Maryland cottage food label requirements

That cap is new. House Bill 535 (Chapter 320 of 2026) took effect October 1, 2026 and doubled the limit from $50,000. It is the third increase in four years, and the Maryland Department of Health's own guidance and the COMAR definition may still show the old number for a while. The statute controls.

There are five situations where the answer flips and you do need a panel. They're below, after the part you actually came for.

The label Maryland actually requires

Section 21-330.1(c) says a cottage food business "may sell only cottage food products that are" stored on its own premises and "prepackaged with a label that contains":

1. The name and address of the cottage food business, or the name, phone number, and a unique identification number issued by the Department. Request the ID number if you'd rather not print your home address on a cookie bag; it's free, and a P.O. box is not an acceptable substitute.
2. The name of the cottage food product.
3. The ingredients, in descending order of the amount of each ingredient by weight. Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, that has to show up.
4. The net weight or net volume.
5. Allergen information as specified by federal labeling requirements. Federal law covers nine: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. Sesame joined the list under the FASTER Act on January 1, 2023. You can declare them parenthetically inside the ingredient list or in a separate "Contains" statement. Tree nuts, fish, and shellfish must be named by species — "almonds," not "tree nuts."
6. Nutritional information, "if any nutritional claim is made." More on this below, because Maryland wrote the trigger into its own statute.
7. The Maryland disclaimer, word for word.

Products sold to a retail food store need three more things under § 21-330.1(c)(2)(iii): the business phone number, its e-mail address, and the date the product was made. The Department's guidance adds that labels must be in English.

The exact disclaimer wording

Made by a cottage food business that is not subject to Maryland's food safety regulations.

The statute requires it "printed in 10 point or larger type in a color that provides a clear contrast to the background of the label." Sentence case, as written, ending in a period.

Don't paraphrase it, don't shorten it to "made in a home kitchen," and don't put it on the back in 6-point grey. Inspectors and market managers read this string literally, and the Department reviews your label before it clears you for retail sales.

Where a Nutrition Facts panel becomes required

No US state requires a full Nutrition Facts panel on cottage food products. You need one when:

1. You make a nutrient content claim — "high protein," "low sugar," "keto," "sugar free." Any of these obligates the panel that substantiates it.
2. You make a health claim — connecting your food to a disease or health condition.
3. You outgrow your state's cottage food cap and move to a commercial kitchen. At that point you are a regular food manufacturer and the cottage exemption is gone.
4. You sell wholesale or into retail. Cottage exemptions are almost universally direct-to-consumer only.
5. You sell on Amazon or another marketplace that requires a panel. Amazon's requirement is contractual, not legal, and it does not care what your state says.

Maryland is one of the few states where trigger four is not a legal line. Since October 1, 2019 (Chapter 371, SB 290), a cottage food business may sell to "a retail food store, including a grocery store, or a food cooperative" after the Department signs off. But a grocery buyer shelving your jar next to commercially made products will often ask for a panel as a condition of carrying you, even though § 21-330.1 doesn't make them. Retail buyers, and trigger one, are what actually bite here.

Trigger one catches more people than the other four combined, and it catches them somewhere they don't expect. Under 21 CFR 101.9(j)(18), the exemption is void if the claim appears in advertising — not just on the package. Calling your granola "high protein" in an Instagram caption is enough to require the panel on the bag.

What you can and can't make in Maryland

Maryland uses an approved-list model. COMAR 10.15.03.27B lists the categories a cottage food business may make, and the Department's November 2025 guidelines spell out the examples. If your product isn't on it and isn't obviously non-potentially hazardous, you can have it lab-tested for water activity and pH to prove it qualifies.

Allowed:

Prohibited:

If your product is on that prohibited list, cottage food law is not your path. Sauce, salsa, jerky, and cheesecake makers are the big groups. You'll need a licensed commercial or shared-use kitchen under a local health department or state food processing license, and once you're operating out of one you're a food manufacturer under federal law — which means full labeling, including a Nutrition Facts panel unless you qualify for the small business exemption below.

