, no inspection, no training course — and since August 1, 2026, one of the highest sales caps in the country at $100,000 a year.

The sharp edges are specific. First, your baked goods come with a short list of old-fashioned kitchen rules written right into the statute — including a genuinely surprising one: if you hire anyone to help you make breads, cakes, cookies, or pies, those products fall out of the exemption entirely. Second, Louisiana is one of the only states where custard- and cream-filled pastries are allowed from a home kitchen — but only if you follow the pasteurized-dairy, cooking-temperature, and chilling rules to the letter.

Get those two things right, keep your parish sales tax certificate current, and Louisiana is about as open as cottage food gets.

WHAT YOU CAN (AND CAN’T) SELL

Louisiana calls them “low-risk foods,” and the list in R.S. 40:4.9 is closed — if it isn’t listed, it isn’t covered. One rule runs through the whole list: nothing on it may contain any animal muscle protein or fish protein, so every meat, poultry, and seafood food is out.

Allowed: Baked goods, including breads, cakes, cookies, and pies; candies; cane syrup; dried mixes; honey and honeycomb products; jams, jellies, and preserves; pickles and acidified foods; sauces and syrups; and spices.

The custard and cream surprise (read this before you assume your favorite is banned): Unlike most states, Louisiana wrote rules for custard- and cream-filled bakery products instead of banning them. If you make them, the statute requires: only pasteurized milk or milk products; the custard or cream mixture cooked to at least the equivalent of 145°F for 30 minutes; then moved immediately into sanitized, covered containers and chilled rapidly to 45°F or below and kept there until used; filling equipment and food-contact surfaces of impervious material, thoroughly cleaned and sanitized after each use; no cloth filling bags; and no touching the filling with your hands after it has been cooked.

Buttercream — the honest answer: The statute never mentions buttercream. Cakes and cookies are listed baked goods, and nothing in the law bans frosting them. The special rules above are written for custard and cream fillings, not for frosting. So a buttercream-frosted cake sits on the allowed list as a cake — and if your design involves a custard or cream filling, those filling rules apply in full.

Freeze-dried foods — the honest gap: Louisiana’s law never mentions freeze-drying at all. Candies are on the list and dried mixes are on the list, but a freeze-dried strawberry — or a freeze-dried candy — is not plainly either one, and no LDH guidance I could find answers it. So I won’t pretend: freeze-dried products are not clearly covered by this law. If freeze-dried treats are your plan, get LDH’s answer in writing before you sell. (Some states, like Kentucky, name freeze-dried foods in their rules. Louisiana doesn’t.)

Not allowed: Anything containing meat, poultry, or seafood protein; anything not on the nine-item list above; and any food containing cannabidiol (CBD), unless the FDA someday approves CBD as a food additive.

Kitchen rules for bakers (they apply to breads, cakes, cookies, and pies): screen your openings against flies and vermin; build out rats, mice, and roaches; keep pets out of the room where baking happens; keep equipment clean, sanitary, smooth, and easily cleanable; clean and sanitize food-contact surfaces after each day’s production; and keep refrigeration at 45°F or below for perishable ingredients. And remember the employee rule: the moment you employ help to prepare those baked goods, the exemption stops covering them.

LOUISIANA LABELING REQUIREMENTS

Louisiana keeps this refreshingly short — but read carefully, because there are two laws at work, and one popular myth to skip.

The cottage food requirement (R.S. 40:4.9(D)(1)(a)): Every food you offer for sale must carry a label that clearly indicates the food was not produced in a licensed or regulated facility. That’s it — Louisiana does not prescribe exact wording, a font size, or a color. A plain sentence that tracks the law, such as “This food was not produced in a licensed or regulated facility,” satisfies it. (One exception: the label isn’t required on raw honey that hasn’t been pasteurized, filtered, or processed in a way that removes its natural pollen.)

Please don’t copy another state’s sentence. You’ll see blogs quote an “official Louisiana statement” word-for-word — there isn’t one. Texas’s all-caps sentence and Florida’s sentence belong to Texas and Florida. Louisiana asks for a clear indication, in your own words.

