About LegalToOpen
Last updated
LegalToOpen tells small business owners exactly what they need to open legally: every permit, licence, fee and form, in the right order, for their state and city.
We started with food, because food rules are some of the most confusing. Whether you want to sell cookies from your kitchen, run a food truck or set up at a farmers market, the rules come from several places at once: the state, your county health department and sometimes your city. Most guides stop at a generic list. We put all of it on one page, as a numbered checklist, with the fee and the official form for each step.
What makes our guides different
- Complete and in order. State, county and city rules together, as steps you can follow.
- Sourced and dated. Every fee and rule links to the official source, and every guide shows the date a person last checked it against those sources.
- Plain English. Short sentences. When a legal term matters, we explain it.
- Fixed fast. If you find a mistake, tell us. We check every report.
Who writes the guides
LegalToOpen is written and checked by Amrit.
We are not lawyers and we are not a government agency. Our guides are general information to help you understand the process. They are not legal advice. See our disclaimer.
How we make money
The site is free to read. We plan to show a small number of ads, and we may later link to useful paid services such as food handler courses or insurance. Advertisers never decide what a guide says. If we ever earn money from a link, we will say so on the page.