Rhode island cottage food label requirements

Rhode Island's cottage food law is young and narrow. It was enacted in June 2022, the Department of Health started issuing registrations on November 1, 2022, and it covers baked goods only. There are five situations where the answer on a nutrition panel flips, and they're below, after the part you actually came for.

The label Rhode Island actually requires

Section 21-27-6.2(2)(vi) requires "an affixed label" on every cottage food product that contains:

1. Your name, address, and telephone number. All three. The statute offers no PO Box or registration-number substitute, so your kitchen address goes on the label.
2. The ingredient list, in descending order by weight or volume. Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, that has to show up.
3. Allergen declaration. The statute says "as specified by federal and state labeling requirements" and names milk, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans as examples. 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."
4. The Rhode Island disclaimer, word for word.

The statute does not list the product name or net weight. Both are basic federal label elements, and the Department reviews your labels when you register, so put them on anyway. You'll need them the day you leave cottage food.

The exact disclaimer wording

Made by a Cottage Food Business Registrant that is not Subject to Routine Government Food Safety Inspection

Section 21-27-6.2(2)(vi)(D) requires it "printed in at least ten-point type in a clear and conspicuous manner that provides contrast to the background label." Match the capitalization as written, including the lower-case "that is not." The only exception: the statement is not required if the product was made in a commercial kitchen licensed by the Department, which the law lets a registrant rent.

Don't paraphrase it, don't shorten it to "made in a home kitchen," and don't borrow Connecticut's wording, which is similar but not the same. The Department sees your labels at registration and again on any complaint, and it reads this string literally.

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.

In Rhode Island the product list is what pushes people out first. The exemption covers baked goods and nothing else, so a jam, granola, candy, or sauce maker was never inside it. For bakers, the cap is next: $50,000 gross in a state this small is a realistic number for a wedding cake business, and § 21-27-6.2(6) says that once you pass it you "shall either obtain a food processor license or cease operations."

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 Rhode Island

Rhode Island uses an approved-list model with the shortest list in the Northeast. Section 21-27-6.2(3) limits cottage food manufacture "to the production of baked goods that do not require refrigeration or time/temperature control for safety." The Department of Health can add "other goods as defined by the department," and its registration form repeats that phrase. If you want to make something that isn't a shelf-stable baked good, ask the Department before you register, and expect the answer to be no.

Allowed (§ 21-27-6.2(3)):

Prohibited — everything that isn't a shelf-stable baked good:

If your product is on that prohibited list, cottage food law is not your path. You'll need a licensed commercial or shared-use kitchen and a Department of Health food processor 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. In Rhode Island that includes a lot of people other states let stay home: jam makers, candy makers, granola makers.

One carve-out exists for farmers. A separate section, § 21-27-6.1, lets a registered farm sell certain home-made products made from its own crops. It is a different registration with different rules, and the 2026 bills in the General Assembly (H 7742 and S 2506) target that farm section, not the cottage food section.

Where you can sell

The statute registers "the sale of the products of cottage food manufacture direct to consumers whether by pickup or delivery within the state." Section 21-27-6.2(5) allows advertising and sales "by internet, mail, and phone," but only if "the cottage food licensee or their designee shall deliver, in person, to the customer within the state." Consignment and wholesale are prohibited outright, and the six venue types above are named one by one.

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.

The cap, the permit, and the training

The kitchen requirements are written into the statute, not left to guidance, and the affidavit you sign swears you meet them. Recipes for every product, with quantities and processing times, must stay in the kitchen for inspection. You can also rent a Department-licensed commercial kitchen and still register as a cottage operation, as long as you log the dates you use it. The Department "shall request documentation" of your gross sales, so keep books. Sales are subject to Rhode Island sales tax under § 44-18-7.

The statute was amended once, in 2024 (P.L. 2024, ch. 403, art. 2, § 6), and nothing in the 2025 or 2026 sessions changed the cap, the food list, or the sales channels.

When you outgrow cottage food

Crossing $50,000 is not the only way out of cottage food. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You hit the sales cap.
• You want to sell wholesale, on consignment, or into a grocery or cafe.
• You want to ship out of state, or ship at all.
• You want to make anything that isn't a shelf-stable baked good.
• 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 Rhode Island's is only four years old and has already been amended once. Before you print labels, check the current rules with the agency directly:

• Rhode Island Department of Health — Cottage Foods
• RIDOH — Cottage Food Manufacture registration form and instructions (PDF)
• R.I. Gen. Laws § 21-27-6.2: Cottage food manufacture, full text

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.