Colorado SNAP recipients who earn at least $217.50 a week, or who already work 30 hours or more a week, are exempt from the program’s work rule for able-bodied adults without dependents. The state’s Department of Human Services lists that exemption on its ABAWD page, which stands for able-bodied adults without dependents.
The rule it excuses people from is the one that asks adults to take part in a work activity 20 hours a week, or 80 hours a month. Without meeting it or qualifying for an exemption, benefits stop after a short stretch, so the exemption decides whether a working household keeps its monthly food benefit.
What the work rule asks and who it covers
Colorado’s page says the rule applies to adults between the ages of 18 and 64 and limits them to a maximum of three months of SNAP within a 36-month period unless they meet the requirement. The page lists people who are exempt, including those “already working 30 hours or more a week or earning at least $217.50 a week.”
The age range is recent. A USDA memo signed by Ronald Ward, acting associate administrator for SNAP at the Food and Nutrition Service, says the 2025 federal law raised the age covered by the time limit to 64, effective July 4, 2025. Before that change, the limit stopped at 54.
For a Colorado SNAP adult aged 18 to 64 with a job, the practical question is whether weekly pay or weekly hours clear either line. A person earning $217.50 in a week meets the exemption on the state’s wording, even without 20 hours of logged work. A person working 30 hours qualifies in the same way, whatever the paycheck says.
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Federal SNAP rules already excuse some people from the general work requirements. USDA’s work requirements page says that excusal covers people working at least 30 hours a week, or earning wages at least equal to the federal minimum wage multiplied by 30 hours. The page also lists being excused from the general requirements as one way to be exempt from the able-bodied adult rule.
Colorado states the dollar figure as $217.50 a week. The state page does not show the arithmetic, and it is the state’s number that applies to Colorado households. Colorado’s page does not say whether the figure is counted before taxes, while California’s page says before taxes, so a Colorado worker with a close call can ask the county office which pay amount counts.
Exemptions that went away in 2025
The USDA memo makes clear that the age change was not the only one. It removed the temporary exceptions for homeless people, veterans, and people aged 24 or younger who were in foster care on their 18th birthday. It also narrowed the dependent-child exception to children under 14, where it had covered children under 18.
New exceptions were added for Indians, Urban Indians and California Indians as defined in the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The memo also says people aged 60 to 64 stay exempt from the general work requirements, although they remain subject to the time limit. State agencies were told to screen every application and recertification against the new criteria.
California uses the same dollar figure for a different step
California’s CalFresh page repeats the $217.50 a week before taxes, or 30 hours a week, but lists it as a reason to be excused from work registration, not as the Colorado-style exemption. It describes the limit as three full months of CalFresh every three years, and says certain people had to meet its work and community engagement requirements as of June 1, 2026.
Waivers also change who feels the limit. California says the time limit is waived from November 1, 2026 through October 31, 2027 in Colusa, Imperial, Kings, Merced, Monterey, Plumas and Tulare counties, while Alpine County’s waiver ends October 31, 2026. USDA’s waiver page notes that a waiver suspends the time limit but not the general work requirements.
Keeping proof when weekly pay moves around
The same USDA memo tells states to give households a consolidated written notice plus an oral explanation of all work requirements, and to update notices so people aged 55 to 64 know they are now subject to the time limit. Anyone in that age band who gets a notice they do not understand can ask the county office to go through it in plain words.
The $217.50 line is weekly, so a worker whose hours rise and fall can land above it one week and below it the next. Pay stubs, a log of hours and a copy of each notice are the plainest record of which weeks cleared the line. Colorado’s page is the source of the exemption itself, and the open question for each recipient is whether pay or hours stay above the line in the weeks that count.
Working near 30 hours or $217.50 a week on SNAP?
An adult who is not exempt and does not log the hours can receive only three months of SNAP in 36 months. A household that cannot show the hours or the weekly pay has little to point to when the state asks.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes the SNAP work-rule time limit and who is exempt, with a renewal document checklist and a renewal and reporting calendar. It has a part on the 2025 work-rule change and 51 state packs for the rules where a household lives.
Get the organizer with the SNAP work-rule time limit, exemptions and a reporting calendar →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 21 Ways Retirees Can Raise $1,000 Fast Without a Job
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
