Do You Need a License to Sell Microgreens in Texas?

In the parts of Texas that DSHS covers, no permit is required to sell whole, intact, unprocessed produce at a farmers market. But most Texans do not live in those parts, and the city or county that covers your address sets its own rules and is the authority that matters.

Texas is the most devolved state in this series, and that single fact reorganises the whole question. Every other state page starts with "which state license do I need". In Texas the first question is whose jurisdiction am I in, because the answer changes everything downstream, and DSHS says so itself: vendors in areas under a municipal or county health department or public health district "should contact those jurisdictions for licensing requirements."

Any guide that gives you one confident Texas answer has skipped the step that decides it.

The federal layer applies everywhere and is covered on the FDA Produce Safety Rule page.

Step one: find out who governs your address

Texas health regulation is delegated. Cities, counties and public health districts can run their own food programs, and where they do, their rules apply to you rather than the state's. DSHS covers what is left.

That is why the honest first instruction on this page is not "apply for X". It is:

Two published examples of local farmers market rules that DSHS itself points to are the cities of Allen and San Marcos. Their specifics do not generalise, which is the point: they exist to show that local conditions are real, not to tell you what yours are.

What DSHS says where DSHS is the authority

For markets under its own jurisdiction, DSHS is clear: a temporary food establishment permit is not required to sell whole, intact, unprocessed fruits and vegetables.

Where a permit is required, two consumer protections are written in and are worth knowing before anyone quotes you a price:

Both figures come from the DSHS farmers market page, checked 6 August 2026. So the worst case at a DSHS market is a hundred dollars a year, not a permit per market per weekend, which is what a lot of growers fear.

Food handler cards. At a DSHS jurisdiction farmers market, a temporary food establishment does not need a food handler card or a certified food manager certificate. A genuine cooking demonstration is different: there the market needs a certified food manager. Local jurisdictions can set their own requirements, so this is another answer that stops at the jurisdiction line.

The word doing the work is "intact"

The DSHS exemption is written for whole, intact, unprocessed fruits and vegetables. Michigan says "whole, uncut". Ohio says "unprocessed". Every state builds its exemption on a word that describes produce in the state it grew in.

Microgreens are cut. That is the crop.

So the exemption clearly covers a live tray. Whether it reaches a clamshell of cut greens is not answered by anything Texas publishes, and it is the question your operation actually turns on. Worth adding: DSHS market rules treat cut greens as a TCS food, meaning time and temperature control for safety, which is a signal about how cut leafy product is viewed even where the licensing answer is unstated.

Put it in writing to whichever authority has jurisdiction, describing exactly what you do. The sources page has a template that gets an answer worth keeping.

Cottage food, and the number that keeps getting quoted at you

Texas cottage food is a home production regime with its own disclosure and training routes, and it is about foods produced in a private residence. Microgreens are raw produce grown on a farm, however small that farm is. Different rulebook.

For completeness, because it comes up in every forum thread: Texas raised the cottage food cap from $50,000 to $100,000 in annual gross income effective 1 September 2025, with CPI adjustment, per the analysis of HB 2588. It is a real change and it is genuinely good news for a lot of small food businesses. It has nothing to do with selling microgreens.

Your route is the produce exemption plus your local authority's rules, not this.

Produce safety is a different agency

This trips people up because they go to the wrong building. In Texas, retail food is DSHS and produce safety is the Department of Agriculture.

TDA's Office of Produce Safety implements the federal Produce Safety Rule under a cooperative agreement with FDA. It does the regulatory work on covered produce farms and offers produce safety assessments and readiness education. The published route is to contact the program directly.

Water. Texas adds no separate microgreens testing interval. Covered non sprout farms follow the federal requirement: an annual systems based pre harvest water assessment, reassessed after any change that increases the hazard.

Inspection. There is no single fixed interval. TDA does produce safety work, DSHS may inspect market vendors holding temporary permits, and local health departments inspect inside their own jurisdictions. Permit status, complaints, outbreaks and risk all drive it.

