Last verified: August 2026. Every requirement below is sourced to the Arkansas Rules Pertaining to Retail Food Establishments, the Arkansas Code, the Code of Arkansas Rules, or the jurisdiction named. Links are at the foot of the page.
State requirement: No statewide requirement
Law: No state law · Authority: Arkansas Dept of Health · Verified: August 2026
No card is required anywhere in Arkansas, by the state or by any of the 49 jurisdictions checked.
Arkansas does not require a food handler card. Not from the state, and — this is the part usually hedged — not from any Arkansas city or county either. All 49 Arkansas jurisdictions with published codes were searched for this guide. None requires one.
Also called a food handler certificate, food handler certification, food handlers permit, or food handlers license — none of these credentials exist as a requirement in Arkansas, under any name.
What Arkansas requires is a certified manager, one per establishment, and even that comes with a wrinkle most pages miss: the certified manager does not have to be on the premises. Here is the whole picture.
Quick answer
- Statewide worker card, permit, or certification: none. Arkansas permits food establishments, not the people who work in them.
- City or county card: none. All 49 jurisdictions checked.
- What the state requires: at least one employee with supervisory authority must be a certified food protection manager — an obligation on the establishment, not on you.
- Must that manager be on site? No. The rule requires them to be employed, not present.
- What it costs you: nothing. Arkansas charges an individual food worker $0 and issues them no credential.
- What your employer pays: $35 a year for the establishment permit.
- Which exam counts: any programme accredited by a Conference for Food Protection–recognised accrediting agency. Arkansas publishes no approved-provider list.
Do you need a food handler card in Arkansas?
No. There is nothing to hold, and the Arkansas Department of Health says so in its own FAQ: food handlers are not required to earn a card, certificate, or license.
The rule bears that out. Chapter 2 of the Rules Pertaining to Retail Food Establishments — the personnel chapter — contains no food handler card, permit, certificate or worker registration of any kind. The only individual credential anywhere in it is the certified food protection manager.
Permits attach to the business. Rule § 8-301: “A PERMIT issued by the REGULATORY AUTHORITY is required to operate a RETAIL FOOD ESTABLISHMENT.” And Ark. Code Ann. § 20-57-204(a): “No food service establishment shall be allowed to operate unless it has procured a food establishment permit.” The permit holder is the owner or operator — never the individual worker.
The rule that looks like a food handler card and isn’t
Arkansas does have a regulation headed “Public food handlers” — 20 CAR § 102-117 — and it is almost certainly where the confusion starts. Here it is in full:
No person known to be infected with a communicable disease, or suspected of being infected with a communicable disease, or who has been found to be a carrier of disease-producing organisms, shall engage in the commercial handling of food… until he or she is determined by the Department of Health to be: (1) Free of such disease; or (2) Incapable of transmitting the infection.
That is a communicable disease exclusion rule, not a credential. There is no card, no fee, no training, no application and nothing to carry. A worker covered by it holds no document. If you see “Arkansas food handler regulation” cited at you, check whether what is being cited is this.
What it costs you: nothing
An Arkansas food worker pays the State of Arkansas $0. There is no worker credential, so there is no worker fee, application or renewal.
The fees that exist are your employer’s, and they are unusually modest — set by statute at Ark. Code Ann. § 20-57-204:
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Annual food service permit | $35 |
| Temporary food establishment permit | $5 per day |
| Late renewal | Half the renewal fee |
| Plan review (new build or remodel) | 1% of estimated cost — minimum $50, maximum $500 |
Certain operations are exempt from the permit fee under § 20-57-204 — public school cafeterias, nonprofit fundraising food sales, potlucks and community picnics, retail food stores under $150,000 gross sales, and out-of-state water bottlers. Fee-exempt is not inspection-exempt; school cafeterias remain subject to inspection.
The one training rule that touches you
Rule § 2-103.10(M) makes the person in charge responsible for ensuring that “EMPLOYEES are properly trained in FOOD safety, including FOOD allergy awareness, as it relates to their assigned duties.”
That is the closest thing Arkansas has to a food handler training mandate, and it is a duty on your employer, not on you. It names no course, no exam, no card, no provider, no number of hours and no fee. Training by your manager satisfies it. An employer may still require a course as their own policy — that is a workplace rule, not Arkansas law.
You also do not sign an employee health agreement in Arkansas. Rule § 2-201.10(N) requires only that employees be “informed in a verifiable manner” of their duty to report illness to the person in charge. A signed form is one way to do that; the rule does not require that form. Arkansas has no equivalent of the FDA’s Form 1-B.
Arkansas’s real requirement: a certified food protection manager (the short version)
Arkansas puts its obligation on the establishment, not the worker. Rule § 2-102.11(A) requires that at least one employee with supervisory and management responsibility “shall be a certified food protection manager” who passed a test from an accredited program. One employee, with supervisory authority, not every worker and not every shift lead.
