Licenses and permits in Montana

Forming the company is not permission to do the work. Montana does not issue one statewide license for every business. Cities and counties do their own licensing, the state licenses professions, and a few specific trades sit on a state portal.

What’s different in Montana

• There is no general state business license. City and county offices provide business licensing in Montana. The state licenses professions¹.
• eStop is a short list, not a license for every trade. It covers traditional and sports bet lottery, retail food, nursery retail sales, landscape service, sod farmers, underground storage tanks, meters, scales, tobacco products, alternative nicotine and vapor products, and off-premise beer and wine².
• Construction contractor licensing started January 1, 2026. The fee on the board’s sheet is $70³. A job under $2,500⁴ is outside the chapter, and that exemption has a limit.
• Home food has two routes, and neither is a commercial kitchen permit. A cottage food registration is $40⁷ on the FAQ. A direct sale under the Local Food Choice Act needs no license. Either way the sale is direct, and wholesale is out.
• Off-premise beer and wine is on the eStop list. A bar or a restaurant is not on that list.

Do this

1. Ask the city and the county where you will operate. City and county offices provide business licensing in Montana. The state licenses professions¹. Requirements differ by place. The Secretary of State filing is not that license. We did not read a directory of every city.* Call the clerk for the city and the county you will work in.
2. Use eStop only if your work is on its list. eStop is now administered by the Department of Labor and Industry, through its Citizen Portal. The license types it lists are traditional and sports bet lottery, retail food, nursery retail sales, landscape service, sod farmers, underground storage tanks, meters, scales, tobacco products, alternative nicotine and vapor products, and off-premise beer and wine². If your work is not on that list, eStop will not issue the credential. Off-premise beer and wine is the alcohol item on the list. A license to serve alcohol on the premises comes from the Department of Revenue's Alcoholic Beverage Control Division¹. Apply there for the license that matches the sale.
3. If the work is a licensed profession, use that board. The state licenses specific professions and occupations, through the Department of Labor and Industry¹. The Department of Labor and Industry lists its boards and licensing programs. We did not read every board’s fee.* Open the board for your profession before you take a client.
4. If the work is contracting, read the exemption before you assume you need the license. The license has been in effect since January 1, 2026. The board's summary targets contractors with employees, and corporations and manager-managed LLCs even with no employees. The FAQ prints the fee as $70³ for the application and for renewal. The exemption statute then takes several kinds of work out of the chapter. One of them is a casual job whose total price for labor, materials, and other items is less than $2,500, and that exemption does not apply if the small contracts are a way to avoid the license. An owner working on the owner's own property is outside the chapter, unless the owner is building an improvement in order to sell it promptly⁴. The statute lists more exemptions, including a farmer or rancher at work on the farm. Read the section for the job you will actually do.
5. Selling food from home? There are two routes. The first is a cottage food operation. Register with the local health authority in the county where the home is. The statute says the department sets the registration fee by rule⁵. The department FAQ says the fee is $40, and that a move or a new recipe means registering and paying again. Put a label that says the food was made in a home kitchen that is not inspected as a retail food establishment on the package. Consignment, including through a retail food establishment or a wholesaler, is prohibited⁶. The sale has to be face to face. A grocery store or restaurant cannot buy it. A courier or the mail cannot deliver it⁷. The FAQ also says a farmers-market vendor who sells only foods on the farmers-market exemption list, and only at a farmers market, does not register as a cottage food operation. For other foods or other ways of selling, the FAQ sends you to the local environmental health office. The second route is the Local Food Choice Act, for homemade food sold directly to the end consumer, for home consumption or a traditional community social event, and only inside Montana. A state or local agency may not require a license, permit, label, test, or inspection for that food. You have to tell the buyer the food was not licensed, permitted, certified, packaged, labeled, or inspected. The food cannot be sold to or used in a retail food establishment unless it was licensed and inspected as the law requires. Raw, unprocessed fruit, vegetables, and aquaculture products are the exception. A restaurant or grocery store is a retail food establishment. Meat processed anywhere, including by the producer, cannot go into homemade food sold this way. A producer who slaughters fewer than 1,000 poultry birds a year is the exception, and federal poultry rules still apply to that producer. A small dairy, a place that keeps no more than 5 lactating cows, 10 lactating goats, or 10 lactating sheep for milk⁹, has to test its milk or cream every 6 months, test each lactating animal for brucellosis every year, and keep the test records for 2 years⁸. Neither route is a sales-tax permit. Montana has no general sales tax. Sales tax is on Get your tax IDs.
6. Keep each expiration on its own line. A city license, a contractor license, and a cottage-food registration do not share a date with the Secretary of State annual report. That report is due between January 1 and April 15¹⁰. The details are on Stay compliant.

What you get back

A local license if the city or county requires one, an eStop license only if your work is on that list, a contractor license if the statute covers the job, and a cottage-food registration if you sell from home inside the rules. Each one stands on its own. None of them is the LLC filing.