Kansas allows on-farm sales of raw milk, butter, cream, yogurt, kefir and unaged cheese with no permit required. Producers may advertise freely since 2019.
Kansas is considerably more open than it is usually given credit for. On-farm sales require no permit, the statutory definition covers raw milk products and not just fluid milk, and producers have been free to advertise since a First Amendment challenge succeeded in 2019. Most summaries of Kansas law are out of date on that last point.
Yes, at the farm, and without a permit. Kansas dairy law requires that milk sold in final package form be pasteurized or ultrapasteurized, then carves out an express exception: that requirement applies "except for on-farm retail sale of milk or milk products" (K.S.A. 65-771).
The statute defines that exception broadly. Under K.S.A. 65-771(bb), "on-farm retail sales of milk or milk products" means the sale of unpasteurized raw milk or unpasteurized raw milk products on the farm by the producer, from the production of the dairy herd, to the final consumer.
Two consequences follow. Because the definition reaches raw milk products and not only fluid milk, Kansas producers can offer a wider range than milk-only states. And because the activity is written as an exception to the pasteurization rule rather than as a licensed category, it sits outside the dairy plant and distributor licensing scheme entirely, so there is no permit to apply for and no fee to pay.
This is the point most out-of-date summaries get wrong, and it changes how you find supply. The statute historically limited promotion to a sign erected on the dairy farm itself. That restriction was challenged, and following a consent judgment entered in the Shawnee District Court holding it contrary to the First and Fourteenth Amendments and section 11 of the Kansas Bill of Rights, the Kansas Department of Agriculture stopped enforcing the advertising limitation as of 5 November 2019.
Kansas producers can therefore advertise raw milk openly: websites, social media, roadside signage, listings. If you have read elsewhere that Kansas farms may only put up a sign at the gate, that guidance predates the judgment. In practice it means Kansas is one of the easier states in the region to find a producer online.
The transaction happens on the farm, between the producer and the final consumer, from that producer's own dairy herd. Kansas does not authorise off-farm delivery routes or farmers market stalls for raw milk, so the farm visit is the model even though the advertising that leads you there is unrestricted.
Start online, because Kansas producers can and do advertise. Beyond that, farms operate across the state with the best availability within reach of Wichita, Kansas City, Topeka, Lawrence and Manhattan, and across the eastern farming counties. Kansas has Amish and Mennonite communities, including around Yoder in Reno County and Garnett in Anderson County, with traditional dairying.
Because there is no permit register, there is no official state list, so producers are located through their own advertising, local food networks, farmers market conversations and food cooperatives.
Missouri to the east is the most useful neighbour: on-farm sales and delivery need no permit, and permitted producers may sell at farmers markets, which is worth knowing if you are in the Kansas City area where the state line runs through the metro. Nebraska to the north allows on-farm sales of milk and cream with no permit. Oklahoma to the south permits on-farm sales and, since a 2026 law, raised its sales cap and legalised producer advertising. Colorado to the west operates through herdshares. Federal law at 21 CFR 1240.61 restricts interstate commerce in raw milk, though the FDA has stated it has never taken and does not intend to take enforcement action against an individual transporting raw milk across a state line solely for personal consumption. For the federal framework, see the United States raw milk laws overview.
Official government documents and legal resources for Kansas
The Kansas dairy definitions statute, which excepts on-farm retail sale from the pasteurization requirement and defines on-farm retail sales of milk or milk products as the sale of unpasteurized raw milk or unpasteurized raw milk products on the farm by the producer to the final consumer.
View Official Resource →Kansas Legislative Research Department briefing on raw milk law, covering on-farm sales under K.S.A. 65-771 and the consent judgment that ended enforcement of the advertising restriction in November 2019.
View Official Resource →Analysis of the constitutional challenge to the Kansas raw milk advertising restriction and the consent judgment enjoining the Department of Agriculture from enforcing it.
View Official Resource →Search for raw milk sources near popular locations in Kansas
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