The Senate Agriculture Committee’s farm bill would push back the date states start paying a share of SNAP benefits by one year, to Oct. 1, 2028. Under current law, states begin sharing the cost of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits on Oct. 1, 2027. The committee approved the bill on Sept. 16, but it has not passed the full Senate or become law.
SNAP, the program many people still call food stamps, has paid for benefits entirely with federal money. A 2025 law changed that for the first time. State budgets, not household budgets, carry the new cost, which makes the delay a story about how much time states get before the bill arrives.
What the committee bill would change
The Congressional Research Service, Congress’s own research arm, summarized the bill in an Oct. 5 report. It says the committee bill, S. 5526, “would delay the cost-sharing onset by one year (to begin October 1, 2028).” The first state share would then be figured for fiscal 2029.
States could base that first year on the lower of their fiscal 2026 or fiscal 2027 payment error rates. States with error rates of 13.33% or higher in both fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026 would get a further delay, until fiscal 2030.
The provision concerns what states pay, not how a household’s monthly benefit is figured. The states with the highest error rates face the largest share, so their budgets are where any pressure on the program would show up first.
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How the state share works
Current law ties the share to a state’s payment error rate, the share of benefits it paid out wrongly. CRS lists the tiers. A state with an error rate under 6% pays nothing. A rate of 6% to 7.99% means a 5% share, 8% to 9.9% means 10%, and 10% or more means 15%.
The committee bill would raise the top share. “States with error payment rates of 10% or higher would be required to pay 20% (instead of 15%),” CRS says, beginning in fiscal 2031. So the bill gives states an extra year at the start and asks the highest-error states for more later.
The bill leaves another change alone. CRS notes that the 2025 reconciliation law, P.L. 119-21, raised the state share of SNAP administrative costs to 75% starting Oct. 1, 2026, and the committee bill would not amend that.
What the delay would cost, according to the Congressional Budget Office
The Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s official scorekeeper, published its estimate of S. 5526 on Oct. 28. It says the estimate is for the bill “as ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on September 16, 2026.”
For the cost-share section, the table shows $4.465 billion in added federal spending in 2028 and $768 million in 2029. Savings follow later: $1.05 billion a year in 2031 and 2032, then $1.1 billion a year from 2033 through 2036. Across 2027 to 2036, CBO nets that to $1.267 billion in savings.
CBO also says the delay, combined with added flexibility for states, “would reduce states’ spending by approximately $5.2 billion.” Those are federal budget scores. The 2028 jump reflects the federal government continuing to carry costs that states would otherwise have started to cover. CBO’s table does not break out the reasons for the later savings.
Where the bill stands
The path to this point was not smooth. On Aug. 6, the committee voted 10-11 against the bill, according to the committee’s meeting page, which lists it as “Not Agreed to by Roll Call Vote.” Democrats had wanted a two-year delay, and Chairman John Boozman had offered one year.
The committee tried again and approved the bill 12-11 on Sept. 16, along party lines, according to a report carried by WJLA. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky cast a yes vote after about three months away. Democratic members still opposed the provisions that require states to share costs based on error rates.
“It still must pass the full Senate, be reconciled with the House version and be signed by the president,” the report said. The House passed its own farm bill in April, and CRS says that bill, H.R. 7567, makes no change to cost sharing, so it would keep the Oct. 1, 2027, start. The two chambers would have to settle that difference.
No floor vote date has been announced. The WJLA report said the farm bill extension that has kept programs running was set to expire Sept. 30, 2026, which adds pressure to finish. Until the Senate and House agree, Oct. 1, 2027, remains the date in the law.
For SNAP households the practical dates are the ones the state sets: recertification and change reports. Those continue whatever the cost-share date turns out to be, and a state agency’s notice is the place they appear.
Will the state’s SNAP cost-share date change what households have to do?
Whether the state starts paying in 2027 or 2028, a household still loses benefits if a renewal or a required report is missed, and states with tighter budgets may be quicker to enforce those dates.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer comes with 51 state packs and a renewal and reporting calendar, so a household can put its own state’s dates in one place. The 20-page guide also covers the senior rules most people miss on deductions that raise a benefit.
Get the SNAP renewal organizer with state packs while the cost-share date is undecided →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
