Did Your Area Lose Its SNAP Work-Requirement Waiver? (2026 OBBBA Change)

First: what the waiver actually is

If you are an ABAWD — an adult who is able to work and has no dependents — you can normally only receive SNAP for 3 months in any 3-year period unless you meet the work requirement (about 80 hours a month of work, training, or volunteering). For years, states could waive that time limit in parts of the state where jobs were scarce, so people there kept their benefits without the clock running.

Those geographic waivers are what OBBBA cut back.

What OBBBA changed (effective November 1, 2025)

The 2025 law (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) tightened the rules so a state can now only waive an area if its unemployment rate is over 10%. The older, broader basis — waiving areas that lacked a sufficient number of jobs (roughly, unemployment well above the national average or labor-surplus designations) — was repealed.

In plain terms: a lot of counties that used to be waived no longer qualify, because their unemployment, while high, is not above 10%. USDA put the change into effect on November 1, 2025.

One exception: Alaska and Hawaii

The non-contiguous states get a break. Alaska and Hawaii can still receive waivers at a lower bar — an unemployment rate of at least 1.5 times the national rate — and that provision runs through the end of 2028. The rest of the country is held to the over-10% standard.

Who this hits

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that roughly 1.6 million people who lived in previously waived "not enough jobs" areas are now subject to the 3-month time limit. If your area lost its waiver and you do not meet the work requirement or qualify for an exemption, your 3-month clock can start — and once it runs out, your SNAP can stop until you requalify.

(There has been some legal back-and-forth: a court order in early 2026 temporarily reinstated some already-ended waivers through their original expiration dates. That is a transition wrinkle, not a reversal of the new standard — confirm your area's current status with your state.)

How to tell if you are affected

Three quick checks:

• Are you even an ABAWD? The time limit only applies to able-bodied adults 18–64 with no dependents. If you have a child under 14, are 60+, are pregnant, or have a disability, the time limit generally does not apply to you at all.
• Did your area lose its waiver? Ask your state SNAP office whether your county is still waived for the current period — waiver maps changed when the rule took effect.
• Are you meeting the 80-hour work rule? If yes, the clock does not run regardless of the waiver.

Use the work-requirement exemption checker to see if you are exempt, and the ABAWD countdown to track how many of your 3 months you have used.

Exemptions that still protect you

Even where the time limit applies, you are exempt from it if you are: under 18 or 60+, medically unfit for work, pregnant, caring for a child under 14 or an incapacitated person, already meeting a work requirement for another program, or in a few other categories. These exemptions did not go away — OBBBA narrowed some of the newer ones (it removed the special exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth that had been added in 2023), but the core medical/age/caregiver exemptions remain.

What to do

If you think the time limit now applies to you: report any work, training, or volunteer hours to your state (they count toward the 80/month), ask your caseworker about your state's SNAP Employment & Training (E&T) program, which can satisfy the requirement, and claim any exemption you qualify for. If your benefits already stopped, the lost-benefits triage walks you through the fastest way back. For the full set of 2026 rule changes, see what OBBBA changed and the ABAWD age-64 expansion.

Based on the OBBBA (2025) SNAP provisions and USDA FNS implementation guidance (effective Nov 1, 2025). Waiver status and the rules vary by state and change over time — confirm your area's current status with your state SNAP office; this is general guidance, not a determination.