The Food and Nutrition Administration on Tuesday proposed a rule that would limit who can qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through another benefit program. The document is a proposal, not a final rule, and was signed by President Donald Trump.
Current rules treat a household as categorically eligible for SNAP, the federal food aid program, when every member receives benefits from a state program funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. Those benefits can be cash or non-cash services. The agency, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, would allow that path only for households that receive TANF assistance as defined in federal TANF rules.
The agency said the revisions would direct SNAP to households that have qualified for TANF assistance while still simplifying administration. In the proposal, the department said the changes may increase the administrative burden on states, reduce SNAP benefit spending, and affect school meals eligibility.
Categorical eligibility lets state agencies accept certain findings already made by another means-tested program, including income and resource limits. People who cannot get SNAP for specified nonfinancial reasons, including immigration status, student rules, or failure to meet work requirements, cannot become eligible that way.
The proposal would remove provisions that let non-cash or in-kind TANF or related state-funded benefits confer SNAP eligibility. That includes a state option known as broad-based categorical eligibility. It would also drop language that covers households merely authorized to receive a benefit if they do not actually receive it.
As of December 2025, the department said, 46 states used broad-based categorical eligibility for households receiving non-cash TANF benefits of small value. Of those, 37 had gross income limits above the SNAP limit, and 41 had no resource limit.
The department estimated that 17.6 percent of the SNAP caseload was eligible only because of TANF non-assistance. Using 2019 census data, it estimated that in fiscal year 2024, 11.5 percent of participating households — 2.5 million households with 5.4 million people — had resources above the SNAP limit, and 5.4 percent — 1.2 million households with 2 million people — had incomes above federal SNAP income limits. Households over both limits were counted only with the income group.
The agency estimated that, in 2024, more than 840,000 households of one or two people got the smallest SNAP payment solely through broad-based categorical eligibility. It said 94 percent of them would have been ineligible under SNAP income and resource limits, and that this spending was nearly $214 million. In fiscal year 2025, the minimum benefit is $23.
USDA proposed related changes on July 24, 2019. The Biden administration withdrew that proposal on June 10, 2021. The department said it considered returning to a standard that would have required benefits to be ongoing and substantial, but it prefers linking categorical eligibility to TANF assistance and is seeking comment on the alternative.
Written comments must be received by Dec. 10, 2026. They may be filed at regulations.gov or mailed to the SNAP Program Development Division, Food and Nutrition Administration, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Beltsville, Md. The notice also lists an email option and asks that messages include docket number FNA-2026-0661.
