Licenses, permits, and food safety for caterers

This is the unglamorous chapter that keeps you in business. Nobody starts a catering company because they love filing for permits, but the caterers who skip this part don’t last — they get shut down, sued, or fined out of the money they were trying to save. The good news: the full legal setup is a finite checklist, most of it is cheap or free, and you can knock it out in a couple of weeks. Here’s the whole thing, start to finish.

One note before the list: requirements are set locally. Every item below exists in some form almost everywhere, but the specifics — which permit, what it costs, who issues it — are decided by your city, county, and state. Verify each one with your own authorities. Nothing here is legal advice; it’s a map of what to go ask about.

Registering the business

• Business structure. Your first real decision is sole proprietor versus LLC. A sole proprietorship is the default — you don’t file anything to become one, and it’s the simplest and cheapest way to operate — but there’s no legal wall between you and the business, so a lawsuit or debt can reach your personal house and savings. An LLC costs a modest state filing fee and a little paperwork, and in exchange it separates your personal assets from the business, which in a field where you’re feeding hundreds of people is exactly the risk you want walled off. That’s why most caterers form an LLC. It’s not one-size-fits-all, though — the right structure depends on your income, your state, and your tolerance for risk, so it’s worth a short conversation with an attorney or accountant before you file.
• EIN (Employer Identification Number). This is your business’s tax ID, and you’ll need it to open a business bank account, file taxes, and often to register for other permits. Get it free, directly from the IRS at irs.gov — it takes minutes online. Ignore any site that wants to charge you for one; those are middlemen reselling a free government service.
• Sales-tax registration. Most states require caterers to collect and remit sales tax on the food and services they sell, and catering is often taxed differently from grocery food, so don’t assume. Register with your state’s tax or revenue department, get your sales-tax permit, and build the tax into your pricing from your first invoice rather than discovering later that you owe it out of pocket. Keep the collected tax separate in your head from your revenue — it isn’t yours, you’re just holding it for the state.
• Business license. Most cities or counties require a general business license to operate, sometimes called a business tax certificate. It’s usually inexpensive and handled at the local level. Check both your city and your county, since some require both — and this is separate from anything food-specific.

The food permits and certifications

This is the layer that’s specific to feeding people for money, and it’s where the health department enters the picture.

• Health-department permit. To cook and sell perishable, catered food, you operate out of a licensed commercial kitchen (covered in home kitchen, cottage food, or a commissary kitchen) and you carry the food-service permit your local health department requires. Expect an inspection — the inspector typically checks that food is held at safe temperatures, that you have a working thermometer, that raw and ready-to-eat foods are stored separately, that handwashing facilities are available and used, and that surfaces and equipment are clean and sanitized. If you rent a commissary, the facility carries its own permit, but you as the operator still need yours. Requirements and inspection rules vary by county — call your local health department, ask whether caterers need a separate catering or food-service permit, and get the current checklist in writing before you book your first job.
• Food-handler certification. At minimum, you’ll typically need a food-handler card, and often so does anyone you bring on to help. A ServSafe Food Handler card costs about $15, ranging roughly $7–$30 (per ServSafe and easy-prep, 2025–2026). It’s basic, cheap, and quick — an online course and a short test covering the fundamentals of safe food handling.
• Manager certification. Many jurisdictions require at least one certified food-protection manager on the business, and as the owner that’s usually you. ServSafe Manager certification runs about $78–$198 (per ServSafe and easy-prep, 2025–2026). It goes deeper than the handler card — temperatures, cross-contamination, cleaning and sanitizing, allergen management, and how to build safe procedures — and it’s worth having regardless of whether your county mandates it, because it’s the knowledge that keeps you from making people sick. The simple rule of thumb: handler cards are for everyone touching food, manager certification is for the person responsible for the operation. When in doubt about which your area requires, ask your health department directly.

Altogether, the licensing and permit layer tends to total somewhere in the low four figures for a new caterer — see how it fits the whole picture in what it costs to start a catering business. And while you’re squaring away the legal setup, get your general liability insurance in place at the same time; it’s the other thing standing between you and a business-ending event. Typical pricing and what it covers are in the insurance chapter — don’t treat it as optional.

