If You Don’t Use EBT Money, Do You Lose It?

If you don’t use the money on your EBT card, you don’t lose it right away. Unspent SNAP benefits roll over from one month to the next and stay on your card as long as you keep using it. What triggers a loss is inactivity: after about three months without a purchase your state can freeze the account, and after nine months federal rules require your state to start permanently removing benefits.

Benefits Roll Over Month to Month

There is no monthly deadline to spend your SNAP allotment. Whatever you don’t use stays on the card and adds to next month’s deposit. Households often save part of an allotment for a bigger grocery run or to stock up before a holiday, and that is fine. Even if your SNAP case later closes because you no longer qualify, any balance already loaded on the card stays available for eligible purchases until the inactivity rules below catch up with it.

After 91 Days: Your Account Can Be Frozen

The first stage is called off-line storage, and it is sometimes referred to as dormancy. If you go three months (91 days) without using your EBT card, your state may move your whole account off-line. Your benefits are not gone. They are just frozen, and your card will stop working at the register. To get access back, you have to contact your state SNAP or EBT agency and ask them to restore the account.¹

After 274 Days: Benefits Are Permanently Removed

The second stage is expungement, and this one you cannot undo. After nine months (274 days) of inactivity, federal rules require your state to begin removing benefits from your account. Once benefits are expunged, they cannot be reinstated for any reason.¹

Two Different State Methods

How the 274 days is counted depends on which of two methods your state uses. The choice matters, because it changes what a single purchase actually protects.

Inactive account method. The nine-month clock runs against the whole account. Any purchase resets it for every dollar on the card. If the state had already started expunging older allotments, a purchase stops the process and the aging clock starts over on whatever is left.
Unused benefits method. Each monthly deposit has its own nine-month clock, counted from the day it was loaded. A purchase does not reset the clock for older deposits. January’s benefits can still be expunged at day 274 even if you used the card constantly in the months in between, as long as those January dollars themselves went untouched.

Each state picks one method and applies it to every household in the state. One helpful detail: SNAP purchases are drawn on a first-in, first-out basis, so your oldest benefits get spent first. Regular shopping naturally works through the older deposits before they reach 274 days.¹

What Actually Counts as Using the Card

Only a transaction that changes your balance keeps your account active. The federal rule defines account activity as something that “affects the balance” of the SNAP EBT account, such as a purchase or a return.¹

Checking your balance at an ATM does not count. Logging into the state benefits portal does not count. Calling the customer service number to hear your balance does not count. This catches people off guard. Someone who checks their balance regularly may believe the account is active while the nine-month clock keeps running. A single eligible food purchase is what you need.

The 30-Day Warning Notice

Before your state expunges anything, it has to send you a notice at least 30 days ahead. The notice must state the date the benefits are scheduled to be removed and what you can do to prevent it. If your account is in off-line storage, the notice must also explain how to have access restored.¹

That warning only helps you if it reaches you. Keep your mailing address current with your state SNAP office. Some states send these notices by email or through a state benefits portal if you have opted into electronic communications, so check those too.

How to Keep Your Benefits

The simplest protection is to make at least one purchase every couple of months. Under the inactive account method, even a small purchase resets the clock for the entire balance. Under the unused benefits method, a purchase draws down your oldest deposit first, which is exactly the one closest to expungement.

A few practical habits help:

Make a small purchase every 60 days, well inside the 91-day freeze threshold.
Report any address change to your state SNAP office as soon as it happens.
If you are trying to save benefits for a larger shopping trip, buy something small in between so the account stays active.

Losing Benefits to Theft Is a Different Problem

Expungement is about benefits you did not use in time. Benefits stolen from your card through skimming or cloning are a separate matter. A temporary federal replacement program under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 covered thefts that occurred between October 1, 2022 and December 20, 2024, with replacements capped at the lesser of the amount stolen or two months of the household’s allotment, and no more than two replacements per federal fiscal year.²³ Whether federal replacement continues beyond that window depends on later legislation. If you see purchases you did not make, call the customer service number on the back of your card right away; many states run their own fraud processes as well.

1
eCFR. 7 CFR 274.2 – Providing Benefits to Participants
2
Congress.gov. Benefit Theft Through Electronic Benefit Card Skimming
3
Food and Nutrition Service. Replacement of SNAP Benefits in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023