Do You Need a License to Sell Microgreens in Indiana?

No, if you sell direct to the person who eats them. Indiana rewrote this five weeks ago and the new law names produce explicitly.

Most states in this series make you argue that microgreens fit a category written for something else. Indiana stopped requiring the argument. IC 16-42-5.4, created by HEA 1424 and enacted as 2026 Public Law 163, took effect on 1 July 2026. It creates a homestead vendor and small farm operator category, and its authorized products expressly include produce, which the Department of Health defines as an agricultural or naturally occurring product grown, cultivated, raised or harvested for human consumption.

For a compliant operator, the Indiana Department of Health says plainly that you are not subject to additional state or local licensing or inspection rules, other than enforcement of federal law.

The cap is $1,500,000 in gross sales in a single year across the listed categories. That is not a typo, and it is not a threshold most growers will trouble.

The catch is who you sell to, not how much. The exemption covers direct sales to the end consumer only. Sell to a restaurant or a grocer for resale and you are outside it completely, no matter how small the order.

The federal layer applies on top. See the FDA Produce Safety Rule page.

The stale number, and why it matters to you

This is the kind of thing worth checking rather than trusting, and it is checkable in two minutes.

IDOH's Produce Safety Rule page says a farm averaging $28,075 or less in produce sales over the previous three years is not a covered farm, and puts the qualified exemption at less than $571,214 in average annual food sales.

FDA's own inflation-adjusted table currently gives the same two figures as $34,324 and $686,476. Both are the average of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 values, from $25,000 and $500,000 baselines in 2011 dollars. Read them from the column headed "Average 3 Year Value for 2023 - 2025", because FDA also publishes a single-year 2025 value beside it, $35,247 and $704,950, and those are not what you compare your three-year average against.

Both were read on 6 August 2026, from each agency's own page. The state page is simply carrying an older three-year window; FDA recalculates annually and the state page has not caught up.

Which direction does the error run? In your favour, in the sense that matters least. A grower with $30,000 in produce sales reading IDOH would conclude they are a covered farm and take on the full Produce Safety Rule. Reading FDA's current figure, they are below $34,324 and not covered. So the stale number costs effort and paperwork rather than creating risk.

Use FDA's figure, because it is a federal threshold and FDA is the authority on it. If IDOH tells you otherwise in writing, follow their determination and ask them to reconcile it.

Where the line falls

The restaurant point deserves repeating because people talk themselves out of it. A restaurant serves the final diner, so it feels like the end of the chain. Legally it is a resale, your customer is a business, and the direct-consumer exemption stops.

The label, including a sentence you must copy exactly

For packaged microgreens sold under the exemption, the label, or a sign where the product is unpackaged, must carry:

Two practical notes. Whole, uncut produce may not need packaging at all, but the point-of-sale disclosure still applies, which is what the sign is for. And if you are outside the exemption, do not borrow that statement: it is a claim about your legal status and it would be false.

No general "keep refrigerated" statement is imposed. Indiana does require anyone delivering or shipping to handle, refrigerate, transport and store the product so it is not contaminated or adulterated, which is a handling duty rather than a label phrase. Do not confuse the two.

Food safety, and a state that deliberately does not gild the federal rule

Indiana made an unusual choice worth knowing: IC 16-42-3.5-2 permits implementation rules but says they may not be more stringent than 21 CFR 112. The state has forbidden itself from adding a tougher produce safety floor. So for a covered farm, the federal rule is the rule, full stop.

For a permitted retail operation, 410 IAC 7-26 adds real controls: approved sources, protection from employee hand contamination, washing fruits and vegetables, cold holding for TCS food, food contact surface cleaning and sanitising, handwashing and employee health. That rule took effect 16 April 2025 and is based on the 2022 FDA Food Code, so it is current rather than a decade old. Note also that a proposed retail establishment must notify its regulatory authority at least 30 days before registering.

Water. For a covered farm the amended federal rule replaced the old microbial testing regime with a pre-harvest agricultural water assessment, at least annually and whenever a change increases the likelihood of a hazard. It evaluates the system and source, practices, crop characteristics, environmental conditions and hazards, and then requires mitigation where needed. No Indiana-specific interval for microgreens is published.

Food handler certification. For an exempt homestead or small farm vendor, an ANSI-accredited certificate is required when you ship or deliver within Indiana. The guidance makes that conditional, so a grower who only sells at the farm gate or a market stall is not caught. For a retail food establishment, 410 IAC 7-22 requires at least one certified food handler responsible for all operating hours, with six months to comply after opening or a change of ownership and three months after losing a certificate. An establishment handling only prepackaged food in its original package is exempt.

Inspections. A compliant exempt operation gets no routine licensing inspection, though an illness complaint can still be investigated. A permitted retail establishment is inspected by the local health department under 410 IAC 7-26, and no uniform statewide frequency is published: schedule and fees are set locally. A covered farm can be inspected by IDOH, and an outbreak traced to the farm can cause a qualified exemption to be withdrawn.

Tax and business setup

No entity is required to grow and sell as a sole proprietor. If you do form one or register an assumed name, use INBiz and confirm the current fee, which the food-side sources do not publish.

On sales tax, Indiana's rule is clean: food is exempt when sold unheated and without eating utensils, so fresh microgreens qualify. The Department of Revenue says a farm market seller whose only sales are exempt food does not need Retail Merchant registration, and no seller permit or resale certificate is needed for produce-only sales. Add taxable items, such as merchandise, candy or taxable prepared food, and you must register, collect the 7 percent tax, and pay the $25 one-time registration fee. See Bulletin #70 and Bulletin #29.