The general packaged-food law (R.S. 40:608): Louisiana’s misbranding law applies to packaged foods generally, and the cottage food exemption doesn’t waive labeling law. A packaged food is misbranded in Louisiana unless its label bears:

  1. The name and place of business of the manufacturer, packer, distributor, or seller — for a home baker, that’s you and your business address.
  2. An accurate statement of the quantity of contents — weight, measure, or numerical count (“Net wt 12 oz,” “One dozen”).
  3. The common or usual name of each ingredient, if your food is made from two or more ingredients.

Good practice, not Louisiana law: listing allergens (a “Contains: milk, egg, wheat” line) is something I recommend every baker do, and customers increasingly expect it — but be precise about what it is: a smart practice, not a requirement Louisiana’s cottage food law imposes. Same for a Nutrition Facts panel, which Louisiana requires only for foods represented for special dietary uses.

WHERE YOU CAN SELL IN LOUISIANA

Directly to the public: The law was written for home producers selling to the public, and it puts no location list in your way — your home, markets, fairs, and events are the everyday channels. Breads, cakes, cookies, and pies are direct-to-consumer only, always: the statute flatly prohibits selling them to any retail business or individual for resale.

Everything else on the list: For candies, jams, jellies, preserves, pickles, sauces, syrups, spices, dried mixes, and honey, the resale ban simply doesn’t appear in the statute — it neither forbids nor blesses selling those foods to a shop for resale. That’s genuinely unusual, and it cuts both ways: don’t let anyone tell you Louisiana bans all wholesale (it doesn’t, in this law), and don’t treat the silence as a green light either, because a store’s own permits and other laws can still apply. When in doubt, ask LDH before your first store delivery.

Online, mail, and out-of-state: The statute says nothing about internet sales, shipping, or selling across state lines — no permission, no prohibition. That silence is exactly why you shouldn’t build a shipping business on this exemption without asking LDH first; other states’ laws also apply the moment a package crosses a state line.

The parish piece: Your sales tax certificate comes from the parish where your sales occur — if you sell in more than one parish, ask each parish’s sales and use tax collector what they need from you. And as always, the state exemption doesn’t override your local zoning or a market’s own rules, so a quick check with your parish or city before your first sale is worth the phone call.

YOUR 3 STEPS TO START

  1. Check your menu against the nine-item list — and the protein rule. Baked goods, candies, cane syrup, dried mixes, honey, jams/jellies/preserves, pickles and acidified foods, sauces and syrups, spices — and nothing with meat, poultry, or seafood protein, ever. Making custard- or cream-filled items? Build the pasteurized-dairy, 145°F-for-30-minutes, chill-to-45°F routine into your process from day one. Freeze-dried dreams? Get LDH’s answer first.
  2. Get your parish sales tax certificate, then build your label. The certificate (from the sales and use tax collector for the parish where you sell) is the one document the law demands before your first sale. Your label needs four things: a clear indication the food was not produced in a licensed or regulated facility, your name and place of business, the quantity of contents, and the ingredient names for anything with two or more ingredients.
  3. Sell direct — and plan around the two traps. Breads, cakes, cookies, and pies go straight to the eater, never to a reseller. And before you hire your first helper, remember: employing anyone to help prepare those baked goods ends their exemption. Grow inside those lines and you can grow all the way to $100,000 a year.

Keep exploring: see the Cottage Food Laws by State hub (https://cottagebakersupply.com/cottage-food-laws-by-state/) for every state’s rules, and the free tools page (https://cottagebakersupply.com/tools/) — the Cottage Label Generator and the Cottage Cost Calculator — built for home bakers.

OFFICIAL LOUISIANA SOURCES

This guide is for informational purposes only and isn’t legal advice. Cottage food laws change — I last verified this page on October 23, 2026. When in doubt, ask the Louisiana Department of Health.

Just add sprinkles!