Selling food from home in Australian Capital Territory

In the Australian Capital Territory, most food businesses must register with the ACT Health Protection Service before opening. Access Canberra is the front door for the application. There is no local-council food-registration pathway. Fees depend on risk classification and registration length. Domestic home kitchens are only approved for low-risk food preparation.

At a glance

Who regulates you

The ACT does not use a municipal council as the food-business registration authority.

ACT Health Protection Service (HPS) administers food safety law, assesses applications, inspects premises and grants registration under the Food Act 2001 (ACT).

Access Canberra provides the public registration pathway and related business licensing services. You apply through Access Canberra or by submitting the Food Business Registration Application to HPS, but the legal gate is HPS registration, not a council notification.

That split matters because guidance written for NSW, Victoria or South Australia often says "contact your council". In the ACT, that sentence is usually wrong for food-business registration.

Planning, Crown lease and development approval sit under ACT planning and land-use rules. They are separate from HPS registration. Food registration does not replace planning approval, and planning approval does not replace food registration.

What counts as a food business

Under section 10 of the Food Act 2001 (ACT), a food business is a business, enterprise or activity (other than primary food production) that involves handling food intended for sale, or selling food.

The Act expressly covers activity whether or not it is commercial, charitable or community-based, and whether or not it involves handling or sale of food on a single occasion only.

A home baker selling at markets, a temporary stall, a community group selling food and a one-off catering activity can all fall inside that definition.

Primary production ends where direct public sale begins

Section 11 defines primary food production as growing, raising, cultivating, picking, harvesting, collecting or catching food, including certain packing, treating, storing and transport activities on the production premises.

Primary food production does not include:

• substantial transformation of food (for example manufacturing or canning)
• the sale or service of food directly to the public

Growing produce can remain primary production. Selling that produce directly to the public is a different activity and can bring the sale within the food-business framework.

Parts of the Act that deal with registration do not apply to primary food production itself. Direct sale to the public is outside that primary-production definition.

Registration is the default. Exemptions are narrow

Most food businesses that sell food to the public must register with HPS before opening.

ACT government guidance and the Food Regulation prescribe exemptions from registration. The important practical ones for small sellers are:

Limited occasions

A business may be exempt if it handles or sells food during no more than 5 periods a year, each period no longer than 3 days, and all the food is either:

• non-potentially hazardous and not in a closed package (ACT examples include plain scones or whole fruit), or
• sold straight after thorough cooking for immediate consumption (for example a barbecue stall)

Closed-package, non-potentially hazardous only

A business that sells only food contained in a closed package intended for sale, and that is non-potentially hazardous, may be exempt from registration.

Other prescribed exemptions

The regulation also covers food transport vehicles registered under corresponding State law, businesses that only transport food without otherwise handling or selling it, and certain non-potentially hazardous vending-machine sales.

Exemption from registration is not exemption from food safety law. ACT guidance is explicit: even where you do not need to register, you must still follow food safety requirements.

Declared (regulated) events

If you sell food at a declared event, registration is required even for temporary stalls or home-based businesses selling at that event. Declared events are large public gatherings where food-safety risk is treated as high, such as major festivals.

Home kitchens: low-risk only

This is the ACT-specific gate that catches many home sellers.

ACT government guidance on selling food from a home-based business states that:

• you must be registered under the Food Act before opening
• home kitchens are suitable only for low-risk food preparation
• registrations for home-based kitchens are approved only where the business produces low-risk foods

The Food Business Registration Application explains that a home business uses a home to handle food for sale, including preparing food for markets, school canteens, catering and online sales from home, and that only shelf-stable low-risk food can be prepared for sale in a home business unless there is a separate approved commercial kitchen.

If you need to prepare higher-risk foods from home, ACT guidance says you need a completely separate commercial kitchen with the correct approvals, not the domestic kitchen used for household cooking.

