SNAP Food Restriction Waivers by State: Section 17 and USDA Rules

SNAP food restriction waivers are state-level pilot projects, approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Section 17 of the Food and Nutrition Act, that remove specific products — almost always sugary drinks and candy — from the list of items you can buy with an EBT card in that state. As of 2026, 22 states have approved waivers, and the earliest are already live at checkout.¹

What Changes at the Register

Normal SNAP rules are broad. Benefits cover almost any food or food product intended for home consumption, plus seeds and plants for home gardens. The main federal exclusions are alcohol, tobacco, and hot prepared foods meant to be eaten immediately.² Beyond that, federal law draws no nutritional lines: soda, candy, energy drinks, and baked desserts are all eligible under standard rules.

A food restriction waiver carves a specific category out of that eligibility inside one state. Once the pilot goes live, the EBT card declines the restricted items at the register while the rest of the transaction proceeds normally. You can still buy everything else with SNAP, and you can still buy the restricted items using cash or another form of payment. The waiver changes what SNAP pays for, not what stores can sell.

States With Approved Waivers

Twenty-two states have approved waivers as of 2026. Nineteen have implementation dates during 2026; three more are set for 2027 or 2028. The restricted categories cluster around sweetened beverages and candy, with some states going further:¹

Soft drinks and candy: Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Louisiana and North Dakota add energy drinks.
Soft drinks only: Colorado, Hawaii, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming restrict only soft drinks or sweetened carbonated beverages.
Broader beverage and candy restrictions: Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas restrict various combinations of soda, energy drinks, candy, and prepared desserts.
Sugar-sweetened beverages as a category: Ohio, Virginia, and Nevada.
Broadest scope: Iowa restricts all items its state revenue department classifies as taxable food, a category well beyond sugary drinks. Arkansas uniquely also excludes fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50 percent natural juice. Florida’s list also covers energy drinks and prepared desserts. Nebraska restricts soda and energy drinks.

Implementation dates run from January through October 2026. Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia were among the earliest to go live. Missouri and Virginia don’t begin until fall 2026.¹

Where the Authority Comes From

Section 17 of the Food and Nutrition Act (7 U.S.C. § 2026) lets the Secretary of Agriculture run pilot projects “on a trial basis, in one or more areas of the United States” and waive any requirement of the Act as needed for the project.³ In practice, state SNAP agencies submit the requests. Every approved food restriction waiver on the FNS list is a state initiative — no county or city has independently obtained one. A local government that wanted to test restrictions would have to route the request through its state agency.

What USDA Requires Before Approving One

USDA doesn’t approve these automatically. Three standards drive the review.

Cost neutrality. The pilot cannot significantly raise federal SNAP spending. The state submits financial projections up front and quarterly cost reports after launch so FNS can watch for drift above the baseline.⁴

Evaluation. Every waiver has to include a plan for measuring whether the restriction actually changes anything. States track purchasing patterns, retailer compliance, and household demographics, and file annual reports covering caseload, timeliness, and error rates.⁴

Benefit reduction safeguards. If a project would cut benefits by more than 20 percent for more than 5 percent of households in the affected area, extra statutory limits apply: the project cannot cover more than 15 percent of the state’s SNAP households, and it cannot run longer than five years without a Secretary-approved extension.³ Waivers focused on sugary drinks and candy typically don’t hit that threshold, but the provision matters for anything broader.

The statute also puts a 60-day clock on USDA’s response. Within 60 days of receiving a request, the Secretary must approve it, deny it with the grounds for denial, deny it with a description of what changes would make it approvable, or ask for clarification.³ A clarification request effectively resets the timeline. When a waiver is denied outright, the Secretary must send the request and reasons to the relevant congressional committees.

How the Restrictions Get Enforced at Stores

Retailers do the operational work. Their point-of-sale systems have to identify restricted items and decline the EBT portion of the transaction for anything on the list. Larger retailers with integrated electronic cash registers can adapt through software changes because they already track products by UPC code. Smaller stores with basic terminals face a harder upgrade.⁵

States build compliance plans into their waiver proposals. Virginia’s approval terms, for example, require SNAP-authorized retailers to sign a self-attestation form before the pilot launches and put the state on the hook for maintaining a dedicated communication channel — a public email inbox or a call center line — where retailers can get answers to compliance questions. On third-party e-commerce platforms, retailers themselves are responsible for compliance; the platforms are not held liable for errors.⁶

How Long a Waiver Runs

FNS approves food restriction waivers for a maximum five-year term.⁴ An extension requires a new request to the Secretary. Throughout the pilot the state keeps filing quarterly cost reports and annual caseload and error data, and the evaluation results feed back to FNS on whatever schedule the approval letter sets. Those findings are what USDA uses to decide whether a project continues, gets modified, or informs a broader change to federal SNAP policy.

1
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Food Restriction Waivers
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 7 U.S. Code 2012 – Definitions
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 7 U.S.C. 2026 – Research, Demonstration, and Evaluations
4
Federal Register. Agency Information Collection Activities: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Demonstration Projects
5
USDA Food and Nutrition Service. Feasibility Study of Capturing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Purchases at the Point of Sale – Technical Solutions Report
6
USDA Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP State Food Restriction Waiver – Virginia