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

VERMONT COTTAGE FOOD AT A GLANCE

Annual sales cap: $30,000 in gross annual receipts from cottage food products. (The old “$6,500 home bakery” figure you may still see online was repealed in 2025 — see below.)

License or permit: No license and no license fee — but the exemption isn’t automatic. You must file a short licensing exemption form with the Vermont Department of Health every year by January 15, attesting that you’ve completed the training. There’s no certificate; the state emails you a confirmation that your filing was received.

Training: Required — the Health Department’s online training for license-exempt food processors and cottage food operators, completed before you start selling and repeated every year.

Kitchen inspection: No routine inspection — but the exemption only removes the license and fee. You still have to follow the state’s food safety and sanitation rules, and a public health inspector may visit to check compliance or investigate a complaint.

Selling to restaurants: Not allowed under the exemption — restaurants and other licensed food establishments may only buy from licensed food manufacturers.

Outgrowing the exemption: If your cottage sales pass $30,000 (or you want to sell foods that need refrigeration), the next step is a home bakery license from the Health Department — $100 a year — with the full manufactured-food rules.

VERMONT REWROTE ITS RULES IN 2025 — HERE’S WHAT CHANGED

If you’ve researched Vermont home baking before, you probably found the old setup: a full Department of Health license, with a tiny exemption for bakers averaging no more than $125 a week in sales. That world is gone.

Act 42 of 2025, effective July 1, 2025, replaced the little bakery exemption with a real cottage food operator exemption. Now, if you make lower-risk foods in your own home kitchen and your gross annual receipts from those foods are $30,000 or less, you don’t need a food manufacturing license at all — no license, no license fee.

In exchange, the state asks for two simple things each year: complete its short online food-safety training, and file an annual exemption form (due January 15) saying you’ve done it. That’s the whole deal. One honest warning: some older state documents still floating around describe the old $125-a-week exemption. They predate the new law — go by the current rules in this guide and on the Health Department’s website.

WHAT YOU CAN (AND CAN’T) SELL

A cottage food product is food that does not require refrigeration or time/temperature control for safety — shelf-stable food. The Health Department’s rule lists these categories:

Allowed: Non-potentially hazardous baked goods (breads, cookies, cakes, and pastries that are safe at room temperature); candy; jams and jellies; dry herbs; trail mix; granola; cereal; mixed nuts; flavored vinegar; popcorn; coffee beans; dry tea; and home-canned pickles, vegetables, or fruits with a pH of 4.6 or lower (or water activity of 0.85 or less) made with recipes approved by the National Center for Home Food Preservation or reviewed by a food processing authority. The list isn’t exhaustive — the rule also lets the Department recognize other goods — but anything you sell has to fit the shelf-stable definition, and you’re responsible for making sure it does.

The frosting question: Buttercream isn’t named in the rule one way or the other. What the rule does say is that a qualifying baked good is one that “can be stored at room temperature without the risk of growth of microorganisms that could cause foodborne illness.” So the honest test is your recipe: a frosting that’s safe sitting on the counter keeps your product in the exemption; a frosting that has to live in the fridge takes the product out of it. The Department’s own examples of baked goods that do not qualify are ones that need to be kept cold — quiche, cheese danish, and cheesecake. If your signature frosting is a close call, ask before you sell: the Health Department offers a free Cottage Food Product Review Request form, and they’ll tell you whether your product qualifies.

Freeze-drying — please read this before you plug in the machine: Freeze-dried foods are not named in Vermont’s rule, and the Health Department has answered the closest question directly: dehydrated fruits and vegetables may not be sold under the cottage food exemption, because drying produce is a specialized process that needs special equipment to guarantee a safe water activity. Dehydrated meats are out too. Freeze-dried candy hasn’t been addressed by the Department either way — candy itself is a listed cottage food, but don’t guess. If freeze-dried treats are part of your plan, file the Cottage Food Product Review Request and get the Department’s answer in writing first.

Not allowed under the exemption: Anything that needs refrigeration or temperature control; meat products; dehydrated meats, fruits, and vegetables; and prepared meals — selling meals from home takes a different credential (a Home Caterer License), not the cottage exemption.

One more boundary: the exemption only covers food made in your own home kitchen, or a kitchen on your own property. Renting time in someone else’s kitchen — even a licensed commercial one — means you need a license for what you make there.

VERMONT LABELING REQUIREMENTS

Even though you’re exempt from the license, you are not exempt from labeling. The Manufactured Food Rule (§ 6.2.1) requires every exempt product’s label to carry:

  1. The name and address of your operation — and this means the physical address of your home kitchen. The Health Department is clear that a P.O. Box doesn’t count; the address exists so your business can be located if there’s ever a recall. (Vermont doesn’t offer an ID-number substitute, so plan on printing your address.)
  2. The name of the food product — like “Chocolate Chip Cookies.”
  3. Ingredients in descending order of predominance by weight — heaviest ingredient first.
  4. Net weight or net volume.
  5. Allergen information as required by federal labeling rules — the Big 9 (milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, sesame).
  6. This exact statement, verbatim, printed in at least 10-point type in a color that clearly contrasts with the label background: Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the Vermont Department of Health.

Only if you make a nutrition claim (“low sugar,” “high fiber,” and the like) do you also need nutrition labeling meeting federal requirements. Otherwise, no Nutrition Facts panel is required.

WHERE YOU CAN SELL IN VERMONT

Here’s the one firm rule: you may not sell exempt products to restaurants or other licensed food service establishments — by law, they can only buy from licensed food manufacturers. So no supplying the café downtown with your muffins under the exemption; that takes the licensed lane.

Beyond that bar, Vermont’s cottage food materials don’t restrict your sales channels — the statute and rule don’t limit farmers markets, selling from home, retail shelves, online sales, or mail order within the exemption. Just remember the exemption itself is a Vermont license rule: shipping food across state lines brings in federal rules and the other state’s laws, so treat out-of-state sales as a separate question to research before you ship.

And a local note: the state exemption doesn’t override your town — check zoning and any local requirements for a home business before your first market day.

YOUR 3 STEPS TO START

  1. Check every product against the cottage definition. Shelf-stable, no refrigeration, made in your own home kitchen. Frosting that needs the fridge, dried produce, and anything meat-based are out. Borderline product? File the Cottage Food Product Review Request and let the Department call it.
  2. Do the training, then file — every year. Complete the Health Department’s online training for license-exempt food processors and cottage food operators before you start, and file your licensing exemption form in the online portal by January 15 each year after that. Keep the confirmation email; that’s your paperwork.
  3. Build your label with all six elements. Name and physical address, product name, ingredients heaviest-first, net weight, allergen information, and the exact home-kitchen statement in 10-point contrasting type. Nice and simple — no Nutrition Facts panel unless you’re making a nutrition claim.

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 VERMONT 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 Vermont Department of Health.

Just add sprinkles!