Card skimming has not stopped, but the federal program that once reimbursed food stamp households for benefits stolen this way has. For nearly two years now, anyone whose SNAP card gets skimmed or cloned has had no guaranteed way to get that money back from the government, and nothing currently on the public record would change that. Here is how the rule actually works today, not how it worked when it first passed.
How the Replacement Program Was Built
Congress created the program in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, passed in late December 2022, specifically to help SNAP participants victimized by card skimming, card cloning and similar theft methods. The law required state SNAP agencies to submit a plan explaining how they would process claims and reimburse stolen funds, with those plans due to the federal government by February 27, 2023. Every plan submitted was approved: all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands ended up with federal authority to replace stolen benefits under their own approved procedures.
Card skimming, the theft the law targeted, works a specific way: someone attaches an illegal device to a store’s card-swiping machine or a payment terminal to copy an EBT card’s information, then uses that copy, called cloning, to make a fake card and drain the account at a SNAP-authorized retailer. USDA’s fraud-prevention guidance acknowledges the agency still doesn’t have comprehensive nationwide data on how often this happens, which is part of why the 2022 law also required states to start collecting and reporting skimming data to the federal government on a regular basis.
Under the law, a household’s replacement could not exceed either the amount actually stolen or its SNAP allotment for the two months before the theft, whichever was smaller. States processed these claims using federal money rather than their own budgets, but only for benefits stolen within a window Congress set and later moved once.
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The Date That Actually Matters: December 20, 2024
That end date is the detail most people miss. Congress originally set the theft-coverage window to close September 30, 2024, then pushed it to December 20, 2024, through the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025. When that continuing resolution expired, lawmakers had another chance to extend the authority again in the American Relief Act, 2025, and didn’t take it. According to USDA’s own account of the timeline, updated as recently as July 31, 2026, “the American Relief Act, 2025 did not extend this authority for benefits stolen beyond December 20, 2024.”
The practical effect: benefits stolen through December 20, 2024 can still be claimed under a state’s approved plan. Anything stolen on or after December 21, 2024 falls outside federal law entirely, regardless of which state a household lives in. USDA notified state agencies of the sunset in a memo distributed that December, and the guidance has not been reversed or updated since.
What Happens If a Card Gets Skimmed Today
Nothing in current federal law entitles a household to get stolen SNAP benefits back if the theft happened after that cutoff. A state can still choose to cover a resident’s loss using its own money, but USDA’s own records don’t guarantee a state-funded replacement will ever be reimbursed with federal dollars, and no state is required to offer one. The realistic first step is the one USDA still recommends: avoid simple PINs like 1111 or 1234, change the PIN at least monthly and right before benefits are issued, check the EBT account regularly for unauthorized charges, and report suspected skimming to the local SNAP office, since a state’s own claims process, not a federal guarantee, is what now determines whether anything comes back.
USDA has leaned into prevention rather than reimbursement since the federal money lapsed. State agencies are encouraged to enable card-security features through their EBT processors, and the department says it is testing mobile contactless SNAP payments that could cut down on skimming exposure going forward. No state currently issues SNAP EBT cards with a security chip, though USDA notes a few are in the planning stages.
No Bill Currently Restores the Authority
This isn’t a story about a fight moving through Congress or a bill waiting on a committee vote. There is no pending legislation on the public record that would restore federal reimbursement for benefits stolen after December 20, 2024, and USDA’s own guidance describes the expiration as settled rather than temporary. Unless Congress passes something new, the rule that applies to a skimmed EBT card today is the same one that has applied since the last days of 2024: state options, no federal backstop.
USDA’s fraud-prevention guidance, last updated July 31, 2026, remains the most current public statement of where the authority stands, and it says plainly that the extension many assumed would eventually arrive never did. For a household budgeting around a SNAP allotment, that makes prevention, not reimbursement, the only real protection available right now.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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