Before you apply, decide what you will make, confirm a domestic kitchen is suitable for that food, start Food Safety Supervisor training where required, and get the set-up and equipment right. A public health officer will organise an inspection of your kitchen.

How to register

1. Confirm the pathway

Check whether you must register, or whether a published exemption applies. If you are selling at a declared event, treat registration as required.

2. Confirm the premises pathway

For a home business, confirm the food is low-risk enough for a domestic kitchen. Check Crown lease and any planning or development requirements separately through ACT planning processes.

3. Prepare the application

You will need fit-out or premises plans where required, identification documents, the registration fee for your risk class and term, and Food Safety Supervisor arrangements.

4. Apply through Access Canberra or HPS

Apply online via the Access Canberra / ACT forms pathway, or print and return the Food Business Registration Application to the Health Protection Service with the fee.

Contact: 02 5124 9700 or hps@act.gov.au.

5. Inspection before grant

ACT Health inspects the premises before registration is granted. Once requirements under the Food Standards Code and the Food Act are met, a registration certificate is issued. You must display the certificate at the business.

6. Choose registration length

You can register for one, two or three years. HPS sends a renewal reminder about three to four weeks before expiry.

Fees (published)

Some service-based and charitable organisations may be exempt from fees if they meet the published evidence requirements. Fee exemption is not the same as registration exemption.

Penalty for operating without registration

Section 89 of the Food Act makes it an offence to conduct a food business that is neither registered nor exempt. The maximum penalty is 50 penalty units, imprisonment for 6 months, or both.

Under the Legislation Act 2001 (ACT), section 133, at this page's verification date a penalty unit is A$160 for an individual and A$810 for a corporation.

Food Safety Supervisor and Standard 3.2.2A

ACT has its own Food Safety Supervisor requirement for registered food businesses. Registered ACT food businesses must nominate a Food Safety Supervisor trained appropriately. ACT guidance notes some non-profit community organisations are exempt from that FSS requirement. Confirm any exemption with HPS before relying on it.

This ACT FSS rule is separate from the Category 1 and Category 2 triggers under national Standard 3.2.2A. Standard 3.2.2A applies nationally to particular food service, catering and retail businesses handling unpackaged, potentially hazardous ready-to-eat food. A home business limited to shelf-stable low-risk packaged foods is not the same activity as a café. The dividing line is the food and how you handle it.

Even where Standard 3.2.2A does not apply, food businesses must ensure people who handle food have skills and knowledge appropriate to the work they do.

Labelling food you sell from home

Labelling is governed nationally through the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, not by a separate ACT labelling statute.

For packaged retail food that must carry a label, the Code can require information including:

• the name or description of the food
• lot identification
• the supplier's name and address in Australia or New Zealand
• a statement of ingredients where required
• applicable date marking
• directions for use or storage where required
• allergen declarations and required warning or advisory statements
• a nutrition information panel where required

Do not assume every element applies to every food. The Code contains exemptions and different information requirements for some unpackaged foods and foods made and packaged at the point of sale.

Nutrition information panels are not universal

Most packaged food requires a Nutrition Information Panel, but FSANZ publishes exemptions. Making a nutrition or health claim can also trigger nutrition-information requirements that would otherwise not apply.

Allergen declarations matter

Australia's plain-English allergen labelling requirements apply to foods covered by the relevant labelling provisions. Check current Standard 1.2.3 requirements when you design labels.

Country of origin is separate

Country-of-origin food labelling is not a current Food Standards Code label element.

In Australia it sits under the Country of Origin Food Labelling Information Standard 2016, which forms part of Australian Consumer Law. Depending on the food and how it is sold, country-of-origin requirements may still apply under that separate framework.

Supplier address on a home-food label

Where the Code requires supplier identification, it requires the supplier's name and address in Australia or New Zealand. For a home business, privacy can become a practical issue if the home is the business address. Published FSANZ material establishes the supplier-address requirement but does not provide a general rule that every home seller must print a residential address or that a PO box will always satisfy the requirement. Establish that any alternative address satisfies the Code before printing labels.

