Do You Need a License to Sell Microgreens in Virginia?

Yes, once you cut and pack them, and the permit is something you pass rather than something you file.

Virginia Code 3.2-5130(A) makes it unlawful to operate a food manufacturer, a food storage warehouse or a retail food establishment until the Commissioner has inspected it and issued a permit. Read the order of those two verbs. The inspection is not a thing that happens to you later, after your paperwork clears and your first crop is in the tray. It happens first, and the permit is what comes out the other side of it.

That single sentence reorganises the whole build plan for a Virginia grower. In most states in this series the sequence is fit out, open, sell, and get inspected at some point in year one. Here the sequence is fit out, get inspected, and only then open. 3.2-5100(C) carries the same logic from the other direction: it directs the Commissioner to issue the permit after inspection and after compliance.

The official instrument is a VDACS Food Establishment Permit. The statute calls it a permit, and VDACS says it replaced the former Certificate of Inspection. It is not a microgreens license. It covers food manufacturers, food storage warehouses and retail food establishments as categories, and a cut and packed microgreens operation lands inside one of them.

There is one live question left, and it is worth naming plainly rather than papering over. A grower selling only an intact, uncut crop, a living tray, sits on a line that Virginia has not drawn in public. Michigan, Iowa and Arizona all publish a produce stand carve out for whole uncut produce sold direct, and a Virginia grower reading those pages will look for the equivalent here. The sources reviewed do not contain one. That does not mean the answer is no. It means the jurisdictional line has to be confirmed with VDACS rather than assumed from another state's statute.

So plan the cut and packed operation as a permitted food operation, and get the living tray answered in writing. VDACS Food Safety is on 804-786-3520, at foodsafety@vdacs.virginia.gov.

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

Where the line falls

Notice what is not in that table: a number. Virginia does not offer a revenue line to stay under. The permit question turns on what you do to the crop and where you do it, and it answers the same way at $2,000 a year as at $200,000.

The permit is an inspection, and that changes your build order

The practical consequence of 3.2-5130(A) is a sequencing problem, and growers lose money to it.

If the permit issues only after an inspection, then everything the inspector will look at has to exist before you have any revenue. The physical separation of the growing and packing areas, the sinks, the wall and floor finishes, the water supply and the sewage arrangement are plan review questions, and VDACS assigns a Food Safety Specialist to them. Those are not decisions you can defer until the first restaurant says yes.

Two more features of the permit are worth knowing before you sign a lease.

It does not transfer. A new location needs a new application and a new permit, and so does a new owner. A grower who takes over someone's shut down bakery unit does not inherit their permit with the keys.

A home can be permitted. Virginia does not treat a residence as automatically disqualifying for a food processing operation. VDACS is explicit that a home or commercial food establishment that manufactures, processes, packs or holds food for sale is subject to the food law and its regulations, which cuts both ways: your kitchen is not outside the system, and it is also not barred from the system. It has to pass the same pre-opening inspection.

That is a meaningfully different posture from Tennessee, where the definition that decides everything is a non-residential premises. Virginia does not draw the residential line in the same place. It draws the line at the activity, then inspects wherever the activity happens.

The home food exception, and why it fails on the list rather than on the money

Growers arrive at this question expecting a cottage food answer, because most states have one and most of them are written as a dollar cap. Virginia's is written differently, and the difference matters.

The exception in 3.2-5130(C)(3) is a closed list of processed, non temperature controlled foods. Dried herbs, dry mixes and baked goods are the kind of thing on it. Cut microgreens are raw produce. They do not fail the exception because you sold too many, they fail because they are not one of the listed foods. There is no version of your business that grows into the exception or shrinks into it.

This is worth contrasting with two states people cite at each other. Arkansas puts true leaf microgreens inside its Food Freedom Act by name. Tennessee's Act shares that name and covers only home kitchen production. Virginia does neither. It enumerates specific processed foods and stops.

As confirmed on 7 August 2026, there is no general cottage food gross sales cap for the foods on that list. The only monetary figure in the neighboring home exceptions is $9,000 gross sales per calendar year, and it belongs to home made pickles and other acidified vegetables at pH 4.6 or lower. It is a fixed statutory amount, not inflation adjusted, and it has nothing to do with microgreens. If you have seen that number quoted in a Virginia microgreens thread, it was borrowed from the pickle rule.

The exception also carries a condition that kills it for wholesale regardless: it requires sale to an individual for personal consumption and not for resale. A restaurant buys for resale. So does a grocer. That closes the door before the list even comes up.

