Selling cookies from home takes the ordinary business layers, a registered name, a city business license, a sales tax license, and a food path. In most states that path is the cottage food law: shelf-stable baked goods made in your home kitchen, sold the way the law allows, under a label it spells out. Some states want a registration or permit and food handler training first, others nothing at all. The rules turn on two questions: which cookies, since plain and frosted cookies qualify where cream cheese frosting and custard fillings don't, and who buys, since some states let home bakers sell to a café or store for resale and others only to the person eating them. Past those limits comes a licensed kitchen. Utah, the example's state, has two paths: cottage food registration, which allows stores, and the Homemade Food Act, which needs no registration but sells only in person, never for resale. In the example below, a Sandy, Utah cookie bakery sorts its licenses. Below are the layers, Utah's two paths, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- Business layers: a business name, a city business license, a sales tax license.
- A food path: your state's cottage food law, or a licensed kitchen.
- Some states require a registration or permit and food handler training; some require nothing.
- Shelf-stable cookies qualify; cream cheese frosting and custard fillings often don't.
- Selling to a café or store for resale is allowed in some states, not others.
- Utah: registration allows stores; the Homemade Food Act sells in person only.
- Labels follow your state's cottage food wording.
- TaroStack keeps each bake's lot and which cafés got it. More below.
The layers
| Layer | Who issues it | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Business name | State | An LLC filing, or a DBA |
| City business license | City or county | Home business rules where you bake |
| Sales tax license | State revenue department | Registration, and which sales are taxable |
| Cottage food | State agriculture or health department | Registration or permit, the foods allowed, where you can sell |
| Food handler training | Local health department | Where the state requires it |
| Labels | State | The cottage food wording, ingredients, allergens, net quantity |
| A licensed kitchen | State or local health department | Past what cottage food allows |
How a cottage food business starts in general is in how to start a cottage food business. Every state, county and city differs; this is general information, not legal advice.
Utah's two paths
| Cottage food registration | Homemade Food Act | |
|---|---|---|
| Before selling | A food handler permit, an inspection and registration with UDAF | A business license |
| Cookies allowed | Shelf-stable; non-TCS inclusions; no cream cheese frosting, no egg-based buttercream | Almost anything but meat and raw dairy |
| Who can buy | Consumers directly, or stores for resale | In person, the end consumer only; never for resale |
| Where | Within Utah | Within Utah |
| Label | Name, ingredients, net quantity, allergens, business name and contact, "Home Produced" | "Not for Resale – Processed and prepared without the benefit of state or local inspection", and allergens |
UDAF's rules are on its cottage food page and its Homemade Food Act page. More on both in Utah cottage food law, and the training in Utah food handler permit.
An example: a Sandy cookie bakery
Granite Peak Cookie Co., the made-up cookie bakery in Sandy, Utah, I use in these examples, bakes large chocolate chip cookies and decorated sugar cookies for markets, preorders and two cafés:
| Layer | Status |
|---|---|
| Business name, an LLC | Done, February 2025 |
| City business license | Renewed January 15, 2026; renews January 15, 2027 |
| Food handler permit | Done January 2025; renews January 2028 |
| Cottage food registration | Done, March 2025: chocolate chip and sugar cookies |
| Sales tax license | Done, February 2025 |
| Labels | "Home Produced", with the ingredients and allergens |
| Cafés | Registered cottage food only, for resale |
| Pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting | Homemade Food Act: preorders handed over in person, never to the cafés |
| Product liability insurance | Done March 1, 2026; renews March 1, 2027 |
One café asked for the pumpkin cookies in its case; registration doesn't allow cream cheese frosting, and the Homemade Food Act doesn't allow resale, so they stay a preorder item. The prices are in how to price cookies, and the café side in how to sell cookies wholesale.
Get the checklist
Download the cookie business license checklist. One sheet: each layer, who issues it, what it is, whether you need it, the cost, the date done and the renewal date; the status and the total cost fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Two cafés on standing orders, market bags on Saturday and preorders all week, each with its own date: a checklist doesn't say which bake went to which café.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each bake's lot, and which cafés got it.
Each bake a batch. A bake takes the butter, flour and chocolate off stock and gets a lot of its own, with its best-by date, and lot labels print for the bags.
Orders by date. Each café's delivery is a sales order with the date it's wanted, and the day's orders make one picking list, earliest batches first.
Where it went. The lots are recorded on each café's order as it ships, so one recall report shows every customer a bake reached.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| The date on a bag | Written by hand | From the bake's lot |
| Thursday's café orders | Add them up | Sales orders by date |
| Which café got a bake | Memory | Lots recorded as it ships |
Batches, lots, sales orders and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.