EBT Cardholder Discounts & Perks: Museums, Internet, Prime, Transit & More (2026)

Museums for All — $1 to $5 admission at 1,600+ places

This is the best-kept secret on the list. Show your EBT card plus a photo ID at any participating institution and admission drops to somewhere between free and $5, for up to four people on one card, during all normal hours. No registration, no application — just show the card at the desk.

It is not only museums. More than 1,600 institutions take part across all 50 states, DC, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the list includes a lot of zoos, aquariums, science centers, and botanical gardens. Search your city on the official map before you plan a family outing.

Official map: museums4all.org.

Amazon Prime Access — $6.99/month instead of $14.99

Amazon offers a discounted Prime membership (now called Prime Access) for people on government assistance: $6.99 a month, half the standard $14.99, with the full set of Prime benefits — fast shipping, Prime Video, the lot. There is a 30-day free trial, and you re-verify your eligibility every 12 months.

You qualify with SNAP/EBT, and also with Medicaid, WIC, SSI, TANF, LIHEAP, the National School Lunch Program, Direct Express, or Tribal TANF — so even if your SNAP ends, you may still keep the discount through another program.

Sign up: Amazon Prime Access.

Walmart+ Assist — 50% off the membership

Walmart+ Assist gives qualifying customers 50% off Walmart+ — about $6.47 a month or $49 a year, versus the regular $12.95/$98. It is the full membership, not a stripped-down tier: free delivery, member fuel prices, and the Scan & Go app all included.

Eligibility is broad: SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, SSI, TANF, LIHEAP, federal public housing, a veterans pension, or a Pell Grant. You verify once through Walmart's partner and the discount applies.

Details: walmart.com/plus/assist.

Cheap home internet — where things stand in 2026

First, the bad news so you do not waste time on it: the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which gave $30/month off internet, ended on June 1, 2024. Congress did not refund it. If a site or a person tells you to sign up for ACP, the information is out of date.

What still works: Lifeline, the older federal program, takes up to $9.25/month off a phone or internet bill (up to $34.25 on Tribal lands). And several providers run their own low-income plans — Comcast Internet Essentials is $14.95/month for 75 Mbps, and your Lifeline benefit can stack on top to bring it down near $5.70. You qualify for both with SNAP.

Lifeline: lifelinesupport.org. Internet Essentials: xfinity.com/learn/internet-service/internet-essentials. One caveat: Lifeline's eligibility rules are being tightened under recent federal law, so confirm you still qualify when you apply.

Reduced bus and train fares

A growing number of transit systems now give SNAP recipients half-price or free rides — this expanded a lot in 2025. A few live programs: Metro LIFE in Los Angeles (a free 90-day pass, then discounted fares), Metro Lift across the DC/Maryland/Virginia region, the RTA Access reduced-fare pilot in the Chicago area (running through the end of 2026), Equifare in Austin, and Allegheny Go (half off) in Pittsburgh.

Search your local transit agency's name plus "reduced fare SNAP" — if your city is not listed above, it may still have a program.

Discounted grocery delivery — and using SNAP online

You can already spend SNAP online for eligible groceries at Walmart, Amazon, many regional chains, and on Instacart. On top of that, Instacart offers Instacart+ at $4.99/month for a year (half off) if you have placed an EBT order in the last six months. Delivery fees can eat into a tight budget, so weigh it against picking up in person.

Instacart EBT: instacart.com/ebt-snap.

Parks, zoos, and state-specific passes

Beyond the Museums for All zoos and aquariums, some states run their own outdoor passes. California's Golden Bear Pass, for example, gives free day-use vehicle entry to more than 200 state parks and beaches to households on EBT. Individual zoos also discount on their own — Cincinnati Zoo charges roughly $6 for adults with EBT, and Mystic Aquarium is free for Connecticut and Rhode Island SNAP households (up to four people).

These are state- and facility-specific, so check your own state parks department and your nearest zoo or aquarium directly.

How to actually use these

Three habits make the difference. Carry your EBT card and a photo ID when you go out — most of the in-person perks (museums, zoos) need both at the counter. Re-verify when asked — Amazon and Walmart re-check eligibility yearly, and missing the email quietly bumps you back to full price. And do not pay for any of these through a third-party "EBT discount" site — every program here is free to enroll in through the official links above. Anyone charging you a fee to "turn on EBT perks" is running a scam.

For what the card buys at the register, see what you can buy with SNAP, or check a specific item in the eligible-item lookup.

Programs and prices verified June 2026. Discount amounts and eligibility change — confirm current terms at each official link before you rely on them.