Where you can sell

ACT food law captures sale of food, including direct sale to the public. There is no published ACT "honesty box" exemption from the Food Act. The Act does not create a separate exemption merely because the sale is unattended. If the activity otherwise meets the definition of a food business, using an honesty box or QR payment does not by itself take it outside that definition.

ACT does not publish a detailed channel-by-channel rulebook for farm gate, roadside stalls, markets, online pickup or shipping. Treat the sales channel as part of the compliance question: registration or exemption status, premises suitability, labelling, and any planning or event rules for that location. Markets can add their own insurance and booking conditions.

HPS registration and permission to operate from a residential lease or roadside location are different issues. Check Crown lease obligations and whether a development application or exemption applies. Food registration does not automatically authorise the land use.

GST, ABNs and getting paid

Food-business registration does not register you for tax.

The Australian Taxation Office says a business generally reaches the GST registration threshold when its current or projected GST turnover is A$75,000 or more. For non-profit bodies, the threshold is A$150,000. GST turnover is based on turnover, not profit.

There is no single dollar figure that turns a hobby into a business. Australian Government guidance looks at profit intention, repetition, scale, how planned and businesslike the activity is, and whether you keep business records. Do not confuse the tax test with the Food Act.

Once the compliance side is sorted, an unattended stand still has a practical problem: taking payment without someone standing beside it all day. If you want customers to scan a QR code, select what they are buying, pay and update stall inventory without someone being there, see how Vendl handles farm-stand checkout and pre-orders.

The ACT catch

The ACT system looks simple from a distance: one territory, one Health Protection Service registration, published fees.

The trap is that registration and kitchen suitability are not the same question.

You can understand that you need to register, pay the low-risk fee and book an inspection, and still fail the pathway if the food you want to make is not suitable for a domestic kitchen. ACT guidance is blunt: home kitchens are for low-risk preparation, and home-based registrations are approved on that basis. Higher-risk preparation needs a separate approved commercial kitchen.

The second trap is treating a registration exemption as a free pass. The Food Regulation exemptions for limited occasions and closed-package non-potentially hazardous sales remove the registration obligation for qualifying activities. They do not remove food safety law, and they do not create a US-style cottage food regime.

Add the primary-production line and the picture is complete. Growing food can sit outside registration. Selling that food directly to the public does not stay inside the primary-production definition.

So the ACT organising question is not "which council do I notify?" It is: does this activity require HPS registration, does a published exemption apply, and is the kitchen you intend to use actually eligible for the food you want to sell?

Nearby jurisdictions

The ACT is surrounded by New South Wales rules. If you prepare food in the ACT and sell into NSW, or the other way around, you need to check both systems. A New South Wales guide will be linked here when that page is published.

For another published Australian jurisdiction reference, see selling food from home in South Australia.

There is no ACT council food-registration directory, because local councils are not the food-business registration authority here.

Sources and verification

This page was checked against primary government and legislation material on 24 August 2026.

Primary sources used:

• Food Act 2001 (ACT), including sections 6, 10, 11 and 89
• Food Regulation 2002 (ACT), section prescribing food businesses exempt from registration (cross-checked against current ACT register guidance)
• Legislation Act 2001 (ACT) s 133 (penalty unit values)
• Register a food business (ACT Government)
• Fees to register a food business (ACT Government)
• Selling food from a home-based business (ACT Government)
• Start a food business (ACT Government)
• Food Business Registration Application (ACT Government)
• Access Canberra register a food business
• Food Standards Australia New Zealand, Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code and labelling guidance
• Australian Taxation Office, GST registration threshold guidance
• business.gov.au, business-versus-hobby guidance

Rules change. Confirm current requirements with the Health Protection Service before you start. This page is a practical reference, not legal advice, and does not replace the Food Act 2001 (ACT), the Food Standards Code or directions from an authorised regulator.

Last verified: 24 August 2026 Next review: 24 February 2027