TL;DR
California has two kinds of cottage food operation: Class A (direct sales only, no kitchen inspection) capped at $86,206 a year, and Class B (direct plus wholesale, requires a home kitchen inspection) capped at $172,411 a year. Both caps are adjusted for inflation every year, so confirm the current number with your county. You can sell shelf-stable baked goods like bread, cookies, and cakes — but not perishables.
⚠️ Important disclaimer
This article is informational and is not legal or tax advice. California's cottage food sales caps are recalculated for inflation every year, and your county environmental health department interprets and enforces the rules locally. Always confirm directly with the California Department of Public Health or your county before making business decisions. Last reviewed: June 2026.
I spent a Saturday morning last month on the phone with a baker in Fresno who'd been quietly terrified for two years. She'd registered as a Class A operation, started selling cookies at her farmers market, and then a local coffee shop asked to stock her shortbread. She wanted to say yes so badly. But she'd heard somewhere that "California only lets you sell $75,000" and assumed she was already near a wall she wasn't actually near.
She had two things wrong. The cap she was thinking of was the base number from the original law — the real 2025 figure is higher because it's adjusted for inflation. And the wholesale question wasn't about the cap at all; it was about which class she'd registered under. That coffee shop order was legal — just not under the registration she had.
California's cottage food law is genuinely good, but it confuses people more than most states because of this two-class structure. Let's untangle it completely.
What is the California cottage food law?
The California cottage food law — formally the California Homemade Food Act, passed as AB 1616 in 2012 and amended several times since — lets you legally make and sell certain non-perishable foods out of your home kitchen, without renting a commercial space. It splits operators into two classes (A and B) with different sales caps, different permission to wholesale, and different inspection requirements.
The two classes, plainly explained
This is the part nobody explains clearly, so here it is in one table. (Caps shown are the 2025 inflation-adjusted figures — see the note below the table.)
| Class A | Class B | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual gross sales cap | $86,206 | $172,411 |
| Direct sales (markets, online, your home, shipping in-state) | Yes | Yes |
| Indirect / wholesale (stores, restaurants, coffee shops) | No | Yes |
| Home kitchen inspection required | No (self-certification checklist) | Yes |
| Cost to register | Lower | Higher |
A quick but important caveat: those dollar figures move every year. California recalculates both caps based on the state Consumer Price Index. The $86,206 / $172,411 pair are the 2025 numbers confirmed on Forrager. Before you build a plan around hitting a specific ceiling, call your county environmental health department and ask for this year's exact figure. I'd rather you make that 5-minute call than trust a number on any blog — including this one.
Which class should you pick?
Here's the honest decision rule. Choose Class A if you only plan to sell directly to your customers — farmers markets, your own website, pickup, delivery, shipping within California. Most home bakers start here, and it's cheaper and faster because there's no kitchen inspection.
Choose Class B if you want a store, café, or restaurant to carry your products. That's "indirect sales," and only Class B allows it. The trade-off: you'll pay more and a health official will inspect your home kitchen before you're approved.
The contrarian take most "start your bakery" articles won't tell you: do not default to Class B just because the cap is double. Almost no home baker is bumping against $86,206 in direct sales their first or second year. Registering Class B to chase a ceiling you're nowhere near means paying for and passing a kitchen inspection you didn't need. Pick the class that matches how you actually sell right now, and upgrade later when a wholesale account is genuinely on the table.
What you can sell (and what's off-limits)
California uses an official Approved Foods List, and the rule underneath it is simple: only non-potentially hazardous, shelf-stable foods. If it needs refrigeration to be safe, you generally can't sell it under cottage food law.
Allowed (good news for bakers): breads, rolls, bagels, cookies, brownies, cakes, cupcakes, muffins, scones, tortillas, candies, fudge, granola, dry mixes, jams and jellies that meet the federal standard, honey, nut butters, and dried goods.
Plain sourdough bread is squarely allowed — it's a shelf-stable baked good. Where bakers get into trouble is fillings and finishes: a cream-cheese frosting, a custard, or a perishable filling can flip an allowed product into a prohibited one.
Off-limits: perishable baked goods, anything requiring refrigeration, salsas, pickles, fermented foods, sauces, canned low-acid foods, juices, and meat products. When in doubt, check the CDPH Approved Foods List — it's the actual legal authority, and the health department can change it over time.
Getting started: the four real steps
- Take a food safety course. California requires approved food handler training (for example, Learn2Serve, which runs about $10 and takes a couple of hours online). You renew it every 3 years.
- Register or permit with your county. Class A = a self-certification registration. Class B = a permit plus a home kitchen inspection. Cost and the exact application vary a lot by county.
- Build a compliant label. California requires "Made in a Home Kitchen," your business name and address, your county name, your permit/registration number, the product name, ingredients in descending order by weight, allergen disclosures, and net weight.
- Track your sales against the cap. This is the one people skip, and it's the one that bites. You're responsible for staying under your class's annual gross sales limit, and "I lost track" is not a defense.
How California compares to its neighbors
If you've read about other states and gotten confused, this is usually why — the rules genuinely differ a lot:
| State | Annual cap | Wholesale allowed? |
|---|---|---|
| California (Class A) | $86,206 (2025) | No |
| California (Class B) | $172,411 (2025) | Yes |
| Texas (SB 541, 2025) | $150,000 | Limited (to other cottage operators) |
| Florida | $250,000 | No |
Florida has the highest cap in the country but bars wholesale entirely. Texas raised its cap to $150,000 in 2025 and opened a narrow wholesale lane. California is the only one of the three that lets you choose your structure based on whether you want retail accounts. There's no "best" state law — there's just the one you're standing in.
A real baker's reality check
<!-- BAKER QUOTE NEEDED — verify with a real source before publishing -->[BAKER QUOTE NEEDED] — a 1–2 sentence quote from a real California Class A or Class B baker about the registration process or the class decision. Pull from a public source (a California cottage food Facebook group, the Forrager podcast, or a Reddit r/Breadit / r/cottagefood thread) and link the source. Do not publish with this placeholder visible.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell sourdough bread from home in California?
Yes. Plain sourdough bread is a shelf-stable, non-potentially-hazardous baked good and is allowed under the California cottage food law. Watch perishable additions — a custard filling or cream-cheese frosting can move a product onto the prohibited list.
What's the difference between Class A and Class B in California?
Class A allows direct sales only (markets, online, pickup, shipping in-state) with no kitchen inspection. Class B adds indirect/wholesale sales to stores and restaurants, has a higher cap, but requires a home kitchen inspection and costs more to permit.
What is the California cottage food sales limit for 2026?
The 2025 figures were $86,206 (Class A) and $172,411 (Class B). Both are adjusted annually for inflation, so the 2026 numbers may be slightly higher. Confirm the current figure with your county environmental health department before relying on it.
Do I need a license or inspection to start?
For Class A, no inspection — you complete a self-certification registration with your county. For Class B, yes — a health official inspects your home kitchen before approval. Both classes require approved food safety training, renewed every 3 years.
Can I ship my baked goods to customers in other states?
No. All California cottage food sales and deliveries must stay within California. You can ship within the state and use third-party delivery services, but interstate sales are prohibited under the cottage food law.
Keeping a California cottage operation legal is mostly about two unglamorous habits: building a correct label every single time and watching your gross sales creep toward the cap. The CrumbCoach app handles both — a compliant label generator and a sales-cap tracker that knows which class you registered under — so the compliance math runs in the background while you bake. Download CrumbCoach for iOS or Android, or read more about built-in compliance tracking and the full cottage food laws hub.