Selling it

Selling under your state's rules

Updated October 2026

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Two states, two mechanisms The same question, answered differently Michigan's label, as a worked example What to find out for your own state Where to ask References

Below the federal label rules there is no national answer. Every state writes its own, and they do not differ by a number here and there. They use different legal mechanisms to reach a similar place, which is why a rule you read from another state can be confidently wrong for you.

Two states, two mechanisms

The same question, answered differently

Michigan

A honey-specific exemption, with a cap.

Honey producers are not restricted to direct sales the way cottage food producers are, and may wholesale to retailers if the label is correct. Gross sales limits for exempt honey were aligned to the cottage food cap by legislation in December 2025, at $50,000 a year.

Texas

You are a farm, not a manufacturer.

A beekeeper selling raw honey from their own hives is classified as a farm and is exempt from licensing as a food manufacturer. Extracting and bottling raw honey is named as an allowable farm activity, for retail or wholesale.

Those are not two versions of one rule. Michigan grants an exemption and caps it. Texas classifies you as something that was never regulated as a manufacturer to begin with. The practical outcome overlaps, the route does not, and the conditions attached are different.

The label detail nobody mentions. In Texas a cottage food operator can register with DSHS and print a registration number on the label instead of a home address. Everywhere without that provision, selling at a farmers market means printing your home address and handing it to strangers all afternoon.

Michigan's label, as a worked example

Michigan requires the home-kitchen disclosure in at least 11-point type, roughly an eighth of an inch, alongside the product name, the full business name and address, ingredients in descending order by weight, and net weight or volume. That is specific, checkable, and it is Michigan's. Your state will have its own list and it will not match.

What to find out for your own state

Is there a honey-specific exemption, or are you under general cottage food rules?
Direct sales only, or wholesale too? This is the difference between a market stall and a shelf in a shop.
Is there a sales cap, and is it gross or net?
What exactly must the label carry, including type size.
Does a home address have to appear, or is there a registration alternative?
Does adding anything to the honey change the answer? In several states it does.

Where to ask

Your state's cooperative extension service usually publishes this, often as a single document written for exactly this question. Texas A&M has Selling Honey in Texas. Michigan State has its own. Iowa and Oklahoma publish theirs. Your state department of agriculture is the other authority, and the one that answers the questions extension does not.

What none of them do is cover anybody else's state, which is why this page cannot hand you an answer and can only tell you what you are looking for.

References

Michigan State University Extension. Rules and regulations for selling honey in Michigan; Selling Safe Food: The Michigan Cottage Food Law (E3363). canr.msu.edu

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension (2024). Selling Honey in Texas (NUTR-PU-146). agrilifeextension.tamu.edu

Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Cottage Food Production. dshs.texas.gov

Iowa State University Extension. Iowa Cottage Food Law. extension.iastate.edu

Oklahoma State University Extension. Homemade Food Freedom Act (FAPC-242). extension.okstate.edu

Written from published federal guidance and state extension publications, not from a laboratory and not from a lawyer. Food law varies by state and changes without notice, as Michigan's did in December 2025. Anything here is a starting point for a conversation with your state department of agriculture, not a determination that you comply.