Indiana's agricultural production exemption for inputs and equipment is real but narrower than growers expect. The Department applies a double direct test: the item must be both integral and essential, and directly used in the direct production of food for sale. Seeds, plants, fertiliser, pesticides and qualifying machinery pass. Business administration, general storage and transport after production do not. See Bulletin #9. Calling yourself a farm does not do the work; the use of each item does.

Selling channel by channel

Farmers markets. A qualifying grower needs no retail food license, subject to the labeling rules. Market owners can be stricter than the state on permitted products, insurance, vendor applications and refrigeration. The local layer is real: in Monroe County, the market manager must register the market at least 30 days in advance and is responsible for verifying that vendors are licensed or properly exempt. Your market may be doing that check on you.

Restaurants. Wholesale. Register as a wholesale establishment under IC 16-42-1-6 and comply with 21 CFR 117. If you are also growing covered produce, assess Produce Safety Rule coverage separately and keep the records. Expect traceability, delivery temperature, invoice and lot, and product specification demands from the buyer. Do not show a restaurant the homestead exemption label; it does not apply to that sale.

Grocery. Same wholesale route. On top of the law, expect a supplier agreement, a certificate of product liability insurance, lot coding, consistent pack and label specifications, cold chain requirements and sometimes third-party certification. Those are contract terms, not Indiana statutes.

Online. Permitted under the exemption for an Indiana end consumer, if you hold the food handler certificate, use sealed packaging, and handle, refrigerate, transport and store safely. You may not ship the exempt product to a consumer outside Indiana. Interstate means IDOH manufactured food registration and 21 CFR 117, plus the destination state's rules. And a website checkout does not convert a resale into a direct sale.

Home growing and zoning

Indiana has no single statewide home occupation or indoor agriculture rule, and the food exemption overrides none of it. Building, fire, lease and HOA terms, septic and well rules, nuisance and local zoning all still apply. Ask your city, town or county planning office before installing racks, lights, plumbing, signage, customer pickup or commercial deliveries.

A commercial kitchen is not automatically required for indoor growing. It becomes a live question once you leave the exemption, do regulated retail preparation or packaging, or sell wholesale. Then the retail code's premises, plan review, water and sewage, handwashing, warewashing and equipment requirements can require a compliant dedicated facility, and IDOH will want layout, equipment, menu, volume, water and sewage, and sink information at plan review.

Indiana has a Right to Farm Act, but whether it reaches an indoor or home microgreens venture is fact-specific and is not published. Ask the Indiana State Department of Agriculture and an Indiana agricultural land use attorney before relying on it.

Insurance

No statewide food law was found imposing product liability insurance on an exempt direct seller. It is still commercially sensible: general liability, product and completed operations liability, and, if you have employees or delivery vehicles, workers compensation and commercial auto.

Buyers set the real bar: a certificate naming them as additional insured, stated per-occurrence and aggregate limits, recall and contamination terms, indemnity, proof of licensing and food safety compliance, traceability and recall cooperation, and delivery temperature and acceptance terms. Get the buyer's current vendor agreement before you quote coverage limits to anyone.

What Indiana does not publish

The market

Indiana is large and varied, and no primary source publishes a microgreens competitor count, restaurant count or density analysis. Anyone who gives you one is estimating.

What can be said honestly is that demand will concentrate where the buyers are: Indianapolis and central Indiana, the college towns, and the larger metro and restaurant corridors. That is an inference from population and not a published measurement, and it should be checked by talking to chefs in your actual delivery radius before you forecast anything.

The structural point is more useful than a market size. Indiana's exemption is generous and direct-to-consumer only. So the state has made the low-friction path the farm gate, the market stall and the local delivery round, and has made the chef account a deliberate step up into registration and 21 CFR 117. Plan the business around that shape rather than against it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need a license to sell microgreens in Indiana? A: Not to sell direct to the eater. IC 16-42-5.4, effective 1 July 2026, exempts a homestead vendor or small farm operator, and it names produce explicitly.

Q: How much can I sell under the exemption? A: Up to $1,500,000 in gross sales in a single year across the listed categories. The cap is not the constraint; the direct-to-consumer condition is.

Q: Can I sell to a restaurant? A: Not under the exemption. That is a resale, so it is wholesale: register under IC 16-42-1-6 and comply with 21 CFR 117.

Q: Can I ship to a customer in another state? A: Not the exempt product. Interstate means IDOH manufactured food registration and 21 CFR 117, plus whatever the destination state requires.

Q: What exactly goes on the label? A: Six things, one of which is a prescribed sentence in at least 10-point type stating that the product was produced by a homestead vendor or small farm owner exempt from government licensing and inspection.

Q: Indiana's website says the produce threshold is $28,075. You say $34,324. A: Both are quoted accurately from the two agencies. IDOH is carrying an older three-year window; FDA recalculates annually and currently publishes $34,324. It is a federal threshold, so FDA is the authority. The practical effect of the stale figure is that it makes some growers think they are covered when they are not.

Q: Do I need a food handler certificate? A: Only if you ship or deliver within Indiana under the exemption. A farm-gate or market-stall seller is not caught.

Final thoughts

Indiana is currently one of the most workable states in this series for a small grower, and it got that way in July 2026 rather than by long tradition. A statute that says "produce" instead of leaving you to argue by analogy is worth a great deal.

Three things to carry. The cap will never bind you, so stop thinking about it and think about the customer instead: everything here turns on whether your buyer is the eater. Get the food handler certificate before you start delivering, not after. And check the federal threshold on FDA's page rather than on Indiana's, because the state's copy is behind.

If something here does not match what IDOH told you, report it and it gets corrected. A page that is wrong about a rule is worse than no page.

Sources

Every claim above traces to one of these. All checked 6 August 2026.