Selling it

What your state adds

Updated October 2026

On this page5

No candle-specific state regime What states do reach California and Proposition 65 The practical answer References

Another category where makers arrive looking for a license that does not exist.

No candle-specific state regime

Candles are not food, not cosmetics and not drugs. There is no cottage-food equivalent, no home production exemption to apply for and no state candle license.

What governs the product is federal and voluntary: the lead-cored wick ban, the consumer commodity labeling requirements, and the ASTM standards.

The absence of a state scheme is not permission. It means the standards are the whole of the product regulation, and nobody will check them until something goes wrong.

What states do reach

Business registration, a sales tax permit and a local business license.

Zoning, and a landlord's view of melting wax in a rented home. This is a real one: some leases and many insurers treat a heat source and flammable material as a business use that changes the policy.

Fire code, if you operate from a commercial space, which reaches quantities of stored wax and fragrance oil.

Market and fair permits, set by the market.

California and Proposition 65

The best-known state overlay. It requires a warning for exposures to listed chemicals, and it attaches to selling into California rather than to being based there, which catches anyone selling online.

Fragrance components are where this most often arises for candles. Your fragrance supplier should be able to tell you whether an oil contains anything listed, and that is a question worth asking before a range is built around an oil.

The practical answer

Register the business, get the sales tax permit, insure it properly with an insurer who knows what you make, tell your landlord, and ask your fragrance supplier about Proposition 65.

What you will not find is a state candle license, and time spent looking for one is time not spent burn testing.

References

US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Candles and Candle Accessories, the agency page setting out the voluntary standards it participates in and the mandatory ban. cpsc.gov

Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. A candle is a consumer commodity: the label carries an identity, a net quantity of contents and the name and place of business of the manufacturer, packer or distributor. ftc.gov

Written from the federal regulation, the CPSC material and the published scope of the ASTM candle standards. The standards themselves are copyrighted documents that must be bought; what is described here is their scope and requirements as published, not their text. Your own burn testing against your own vessel and wick is what establishes whether a candle you made is safe.