What a year of these perks actually adds up to

The individual discounts sound small until a household stacks a year of them. Picture a working parent in a two-person household receiving SNAP. They sign up for Prime Access at $6.99 instead of $14.99, saving $8 a month, or $96 over the year. Walmart+ Assist at $49 a year instead of $98 saves another $49. A Lifeline credit of $9.25 a month on the phone bill is $111 a year. Comcast Internet Essentials at $14.95 instead of a typical $65 broadband plan saves roughly $600 over twelve months. Add four $1 Museums for All visits in place of $60 in family admissions and that is another $236 back.

Run those together and the total clears $1,000 in a single year, none of which touches the food benefit itself. The point is not that every household hits that number — most use two or three of these, not all of them — but that the perks are worth real money next to a SNAP allotment. A two-person household at the FY2026 maximum allotment receives $546 a month, so a year of side discounts can equal close to two extra months of grocery benefit in value.

Stacking discounts the right way

Some of these programs combine and some do not. The clean stack is Lifeline on top of a provider's low-income internet plan: the $9.25 Lifeline credit comes off the Internet Essentials price, bringing $14.95 down toward $5.70. That works because Lifeline is a federal subsidy and Internet Essentials is the provider's own discount; they sit on different layers.

What a household cannot do is apply Lifeline to two services at once. The rule is one Lifeline benefit per household, not per person, and it goes to either a phone line or an internet line, not both. If two adults in the same home each try to claim it, the second claim gets denied during the National Verifier check. Membership discounts like Prime Access and Walmart+ Assist are separate from each other, so a household can hold both, but each is one membership per account, not one per cardholder.

What happens to these perks if SNAP ends

Losing SNAP does not automatically end every discount, because most of these programs accept more than one qualifying program. Prime Access and Walmart+ Assist both honor Medicaid, SSI, TANF, WIC, and several others, so a household that drops off SNAP but stays on Medicaid usually keeps the membership rate at the next yearly re-verification. Lifeline works the same way and also has its own income test at or below 135% of the federal poverty line, separate from any program enrollment.

The perk most tied to the card itself is Museums for All, since the desk staff look at a physical EBT card. Once the card is deactivated, that one stops. When a benefit cutoff catches a household off guard, the work-rule changes under the OBBBA law are the usual cause; the first steps after a cutoff guide walks through what to check, and the work-rule exemption checker shows whether an exemption should have applied.

A sensible order to sign up

Doing all of this in one sitting is a lot, so a rough order helps. The perks that save the most each month and take the least effort tend to come first:

• Internet first. The provider plan plus Lifeline is the biggest recurring saving, and the National Verifier step takes a few days, so it is worth beginning early.
• Memberships next. Prime Access and Walmart+ Assist verify in minutes online and begin saving money on the next billing cycle.
• Transit for commuters. Reduced-fare enrollment through a local agency can take a week or two and sometimes needs an in-person visit, so it is worth starting before the pass is needed.
• In-person perks last. Museums for All and zoo discounts need nothing in advance — they only call for the card and a photo ID on the day of the visit.

Keeping a note of which programs qualified a household for each one helps later. When the yearly re-verification email arrives, the household knows exactly which proof to send, and it avoids the quiet bump back to full price that catches people who ignore the reminder.

Common questions

Does using these discounts affect a SNAP benefit amount? No. None of these perks count as income, and signing up for them is not reported to the state SNAP agency. They do not change the allotment, the deductions, or the net income figure. They are private discounts offered by companies and institutions that choose to recognize EBT.

Can someone else in the house use the museum discount on a separate trip? The card admits up to four people per visit, and any adult who holds the household's EBT card can present it. There is no separate registration, so a different family member can take the card to a museum on a different day.

Is a certain length of time on SNAP required before qualifying? Not for most of these. Prime Access, Walmart+ Assist, and Museums for All only ask that a household currently qualifies through SNAP or another listed program. Instacart+ at the discounted rate is the exception — it asks for an EBT order placed in the past six months, so a brief history of online ordering is needed there.

Is there a catch with the free trials? The 30-day Prime Access trial converts to the $6.99 rate, not the full $14.99, when it ends, as long as eligibility is still verified. A reminder set for the re-verification date keeps a lapse from pushing the account to the standard price. When SNAP itself is up for renewal soon, the recertification deadline checker helps keep both timelines straight.

For more on stretching the benefit at the register rather than around it, the produce-matching programs in the related guides below often double SNAP dollars on fruits and vegetables, and the online-ordering guide covers how to spend the benefit itself through delivery apps.