Where you can sell

Section 21-301(b-2) defines a cottage food product as one "sold in the State," and COMAR 10.15.03.27A says "Offered or sold only in the State." The Department's guidelines put it flatly: "Interstate sales or sales outside of Maryland are prohibited." Mail delivery has been permitted since Chapter 491 of 2018, but the package has to stay inside Maryland.

Interstate is a hard no everywhere, and the reason is jurisdictional rather than arbitrary: the moment a product crosses a state line it enters interstate commerce and FDA has authority over the whole operation that made it. Your state's cottage food exemption cannot exempt you from federal law. If you ship to one customer in another state, you have stepped outside the exemption for that shipment.

Retail is the Maryland-specific channel. Before your first sale to a store you submit, through the Department's ID and Retail Sales Request Form, the label you'll use and proof that you completed an ANSI-accredited basic food safety course within the past three years. Under § 21-330.1(g) and COMAR 10.15.03.27C(7), you "may not sell or offer for sale a cottage food product to a retail food store until notified by the Department, in writing." There is no fee.

The cap, the permit, and the training

The cap has moved three times: $25,000 originally, $50,000 from October 1, 2022 (Chapter 406, HB 178), and $100,000 from October 1, 2026 (Chapter 320, HB 535). Maryland does not preempt local governments the way Florida and Texas do; § 21-330.1(e) says you "shall comply with all applicable county and municipal laws and ordinances," so check zoning and any local permit before you start. The Department can enter and inspect on a complaint, and you may not refuse.

When you outgrow cottage food

Crossing $100,000 is not the only way out of cottage food. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You hit the sales cap.
• A restaurant or a wholesaler wants to carry you.
• You want to ship out of state.
• You want to make salsa, jerky, cheesecake, or anything else on the prohibited list.
• You want to say "high protein" on the bag.

Whichever one gets you first, the day after it happens you are a food manufacturer, and food manufacturers label under 21 CFR 101.9. Your label now needs a Nutrition Facts panel with a serving size pulled from the RACC table in 21 CFR 101.12 — not a serving size you chose.

You might still be exempt, even out of a commercial kitchen

21 CFR 101.9(j)(18) exempts small businesses from the Nutrition Facts requirement if you have fewer than 100 full-time equivalent employees and sell fewer than 100,000 units in the US in a 12-month period. You have to file an annual notice with FDA to claim it. FDA is blunt about the follow-up: "FDA DOES NOT NOTIFY FIRMS WHEN IT IS TIME TO FILE A NOTICE." That's on you.

There's a smaller carve-out under the same section: if you're not an importer, have fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees, and sell fewer than 10,000 units a year, you don't have to file anything at all.

And the exemption is void — filed or not — for any product carrying a nutrient content claim, a health claim, or other nutrition information, whether that appears on the label, in labeling, or in advertising. See FDA's labeling guidance for the full text.

If you've hit one of the triggers and need the panel itself, Nutrillius builds an FDA-compliant Nutrition Facts panel from your recipe in about a minute — $39 one time, no subscription. That's against $1,609–$1,724 for a single lab-analyzed sample at Medallion Labs, or $195 and a two-to-four week wait through a university extension lab.

Verify this yourself

Cottage food law changes most legislative sessions, and Maryland has moved in 2018 (mail delivery), 2019 (retail sales), 2022 ($50,000), and 2026 ($100,000). Before you print labels, check the current rules with the agency directly:

• Maryland Department of Health — Cottage Food Businesses
• MDH — Guidelines for Cottage Food Businesses (PDF, November 2025)
• Md. Code, Health-General § 21-330.1: statute text (PDF)
• Chapter 320 of 2026 (HB 535), the $100,000 cap
• COMAR 10.15.03.27

This page was last reviewed October 30, 2026. If you're reading it much later than that, verify the cap and the disclaimer wording before you rely on either.