One honest gap. The date the general home food provision last changed is not published. Ask VDACS Food Safety on 804-786-3520 if that date matters to your reading of the statute.

Food safety, inspections and who has to know what

Once permitted, you sit under Virginia Food and Drink Law and the Retail Food Establishment Regulations at 2VAC5-585. The obligations are the ones you would expect from a food operation: safe and unadulterated food, employee hygiene, protected food contact surfaces, potable water and compliant plumbing, sanitation, pest control and truthful labeling.

Inspection is not a one time event. VDACS Food Safety Specialists inspect before you open, then conduct regular, periodic, unannounced inspections and sampling afterwards. A complaint can trigger an inspection even where a statutory exception is being claimed, which is a useful thing to know if you are betting your business on an exception you have not had confirmed.

Virginia publishes no single universal inspection frequency for an operation like this. Risk, compliance history, complaints and whether you are newly opened all feed into it. Do not plan around a number that the state has not printed.

On certification, read the actual rule rather than the folklore. Under 2VAC5-585-67, a certified food protection manager is a way to demonstrate compliance with the knowledge requirement for the person in charge. The provision does not say every worker must hold a certificate. A standalone cut microgreens operation should plan for a knowledgeable person in charge and treat the certificate as the cleanest way to evidence it.

There is one place where a certificate stops being optional. A Certified Food Protection Manager is expressly required for a VDH regulated temporary food establishment. So if your plan involves cooking or serving beyond samples at a festival or a market event, you have crossed into the Department of Health's territory and into a stricter rule than the one governing your packhouse.

Water, and why there is no number on this page

There is no published Virginia rule imposing a single annual water test interval on every microgreens grower. That is a genuine absence, not an oversight in the research, and it is better to say so than to invent a frequency.

What does apply: a permitted facility must use an approved water system and meet the food regulations, and a farm covered by the federal Produce Safety Rule follows the applicable agricultural water requirements and compliance dates. Municipal water and private well water are treated differently, and that difference is exactly where the required test and standard get decided.

So the correct action is not to schedule a test. It is to have VDACS identify the required test and standard for your actual water source and your actual activity, and to write down what they tell you. Under the federal rule, agricultural water is assessed through a systems based assessment rather than a universal test count, which is another reason a generic annual number would mislead you here.

Labeling: four elements, written into the Code

For packaged microgreens, 3.2-5123 requires:

Required information has to be conspicuous and legible. An ingredient list is not ordinarily applicable to a single ingredient raw product, so a clamshell of pea shoots does not need one; add it the moment the pack contains anything else. Nutrition and health claim rules apply when you make a claim, which is a good reason not to make one you cannot support.

On "keep refrigerated": it is not a universal Virginia label phrase. The statute reviewed does not mandate it for every package of raw microgreens. Refrigeration and handling can still be required by your approved process, by a buyer specification or by your own food safety plan. Do not print a storage or safety claim you cannot stand behind.

There is a related rule worth understanding before you assume it does not apply to you. Under 2VAC5-585-830, a refrigerated ready to eat temperature controlled food that is prepared and held more than 24 hours attracts date marking, holding at 41°F or below, and a seven day maximum. Whether your product and your activity are temperature controlled for safety is a question for your inspector, and it is worth asking early because the answer changes your labeling and your cold chain together.

Tax, and the part Virginia did not answer

This section is short because the research came back empty, and padding it would be worse than admitting it.

Three things are unresolved here: the current sales tax treatment of your product, the farmers market exemption figure, and the seller registration requirements. None of these were available from an opened Virginia Tax source during this research.

The current agricultural sales tax exemption qualifications for a microgreens operation. Same reason.

Ask Virginia Tax, Business Customer Service before you collect tax or claim an exemption, and ask them two separate questions: whether the product is taxable, and whether you must register as a seller. Other states in this series answer those two differently from each other, and Tennessee is the clearest example, where an exempt product still comes with a registration duty. Do not assume Virginia works the same way, and do not use a resale certificate as a substitute for tax registration advice.

Business setup

You may operate as a sole proprietor under your own legal name. Forming an LLC or a corporation is liability and tax structuring, and it is not the food permit. Neither replaces the other.

If you trade under any name other than your own, file a Certificate of Assumed or Fictitious Name with the State Corporation Commission. The published fee is $10, confirmed 7 August 2026. Local business license and zoning registration can apply on top.

Selling channel by channel

Farmers markets. A cut and packed vendor stays subject to VDACS food law, inspection, labeling and safe handling at the market. The structural detail that surprises people: VDACS says individual vendors under Food Safety inspection receive permits, not the market. Your neighbor's stall being permitted does nothing for you, and the market's own status does nothing for you either. On top of the state layer, each market can require an application, a vendor fee, insurance, an approved product list, temperature practices and attendance minimums. And if you cook or serve beyond samples, you may have moved into VDH temporary food establishment territory.

