Colorado's Cottage Food Law

Colorado's cottage food law allows individuals to produce and sell certain homemade foods directly to consumers without a commercial kitchen or food handler's license. The law applies to home-based producers making non-potentially-hazardous foods, meaning products that don't require refrigeration to stay safe. Covered items include baked goods, jams, jellies, candies, and similar shelf-stable products made in your residential kitchen.

You can sell your cottage food products in person at farmers markets, roadside stands, fairs, and other direct-to-consumer venues. Online sales are not permitted under Colorado's cottage food law, and you cannot ship products to customers. All transactions must happen face-to-face, so your sales strategy needs to be built around physical locations where you can hand off goods directly to buyers.

Colorado caps cottage food revenue at $5,000 per year, which is one of the lower limits in the country and worth planning around as your business grows. No permit, license, or registration is required to get started, which makes the barrier to entry very low. Your labels must include your name, home address, product name, ingredients, allergens, net weight, and a statement that the product was made in a home kitchen not inspected by the state. That low startup threshold makes Colorado a practical place to test whether a home baking business works for you.