Nevada Has No MEHKO Permit, but a Home Kitchen Can Be Permitted as a Food Establishment

Start with the negative, because it is the part people get wrong. Nevada recodified its entire food establishment law in 2025: chapter 512, Statutes of Nevada 2025 repealed NRS chapter 446 and re-enacted the scheme as NRS chapter 580. A full-text search of the new chapter returns zero hits for microenterprise, zero for home kitchen and zero for meals. NAC chapter 446, which is still the operative regulation, returns the same zero. There is no California-style MEHKO permit here, no meal count, no annual gross sales ceiling for cooked food, and no exemption that lets a Nevada resident cook dinners at home for paying customers without a permit.

What replaces it is a permitting route rather than a carve-out. NRS 580.050(2)(a) excludes private homes from the definition of food establishment, but only until the food prepared or manufactured in the home is sold, or offered or displayed for sale or for compensation or contractual consideration of any kind. At that moment the home is a food establishment. NRS 580.900(1) makes it unlawful to operate a food establishment without a valid permit from the food safety authority, and NRS 580.900(4) states the same rule from the other direction: food prepared in a private home must not be sold, or offered or displayed for sale or for any compensation or contractual consideration, unless the person preparing it possesses a valid permit issued for that purpose. NAC 446.101(2) carries the identical sentence in the regulation. So Nevada does not forbid a home food business. It requires the home to become a licensed commercial kitchen.

NAC 446.576 is where that becomes concrete, and it is the part worth reading before signing a lease or drawing plans. A food establishment may not be located in a private home unless all four conditions are met: the establishment can meet every applicable provision of NAC chapter 446, a dedicated exterior entrance has been provided, the areas used for food establishment operations are physically separated from the living or sleeping quarters by walls or self-closing doors, and those areas are not used as thoroughfares. The dedicated exterior entrance is the condition that stops most kitchen table applicants, because the family kitchen almost never has one. Restrooms must be provided in accordance with the chapter, with one concession in subsection 3: if every employee of the food establishment resides in the private home, the restroom inside the home satisfies the requirement. NAC 446.577 adds that living or sleeping quarters on the premises of a food establishment must be separated from food operation areas by complete partitioning and solid, self-closing doors.

Subsection 4 is the sentence with the longest tail. Once a permit to operate is issued to a homeowner or resident allowing a food establishment in part of a private residence, that portion of the home and its premises is no longer considered part of the private home or residence at all. It is a food establishment, subject to all laws and regulations applicable to food establishments, including those requiring inspections. NAC 446.053 reinforces it from the operations side: the person in charge must ensure the operation is not conducted in a private home or in a room used as living or sleeping quarters, which is to say, in the unconverted part of the house.

The permit itself comes from the food safety authority, defined by NRS 580.080 as the officers and agents of the State Department of Agriculture or the officers and agents of the local boards of health. NRS 580.210(2) lets a local board of health adopt its own regulations, which supersede the Department regulations once the Department approves them, so the applicable rulebook in Clark and Washoe counties is the district health authority's, not the state's. NRS 580.400 sets the application: full name and post office address, a statement whether the applicant is a natural person, firm or corporation, the location and type of the proposed establishment, the applicant's signature, and a fee prescribed by the food safety authority. The authority must inspect before issuing, and the permit is not transferable from person to person or from place to place and must be posted. NRS 580.260 separately requires plans and specifications to be reviewed before construction, remodeling or alteration.

The permit-free routes that do exist are narrow and none of them reaches cooked meals sold from a home. A cottage food operation under NRS 580.600 covers shelf-stable goods only, sold in person, and expressly excludes anything requiring time or temperature control. A craft food operation under NRS 587.6945 covers acidified home canning. NRS 580.900(3) exempts food prepared in a private home and given away free of charge or consideration of any kind, unless it is given to a food establishment. NRS 580.900(2) lets the food safety authority exempt an establishment where it determines the food does not constitute a potential or actual hazard to public health, which is discretionary and case by case. NRS 580.900(5) lets a religious, charitable or other nonprofit organization sell food occasionally to raise money without a permit, but only on the organization's own premises. And the closest Nevada comes to a hot-meal carve-out is not a house at all: NRS 580.610 lets a farm hold a farm-to-fork event serving prepared food to paying guests without being a food establishment, provided the meat is raised and processed on the farm or in a chapter 583 or USDA facility, the other dishes are made on the farm from substantially farm-grown ingredients, and every guest is told in advance that no state or local health department inspected the farm or the food. Hold more than two such events in a month and the farm becomes a food establishment for the rest of the calendar year.

Selling food you cooked at home without the permit is a misdemeanor. 910, adds that violators may be enjoined from continuing, and provides that each day on which a violation occurs constitutes a separate violation. 980 assigns prosecution to the district attorney of the county where the violation occurred. 800 governs suspension or revocation of the permit with a hearing. 810 lets the licensing authority revoke the business license when the health permit is revoked. 053 for private homes no longer shields it.