Tax and business registration

Sales tax. Food products for human consumption, including vegetables and herbs, are not subject to Texas sales tax. A sales tax permit is needed if you make taxable sales, not merely because you sell food. A resale certificate documents a purchaser's qualifying resale and is not a produce permit.

The Ag/Timber number. Texas exempts qualifying purchases used exclusively in producing agricultural products for sale in the regular course of business. You claim it with an Ag/Timber number and an exemption certificate. It is an input exemption. It does not exempt you from any permit.

Entity. Texas does not require a sole proprietor to form an entity. An assumed name for an unincorporated business is filed with the county clerk, while LLCs and corporations file with the Secretary of State. Filing cost varies and is separate from food permitting.

Home growing, zoning and right to farm

Texas has no statewide home grow permit that overrides local control, and it publishes no inventory of local rules. Your city or county governs it through zoning, home occupation rules, building and fire code, water and septic requirements, and deed restrictions, which in much of suburban Texas are enforced by an HOA and are stricter than the city.

A commercial kitchen or dedicated facility is triggered by activities that stop qualifying as unprocessed farm produce, or that require a food establishment permit. Growing alone does not trigger it. In devolved jurisdictions the local authority makes that determination, which is the same theme as everything else on this page.

Texas has Right to Farm Act protection for qualifying agricultural operations against certain nuisance claims. Its application is fact specific, and it does not replace local food permitting or state and federal food safety law. It is not a way around a zoning problem.

What changes by sales channel

Labeling

Texas publishes no microgreens specific retail label checklist. Packaged food meets the applicable federal baseline: identity, net quantity, the responsible firm's name and address, ingredients where there are any, and allergens where they apply, per FDA's labeling guide. Local permit conditions and buyer contracts add traceability fields on top.

Texas has no separate live tray category. What decides the treatment is whether the crop is true leaf microgreens rather than sprouts, and whether the handling is whole and intact rather than cut and processed. True leaf microgreens are not Subpart M sprouts.

Seek a label review from the authority with jurisdiction before a retail launch.

What Texas does not publish

Demand concentrates in Dallas and Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. That is population and restaurant density, not a market study, and the state does not publish a current count of who is already selling into those kitchens.

Texas is also the state where sub-state pages are genuinely justified rather than padding, precisely because the rules really do differ by city. That is a consequence of the devolution, not an SEO strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I sell live trays at a farmers market in an unincorporated area. Do I need a permit? A: If the market is under DSHS jurisdiction, no temporary food establishment permit is required for whole, intact, unprocessed produce, and a live tray is whole and intact. Confirm first that DSHS, and not a county health department, has jurisdiction.

Q: How do I know whose jurisdiction I am in? A: Call your city and county health departments and ask directly. DSHS tells vendors in municipal, county or public health district areas to contact those authorities, so the jurisdiction question comes before every other question.

Q: I cut my greens into clamshells. Does the exemption still apply? A: Unresolved, and this is the honest answer. The exemption is written for whole and intact produce, and cut greens are treated as TCS food in the market rules. Get a written determination from the authority with jurisdiction.

Q: What is the most a permit can cost me? A: Where a permit is required, the annual fee may not exceed $100 and the permit must last at least a year. Local jurisdictions set their own arrangements.

Q: Does the new $100,000 cottage food cap help me? A: No. It is real, it took effect on 1 September 2025, and it applies to cottage food, which fresh microgreens are not.

Q: Do I charge sales tax on microgreens? A: Food products for human consumption are not subject to Texas sales tax. If you sell taxable items too, you need a permit for those.

Q: Do I need a food handler card? A: Not for a temporary food establishment at a DSHS jurisdiction market. A cooking demonstration requires the market to have a certified food manager, and local jurisdictions may differ.

Final thoughts

Texas rewards one phone call more than any other state in this series. Find out who has jurisdiction over your address, and the rest of the questions have a single correct desk to go to.

The state layer is friendlier than its reputation: no permit for whole intact produce at DSHS markets, a hundred dollar annual cap where a permit does apply, and no sales tax on the food you sell. The complexity is local, and it is real, and it is knowable in an afternoon.

If something here does not match what your authority 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.