Food additives in United States

Food and Drug Administration

The United States does not run a single list of permitted food additives. A substance may be used in food on several different legal footings, and which one applies decides what a reader can find out about it.

A food additive proper requires a regulation authorising the use, which is published in Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Colour additives are separate and stricter: a colour must be listed for the use, and most synthetic colours must also have each batch certified by the FDA. Separately, a substance that is generally recognised as safe (GRAS) for its intended use may be used without any listing at all — a company may reach that conclusion itself, and may, but need not, tell the FDA about it in a GRAS notice.

What this index holds

711 of the 1189 substances on this site carry a United States entry, across 752 provisions. Last retrieved 2026-10-17 from Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, under Public domain.

• 364 permitted, with conditions
• 324 permitted
• 22 prohibited
• 1 phase-out announced

What is read, and what is not

Read:

• 21 CFR part 73 (colour additives exempt from certification) and part 74 by way of it, part 172 (food additives permitted for direct addition), part 173 (secondary direct additives), part 182 and part 184 (substances affirmed as GRAS), part 189 (substances prohibited from food) and part 82 (provisionally listed colours and the FD&C lakes).
• FDA's GRAS Notice Inventory: every notice and the response FDA sent the notifier, shown apart from the permissions because a response is not a listing.

Not read:

• GRAS conclusions a company reached without telling the FDA, which by their nature appear in no public list.
• Prior-sanctioned substances, food-contact notifications, and the Substances Added to Food inventory.

What an empty row means

A page with no US row means the site found no listing in the parts of 21 CFR it reads and no matching GRAS notice. It does not mean the substance may not be used in US food, because the GRAS route leaves no trace in the CFR.

The instruments

• 21 CFR Chapter I, Subchapter B — Food for Human Consumption
• FDA GRAS Notice Inventory

Elsewhere

Compare the United States with another regulator on the comparison pages, or read how the whole index is built in the method.

• European Union
• Great Britain
• Canada
• Australia and New Zealand
• Japan
• South Korea
• Codex Alimentarius