The wrinkle most pages miss: that certified manager does not have to be on the premises. The rule requires them to be employed, not present. What must be present during all hours of operation is the person in charge (§ 2-101.10(A)), and they do not have to be certified. Pages that merge the two into “a certified manager must be on site whenever you are open” describe a requirement Arkansas does not impose.
Which exams count, what they cost, the 12-month grace period for new permits and the minimal-risk exemption are all on our Arkansas food manager certification page.
Arkansas writes its own food code
A small point of precision that other pages get loose. Arkansas does not adopt an FDA Food Code edition by reference. Its rule declares itself the code — § 1-101.10: “These provisions shall be known as the Food Code, hereinafter referred to as ‘THESE RULES or THIS RULE.’”
The text is plainly modelled on the FDA Food Code — the section numbering and the Conference for Food Protection language give it away — but no official Arkansas source states which edition, and there is no incorporation-by-reference clause. So any page telling you “Arkansas follows the 2017 FDA Food Code” is asserting something it cannot source. The honest statement is that Arkansas has its own rule, current since 24 October 2022.
One amendment is pending as of late 2025, implementing Acts 125, 698 and 942 of 2025 — concerning unpasteurised milk and food-donation liability. Nothing pending touches food handler cards or manager certification.
Allergens: training, but no poster
Arkansas folds allergy awareness into the employee training duty at § 2-103.10(M), and requires the person in charge to be able to describe major food allergens and their symptoms (§ 2-102.10(C)(9)). There is no allergen poster, menu notice or signage requirement in Arkansas — unlike several other states. And there is no separate allergen certification to buy.
Does any Arkansas city or county require a card?
No. Every Arkansas jurisdiction with a published municipal or county code — 49 of them, plus the Association of Arkansas Counties model county code — was searched for this guide. Not one requires a food handler card, permit or worker-level credential.
That covers Little Rock and Pulaski County, Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Hot Springs, Conway, North Little Rock, Pine Bluff and Texarkana. What the codes actually regulate is business licensing, zoning, mobile vending and grease traps — the premises, not the people.
This is also structurally unsurprising. Arkansas has no independent county or city health departments for food regulation. The “county health units” are Arkansas Department of Health facilities staffed by ADH employees, and the permit is a single statewide ADH permit. Your inspector is an ADH environmental health specialist based in your county health unit.
Two 1930s–50s ordinances still on the books
Two Arkansas cities do carry unrepealed provisions requiring food workers to hold a health certificate — Blytheville (Title 5, Ch. 5.12, from Ordinance 263, amended 1949 and 1959) and Malvern (Title 6, Ch. 6.08, “Food Handlers,” running from “thirty days after April 6, 1937”).
They are not food handler cards, and no course can satisfy them. What they require is a physician’s certificate of freedom from contagious disease, countersigned by a city health department — including a tuberculosis X-ray and a Wassermann test for syphilis. They are dead letters: the issuing body they name (a city health officer) no longer exists, ADH’s local health units perform no such function, and mandatory venereal-disease screening as a condition of employment does not survive modern law.
Worth knowing only so that nobody mistakes them for a modern requirement. If a course seller ever cites “Malvern’s food handler ordinance” at you, this is what they are citing.
Two traps that make Arkansas look like a card state
1. Benton County and Washington County — but in Oregon. Northwest Arkansas sits in Benton and Washington counties, and Oregon has counties of both those names which genuinely do issue food handler cards. A search for “Washington County food handlers card” or “Benton County food handler card” will very plausibly return Oregon’s requirement to someone in Fayetteville or Bentonville. Check the state, not just the county name.
2. Plumbing code boilerplate. Jonesboro, Texarkana, Bryant and Gravette all list “Restaurants and food handlers” in their cross-connection and backflow-preventer schedules. That is plumbing text about backflow risk categories. It is not a worker requirement, and it is the single largest source of false “Arkansas regulates food handlers” hits in city codes.
Food handler card by Arkansas city and county
Arkansas has no statewide food handler card requirement for individual workers. The Arkansas Department of Health licenses food establishments and requires a certified food protection manager for most operations. Here is how that plays out in the state’s largest markets:
Little Rock and North Little Rock (Pulaski County)
No individual food handler card is required. The Arkansas Department of Health’s Environmental Health Branch permits food establishments in Pulaski County. The certified food protection manager requirement sits on the establishment, not on individual workers. Many Little Rock restaurant groups require food handler training as a condition of hire regardless.
Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville (Northwest Arkansas)
Northwest Arkansas is the state’s fastest-growing food service market, spanning Washington and Benton counties. No county or city food handler card is required in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, or Bentonville. The state manager certification rule applies to establishments. The University of Arkansas drives significant seasonal hiring in Fayetteville, and larger employers typically require internal training.
Fort Smith (Sebastian County)
No food handler card is required. Fort Smith sits on the Oklahoma border — note that an Oklahoma food handler permit from Tulsa or Cleveland County does not apply in Arkansas, and Arkansas requires no worker card in return.