Restaurants. This is the clearest case for the permit and the weakest case for any exception. It is resale, so the home food exception is unavailable by definition, since that exception requires sale to an individual for personal consumption. Expect traceability, invoice and lot records, cold chain delivery expectations and a buyer food safety questionnaire. Note the direction of dependence: a restaurant's receiving standards do not replace your VDACS compliance, and a chef telling you their inspector is fine with it is describing a different inspection from yours.

Grocery. Everything in the restaurant paragraph, plus a private layer. Buyers commonly contract for vendor onboarding, a UPC or GTIN where needed, a product liability insurance certificate, lot and recall traceability, delivery specifications, case and pallet labeling and sometimes third party audit requirements. No statewide Virginia grocery buyer requirement schedule is published, and there will not be one, because these are commercial terms rather than law. Get the chain's written supplier manual before you plant to its specification.

Online. Virginia offers no special online microgreens shortcut. Direct online sales of home exempt food are limited to Virginia individuals and not for resale, which does not cure the basic mismatch: raw microgreens are not on the exempt list in the first place. Shipping cut greens across state lines is interstate commerce, so federal food, label and FSMA rules apply, the destination state's requirements apply, and the cold chain has to work over the transit time you are promising.

Home growing, zoning, and the ten localities

Home growing is not a statewide zoning exemption. The controlling rule is the city or county zoning ordinance and, where applicable, a home occupation approval. Lease terms, HOA covenants, building, fire, septic and signage rules can all matter as well. Virginia publishes no single statewide home microgreens zoning standard. Ask the planning or zoning office for the exact property before you install commercial racks, take deliveries, put up a sign, hire anyone or invite customer pickup.

Layered on top is the food framework already described. Processing, packing or holding food for sale triggers it, a home can be a permitted home food processing operation, and it must pass the pre-opening inspection like any other site.

Then there is the local wrinkle Virginia actually publishes. VDACS's permit FAQ identifies ten localities that had local food inspection or permitting ordinances before 2022, which affected how the VDACS permit rolled out:

Do not over read that list. It is a historical rollout artefact, not a current index of who regulates what, and every other county and city in Virginia can still regulate zoning, home occupation, signs and business licensing. Current local requirements for any specific address. If your address is on that list, treat it as a prompt to call the locality early rather than as a verdict.

Right to Farm. Virginia's Right to Farm Act at 3.2-302 protects an agricultural operation from becoming a public or private nuisance where it substantially complies with applicable best management practices and laws. It is real protection and it is narrow. It does not excuse negligence, it does not answer pollution claims, and it does not waive food law, zoning, building compliance or a permit requirement. It protects you from the neighbor, not from the inspector.

Insurance

Virginia food law as reviewed here does not impose a general product liability insurance requirement on a microgreens grower. That is a legal answer, not a business one, and the business answer is that you should carry cover anyway: commercial general and product liability, product recall and contamination cover, property and equipment, commercial auto if you deliver, and workers' compensation once its separate employment threshold applies to you.

Whether a particular operation has a statutory employment or vehicle insurance obligation. Ask the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission and your insurer. This page will not print an employee count, because the research did not establish one for Virginia and a wrong threshold here is expensive.

On the contract side, restaurants and grocers commonly require a certificate of insurance naming them as additional insured, stated general and product liability limits, recall and withdrawal cooperation, indemnity, proof of your permit, approved labels, traceability and lot codes, and on time cold chain delivery. Those are buyer terms rather than uniform Virginia law, so get the actual contract before you quote a limit to anyone.

What Virginia does not publish

That table is deliberately not smoothed over. Virginia is clear about the gate and quiet about almost every number behind it.

The market

Virginia gives you something useful here: its own agriculture department publishes observed microgreens prices.

Use those carefully. They are market manager submissions observed on one date, not a statewide price guarantee. What the numbers really tell you matters more than the numbers themselves: microgreens are already visible in Virginia. This is competition, not a blank market.

The same report lists markets across Northern Virginia, Central Virginia and Danville, a rough map of where demand is organized. Northern Virginia is the dense, high income end of the state and the obvious first target. Danville appearing alongside Forest is a reminder that the demand is not only in the crescent around Washington.

No population or density figure appears on this page, because none was sourced in this research and this series does not print numbers it has not checked.

