Do Foster Care Payments Count as Income for SNAP?

Foster care payments don't count against your household

This is the reassuring part. A foster care payment from a federal, state, or local program is not counted as income to the other members of your household — whether or not you include the foster child or adult in your SNAP case. Your own benefit is not reduced because you receive foster care payments.

You choose whether to include the foster person

Foster children and foster adults are treated as boarders, which means they can't get SNAP on their own — and you decide whether to bring them into your SNAP household. Inclusion is at your option (7 CFR 273.1):

• Leave them out: your household size and income stay as they are, and the foster payment is ignored.
• Include them: your household size goes up by one (which raises the income limits and the maximum benefit), and the foster payment is still excluded from income.

Which choice is better?

It depends on the numbers. Including the foster person raises your household size — that lifts the income limits and the maximum allotment, which can increase your benefit, since the foster payment itself doesn't count as income. But it also means that person's own income (if any) gets counted. For many foster families, including the child comes out ahead. Run it both ways with the household-size calculator and the max-benefit calculator.

What to do

Tell your caseworker you receive foster care payments and ask them to figure your benefit both with and without the foster individual included, so you can pick the better outcome. See what counts as income for the full list of exclusions.

Based on 7 CFR 273.1 and 273.9. Confirm with your state SNAP office; this is general guidance, not a determination.