Jonesboro (Craighead County)
No individual food handler card is required. Craighead County follows the state framework of establishment permitting plus certified manager.
Hot Springs (Garland County)
No food handler card is required. Hot Springs’ tourism-driven restaurant industry operates under standard Arkansas Department of Health rules.
Conway (Faulkner County) and Benton (Saline County)
Neither city requires an individual food handler card. Both fall under the state framework. Note that Benton, Arkansas is a city in Saline County — distinct from Benton County in Northwest Arkansas, which is a common source of confusion when searching for local requirements.
Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and Texarkana (Miller County)
No food handler card is required in either city. Texarkana straddles the Arkansas-Texas state line — if you work on the Texas side, Texas does require a state-accredited food handler card, so the requirement changes depending on which side of the street your restaurant sits on.
If your employer asks for a card anyway
Arkansas requires no worker card at state or county level. Employers — particularly in Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas — commonly ask for training documentation. An ANSI-accredited online food handler course costs $7–$15 and takes about an hour.
Arkansas at a glance
| Statewide worker card? | No — ADH says food handlers are “not required to earn a card, certificate, or license” |
| City or county card? | No — all 49 published Arkansas codes checked |
| What the state requires | At least one supervisory employee certified as a food protection manager |
| Must the certified manager be on site? | No — the rule requires employment, not presence |
| Person in charge | Must be present during all hours of operation — but need not be certified |
| New establishments | 12 months from the date the permit is issued |
| If the certified manager leaves | The rule specifies no replacement window. Ask your health unit |
| Which exam | Any Conference for Food Protection–accredited programme. Arkansas publishes no list |
| Validity | Arkansas sets none. Your provider’s term applies |
| Exempt | Prepackaged-only, and ADH-approved low-risk non-TCS operations |
| Cost to a worker | Nothing |
| Cost to the establishment | $35 a year · $5 per day temporary · plan review 1% ($50–$500) |
| Allergens | Folded into the employee training duty. No poster or signage requirement |
| Governing rule | Rules Pertaining to Retail Food Establishments, effective 24 October 2022 (007.04.21-003) |
| Regulator | Arkansas Department of Health, statewide, through county health units |
Work across a state line?
Food handler rules follow the establishment’s location, not where you live. If you work in a neighbouring state, its requirements may be different:
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a food handlers certificate to serve food in Arkansas?
No. Arkansas requires no certificate, card or licence from servers, cooks, bussers, dishwashers or bartenders. The Department of Health states directly that food handlers are not required to earn a card, certificate or licence. The only certification Arkansas requires is one certified food protection manager per establishment.
How much is an Arkansas food handlers card?
There isn’t one to buy. Arkansas charges an individual food worker nothing, because it issues nothing. If a site quotes you a price for an “Arkansas food handler card,” it is selling a voluntary course certificate with no standing in Arkansas law.
Does every employee need to be certified in Arkansas?
No — one employee, and only one with supervisory and management responsibility. Your employer must also train you in food safety for your own duties, but that duty has no card, exam or fee attached to it.
Does the certified manager have to be at the restaurant?
No. Arkansas’s rule requires only that at least one employee be a certified food protection manager — it sets no presence requirement. What must be present during all hours of operation is a person in charge, who does not have to be certified.
Do I need a food handlers card in Little Rock, Fayetteville or Fort Smith?
No. No Arkansas city or county requires one. Food regulation in Arkansas is entirely a state function run through ADH county health units, so the rule in Little Rock is the same as the rule in Texarkana.
Is my food handler card from another state valid in Arkansas?
The question doesn’t really apply — Arkansas has no worker card for it to be valid against, so it is neither accepted nor rejected. It may still satisfy an individual employer. If you hold a manager certification from an accredited programme, that does count in Arkansas, wherever you sat the exam.
Who do I contact about my own situation?
Your county health unit — an Arkansas Department of Health facility, not a county agency. The environmental health specialist there inspects your establishment and is the person who will answer a question about exemptions or timing.
Official sources
- Arkansas Rules Pertaining to Retail Food Establishments (PDF — the operative rule, effective 24 Oct 2022)
- ADH — Food Protection FAQ (note: its 2019/2020 dates predate the current rule)
- ADH — Food Protection Inspection Portal
- 20 CAR § 102-117 — “Public food handlers” (the communicable disease rule, not a credential)
- Arkansas General Assembly — Arkansas Code (Ark. Code Ann. §§ 20-57-203, 20-57-204)
- ANAB — accredited food protection manager certification bodies (check any manager programme here)
- Conference for Food Protection (the accreditation standard Arkansas’s rule names)
This guide is general information, not legal advice. The Arkansas Department of Health is the final word.
Does Arkansas require a food manager certification? Yes — one certified food protection manager per establishment. See Arkansas Food Manager Certification requirements.