The food-safety rules you run every single event

Certifications prove you learned the rules. Running the rules is what actually keeps your guests safe and your name clean. These are the fundamentals every caterer executes on every job, no exceptions.

Hold food at the right temperature. Hot food stays at 135°F or above. Cold food stays at 41°F or below. The range in between — 41°F to 135°F — is the danger zone, where bacteria multiply fast (per the FDA Food Code). Your commercial-grade thermometer is not optional equipment; it’s how you know you’re compliant instead of hoping you are. Check temperatures, don’t eyeball them.

Respect the 2-hour clock. Under the FDA Food Code, potentially hazardous (TCS) food left in the danger zone for more than a cumulative two hours must be discarded. The word that trips up new caterers is cumulative. That clock doesn’t start when the tray hits the buffet — it includes cooling, loading, transport, setup, and service, all added together. The chicken that sat 40 minutes cooling, rode 30 minutes in the car, and waited 30 minutes during setup has already used most of its clock before a single guest is served. Catering is one long fight against that two-hour window, which is why hot boxes, cold packs, and tight timing matter so much. Plan your logistics around the clock, not around the schedule.

Know your allergens. The major food allergens — including milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish, shellfish, and sesame — can send a guest to the hospital. Know exactly what’s in every dish, be able to answer allergen questions honestly and specifically, and prevent cross-contact between allergen-containing and allergen-free food during prep, transport, and service. When a client tells you someone has a severe allergy, treat it as a hard requirement, not a preference.

Prevent cross-contamination. Bacteria hitch rides. Keep raw meat, poultry, and seafood physically separated from ready-to-eat foods at every stage — different cutting boards, different containers, stored so raw juices can never drip onto finished food. Wash and sanitize any board, knife, or surface that touched raw protein before it touches anything else. Color-coding your boards is a cheap way to make this automatic instead of a thing you have to remember mid-rush.

Wash hands and keep clean. Handwashing is the most boring food-safety rule and the one that prevents the most illness. Wash with soap and warm water when you start, after handling raw protein, after touching your face or phone, after taking out trash, and any time you switch tasks. Wear clean clothing, tie back hair, keep fingernails short, and stay home when you’re sick — a caterer with a stomach bug working an event is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Gloves help but they are not a substitute for clean hands; a dirty hand in a glove is still a dirty hand.

Cool food correctly. Cooling is where a lot of home-trained cooks get caught, because a big pot of chili or a tray of rice cools slowly and spends hours in the danger zone if you just set it on the counter. Cool hot food quickly — shallow pans, an ice bath, breaking large batches into smaller portions — so it drops out of the danger zone fast. If you prep ahead for a later event, get it cold quickly and keep it at 41°F or below until you reheat.

Label what you make. Label prepped and stored food with what it is and the date it was made, so nothing outlives its safe life in your cooler and so you can answer an inspector’s or a client’s questions without guessing. When a dish contains major allergens, note it.

Transport clean and separate. The trip from kitchen to event is where a lot of caterers get sloppy. Keep hot and cold foods in the right carriers so they hold temperature — and remember that transport time is on the two-hour clock. Keep raw and ready-to-eat foods physically separated. Keep transport containers and surfaces clean and sanitized. A clean kitchen means nothing if the food gets contaminated in the back of the car.

Get it done, then keep it current

None of this is exotic. Register the business, pull your free EIN, sign up for sales tax, get your local business license, secure your health-department permit and your ServSafe cards, and put insurance in place. Then run the food-safety fundamentals like clockwork on every event. That’s the whole compliance picture for a new caterer.

The one thing to remember: permits and certifications expire, and rules change. Renew before they lapse, and re-check your local requirements periodically, because what your county wanted this year isn’t guaranteed to be what it wants next year. Requirements are local, they shift, and the responsibility to stay current is yours — verify with your city, county, and state, and treat this chapter as your starting checklist rather than legal advice. When you’ve got the legal layer handled, head back to the start hub to line up the rest of your launch.