OBBBA SNAP Changes Explained: What's Different in 2026

The 6 SNAP changes in OBBBA

1. ABAWD age range expanded from 18-54 to 18-64

Before OBBBA, Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) faced the 80-hours-per-month work requirement only if they were age 18 through 54. OBBBA extended the upper age to 64. About 1 million people aged 55-64 newly fall under the work requirement. If they cannot meet it, they are limited to 3 months of SNAP in any 36-month period.

2. Parents-of-14+ exemption narrowed

Previously, a parent of any dependent child (up to age 17) was exempt from the ABAWD work requirement. OBBBA cut the dependent-child age to 14. Parents whose youngest child is 14, 15, 16, or 17 now must work 80+ hours per month or face the 3/36 limit. This change disproportionately affects single parents of teenagers.

3. Tighter restrictions on county-level ABAWD waivers

USDA has long allowed states to request waivers exempting high-unemployment areas from the ABAWD time limit. OBBBA tightened the standard so a state can now waive an area only if its unemployment rate is over 10%; the older, broader basis — waiving areas that lacked a sufficient number of jobs — is gone. USDA applied the new standard to waiver requests starting November 1, 2025, and Alaska and Hawaii can request temporary good-faith exemptions through 2028. Far fewer areas clear the 10% bar than qualified under the old criteria, so people in many formerly waived counties are now subject to the 3-month limit. See the 2026 ABAWD waiver changes for how to check your area.

4. ABAWD exemptions: three removed, one added

The 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act had exempted veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth under 25 from the ABAWD time limit. OBBBA ended all three of those exemptions. People in those groups are now subject to the 80-hour rule unless a different exemption covers them. The law also added one: people who meet the Indian Health Care Improvement Act definitions of Indian, Urban Indian, or California Indian are exempt from the ABAWD time limit. If you're a veteran or were recently homeless and got a work-requirement notice, check the surviving exemptions before assuming the cutoff sticks — being medically unfit for work or caring for an incapacitated person still counts.

5. Utility allowance changes: internet out, heat-and-eat narrowed

Two changes hit the Standard Utility Allowance (SUA) used in the net-income calculation. First, home internet costs no longer count: USDA directed states in an August 15, 2025 memo to leave internet out of their FY2026 SUA values, which trims the deduction in most states. Heat, electricity, and water still count. Second, the "heat-and-eat" shortcut narrowed. Before OBBBA, receiving even a token LIHEAP energy-assistance payment automatically qualified a household for the full heating-and-cooling SUA. That automatic path now works only for households with an elderly or disabled member. Other households can still claim the heating-and-cooling SUA, but only by actually paying heating or cooling costs separately from rent. Note what this is not: there is no dollar cap on the SUA itself. The changes are about what counts toward it and who qualifies for it automatically.

6. Non-citizen eligibility narrowed

OBBBA shortened the list of non-citizens who can get SNAP. Several groups who were eligible before — including refugees, asylees, and certain humanitarian parolees — are no longer eligible unless they hold lawful permanent resident (green card) status. U.S. citizens and nationals, lawful permanent residents (after the standard waiting period), and a few specified groups, including certain Cuban and Haitian entrants and citizens of the Compact of Free Association nations, remain eligible. Citizen children in mixed-status households can still receive benefits even when a parent is ineligible; the parent stays out of the benefit unit while a share of the parent's income still counts toward the household's limits.

Implementation timeline

• July 4, 2025: OBBBA signed into law.
• August 15, 2025: USDA directed states to calculate FY2026 utility allowances without internet costs.
• October 1, 2025: Federal effective date for most provisions (start of FY2026).
• November 1, 2025: The 10%-unemployment standard began applying to ABAWD waiver requests.
• Late 2025 – mid-2026: States issued implementation memos, updated case-management systems, and sent notices on their own schedules. California, for example, began enforcing the new ABAWD rules statewide on June 1, 2026.
• FY2027 and beyond: Annual re-evaluation of county waivers under the 10% standard, expected to expand or contract with labor market conditions.

Who is most affected

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the work-requirement changes alone will cut SNAP participation by roughly 2.4 million people in an average month over the next decade. The groups most exposed:

• Adults aged 55-64 without a child under 14 at home: Newly subject to the 80-hour rule. Many in this group have worked for decades but face age-related job-market discrimination.
• Parents whose youngest child is 14-17: Concentrated in households where the parent works part-time around school hours but cannot reach 80+ monthly hours.
• Veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth: All three groups lost the categorical exemptions Congress created in 2023 and now face the time limit unless another exemption applies.
• Residents of formerly waived counties: Areas that qualified under the old "insufficient jobs" criterion but sit below 10% unemployment lost waiver protection.
• Refugees, asylees, and other non-citizens without green cards: Many lost SNAP eligibility outright under the narrowed non-citizen rules.
• Households in former heat-and-eat states without an elderly or disabled member: Lost the automatic path to the full heating-and-cooling utility allowance, which shrinks the shelter deduction and the monthly benefit.

What did NOT change

• Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE): The state-set option to use higher gross-income limits (up to 200% FPL) is still in place. Most states use BBCE.
• Federal Poverty Level (FPL) thresholds: Updated annually for inflation as always.
• Medical-condition and pregnancy exemptions from ABAWD: Unchanged.
• Net-income test thresholds: The 100% FPL net-income limit is unchanged.
• Maximum benefit amounts (Thrifty Food Plan): Annual COLA adjustments continue.
• Application portals, recertification cadence, fair hearing rights: All unchanged.