The strategic read is set by the permit, not by the population. Because Virginia has no revenue threshold, there is no version of this business that is too small to need the permit and no version that is punished for growing. That removes the calculation that dominates Indiana, Missouri and Michigan, where growers spend real energy staying under a line. Here the line does not move, so the sensible sequence is to get permitted early, at the smallest compliant footprint you can inspect successfully, and then scale into restaurant and grocery accounts without ever revisiting the licensing question.

Two Virginia specific supports are worth a call. VDACS Produce Safety was established in 2016 within the Office of Dairy and Foods to cover growing, packing, holding and dissemination of farm produce along with Produce Safety Rule compliance, and it publishes an On-Farm Readiness Review described as free and confidential. The general line is 804-786-4003, and Program Supervisor Erik Bungo is on 804-786-1006. Treat the review as rehearsal for the inspection that gates your permit, which in Virginia is a better use of it than in most states.

On capital, the AFID Infrastructure Grant program supports food hubs, farmers markets, commercial kitchens and produce packing and processing facilities. The Spring 2026 round is marked closed, so confirm the next open period before you plan around it. Joyce Blankenship is on 804-786-1906.

The federal layer

The federal rule sits underneath all of this and uses different numbers from any state license.

• Not covered farm: $34,324. Three year average of produce sales for 2023 to 2025, from a $25,000 baseline in 2011 dollars.
• Qualified exemption: $686,476. Same three year basis, from a $500,000 baseline in 2011 dollars.

The FDA rule text still describes the historical $25,000 in 2011 dollars, which is where a lot of stale advice comes from. The 2011 baseline and the current adjusted figure are the same rule at two different points in time, not two different tests. Neither figure is a Virginia licensing exemption, and clearing the federal threshold does nothing at all for your VDACS permit. Full detail is on the FDA Produce Safety Rule page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need a license to sell microgreens in Virginia? A: For cut and packed greens, yes. 3.2-5130(A) makes it unlawful to operate a food manufacturer, food storage warehouse or retail food establishment until the Commissioner has inspected it and issued a permit. Plan the operation as a permitted food operation from the start.

Q: What if I only sell living trays and never cut them? A: That is the honest open question on this page. Virginia publishes no whole uncut produce carve out of the kind Michigan, Iowa and Arizona have, and no separate live tray category. Ask VDACS Food Safety on 804-786-3520 and get the answer in writing before you build around it.

Q: Is there a sales figure that keeps me exempt? A: No. Virginia's rule is activity and facility based. The $9,000 you may have seen belongs to home made pickles and other acidified vegetables at pH 4.6 or lower.

Q: Can I use the cottage food route? A: No, and not because of the amount you sell. The home exception in 3.2-5130(C)(3) is a closed list of processed, non temperature controlled foods such as dried herbs, dry mixes and baked goods. Raw produce is not on the list. It also requires sale to an individual for personal consumption and not for resale, which rules out restaurants and grocers separately.

Q: Can I get permitted in my house? A: Possibly. Virginia does not automatically disqualify a residence the way Tennessee's non-residential definition does. A home can be a permitted home food processing operation, but it has to pass the same pre-opening inspection, and the separation, sinks, finishes, water and sewage details are plan review questions for your assigned Food Safety Specialist.

Q: Do I need a food manager certificate? A: For a standalone cut microgreens operation, plan for a knowledgeable person in charge. Under 2VAC5-585-67 a certified food protection manager is a way to demonstrate that knowledge, and the provision does not require every worker to hold a certificate. A Certified Food Protection Manager is expressly required for a VDH regulated temporary food establishment, so an event where you cook or serve is a different rule.

Q: Does my permit move with me? A: No. A new location or a new owner needs a new application and a new permit. Factor that into any decision to relocate or to buy an existing operation.

Q: Do I charge sales tax? A: This page does not know, and will not guess. The current Virginia Tax treatment, the market exemption figure and the seller registration rules were not available from an opened Virginia Tax source during this research. Ask Virginia Tax, Business Customer Service, before you collect anything or claim an exemption.

Final thoughts

Virginia's answer is unusually clean at the top and unusually quiet underneath. The top is 3.2-5130(A): you do not operate until you have been inspected and permitted. That sentence is the whole page.

Three things to carry away. Build for the inspection, not for opening day, because in Virginia those are the same date and the inspection comes first. Do not go looking for the exemption you read about in another state, because the home exception here is a closed list of processed foods and raw produce simply is not on it, at any volume. And get the living tray question answered in writing, because it is the one thing on this page that Virginia has genuinely left open, and an assumption there is the expensive kind.

If something here does not match what VDACS 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 7 August 2026.