How to verify your state's status

Each state's implementation memo and current BBCE settings are linked from our by-state page. The USDA FNS page for your state lists the most recent waiver decision and the local SNAP office contact. If your benefits changed and you're not sure why, the termination/reduction notice you received cites the specific OBBBA provision applied to your case.

A worked example: how the heat-and-eat change cuts a real benefit

Numbers make the utility-allowance change easier to see. Take a household of three with no elderly or disabled member, in a state that used the heat-and-eat practice, with $1,900 in monthly gross earned income and rent of $650 that includes heat. Before OBBBA, the math ran like this. The 20% earned-income deduction removes $380, leaving $1,520. The standard deduction for a three-person household is $209, dropping the figure to $1,311. A token LIHEAP payment qualified the household for the full heating-and-cooling utility allowance — call it $600 in this state. Shelter costs of $650 plus $600 equal $1,250, minus half of the $1,311 adjusted income ($655.50), which gives $594.50 in excess shelter — under the $744 shelter cap, so the full amount comes off. Net income lands near $717, and the benefit is the maximum allotment of $785 minus 30% of that (about $215), or roughly $570.

Now run it under the new rule. The LIHEAP shortcut no longer applies to this household, and since heat is folded into the rent, it qualifies only for the state's lower utility tier — say $350. Shelter costs become $1,000, excess shelter is $344.50, net income rises to about $967, and the benefit drops to roughly $494. Same rent, same paycheck, about $76 less in food money each month. The exact allowance figures vary by state, so treat these as illustrative, but the mechanism is identical everywhere: a smaller utility figure means a smaller shelter deduction, higher countable income, and a lower benefit. Our net income calculator and max benefit calculator run these same steps, and the deductions guide walks through each one in order.

Three scenarios for the new work rules

Scenario one: a 58-year-old who works 18 hours a week at $14 an hour. That is about 78 hours a month, just under the 80-hour threshold. Before OBBBA, age put this person outside the ABAWD rule entirely. Now the two missing hours matter. Picking up a single short shift most weeks closes the gap, but the hours only help if they're documented — keep pay stubs or an hours log for every month.

Scenario two: a single parent whose youngest child just turned 14. Up to the day before that birthday, the parent was exempt as the caretaker of a dependent under 14. The morning after, the clock for the 3-month limit can start. Nothing about the household's income or need changed; a birthday did. The parents-of-14 exemption guide covers how states are handling the transition month.

Scenario three: someone with a back injury that prevents standing work but who has no formal disability rating. Medical-condition exemptions from the ABAWD rule did not change under OBBBA, but they are not automatic. A note from a treating clinician stating the person is unfit for work generally satisfies the exemption. The work-requirement exemption checker lists the categories that keep someone outside the time limit.

Edge cases the law created

Mixed households raise questions the statute answers only indirectly. If one adult in a two-adult home is 60 and the other is 45, and there are no children under 14, both adults are now subject to the work requirement, but each counts hours separately. One meeting the threshold does not cover the other. The benefit for the whole household can shrink if either adult hits the 3-month limit, because that person's needs drop out of the allotment.

The 36-month window is rolling, not a calendar reset. A person who used all three countable months in early 2025 does not get a fresh three on January 1. The months free up only as the original three pass the 36-month mark. Regaining eligibility usually means meeting the 80-hour requirement for a full month, which restarts benefits going forward.

Students sit in a separate track. College enrollment has its own SNAP rules that predate OBBBA and were not folded into the ABAWD changes, so a student exemption and an ABAWD exemption are evaluated on different tests. Self-employed and gig workers count hours by dividing net self-employment earnings by the federal minimum wage when actual hours are hard to verify, which can produce a surprisingly low hour count for someone who feels fully employed.

If your benefit changed, here is the order to work through it

• Read the notice line by line. The reduction or termination letter names the exact OBBBA provision applied, the effective date, and the deadline to request a fair hearing, usually 90 days from the notice date.
• Check whether an exemption was missed. Age, a medical condition, caring for a child under 14, pregnancy, or a documented unfitness for work can all pull a person back out of the time limit even after a notice goes out.
• A hearing requested within the shorter window, often 10 days, can keep benefits at the prior level until the hearing decision. Past that window, the appeal still stands but payments may pause. The appeal guide lays out the timing.
• Gather proof of hours, rent, utilities, and any medical limitation before the hearing. Missing paperwork, rather than a real change in eligibility, is behind many closed cases.
• If the cutoff stands, households can look at what else they may qualify for. The lost-benefits triage routes to emergency food, Medicaid, and WIC in one pass.

Frequently asked questions

Did OBBBA change the income limits to qualify for SNAP? No. The gross-income test at 130% of the Federal Poverty Level and the net-income test at 100% are unchanged, as are the resource limits of $3,000 for most households and $4,500 for those with an elderly or disabled member. The income limits guide has the current figures.

Did the maximum benefit go down because of the law? No. Maximum allotments still adjust through the annual cost-of-living update tied to the Thrifty Food Plan. For FY2026 the figures run $298 for one person, $546 for two, $785 for three, and $994 for four, rising by $218 for each additional person. The minimum benefit of $24 still applies only to one- and two-person households.

I am over 64. Does the work requirement reach me? No. The expanded range stops at 64. Once a person turns 65 the ABAWD time limit no longer applies, regardless of work hours.

Are SNAP benefits taxable, or do they count as income elsewhere? No. SNAP benefits are not taxable income and do not count toward eligibility for most other assistance. The what-counts-as-income guide covers what does and does not count when SNAP itself is being calculated.