A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has erased five states’ permission to limit what Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants can buy at checkout, the first real legal setback for a policy wave that began reshaping grocery aisles in 2025. The ruling does not touch the rest of the program: of the twenty-three state waivers the U.S. Department of Agriculture had approved, eighteen still carry an active start date and continue toward implementation unless a separate court challenge intervenes. For a household deciding whether a case of soda or a bag of candy will still scan under SNAP, the line between a vacated waiver and a live one is not academic — it is next week’s grocery list.
A District Court Voids Five States’ Food-Restriction Waivers
The order came down June 22, 2026, when the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in Aragon v. Rollins, a suit brought by five SNAP participants from Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia who challenged USDA’s approval of their states’ plans to redefine what counts as “food” for benefit purchases. The court found USDA had leaned on the wrong section of federal law, and it ordered that the five states’ demonstration projects be vacated and barred from implementation.
USDA’s own paperwork now reflects that order. The agency’s Colorado waiver page — which had approved a plan to exclude soft drinks from SNAP purchases starting in 2026 — carries a notice stating plainly that the vacatur applies to that state’s project and that implementation “may not proceed.” Colorado’s waiver had already been amended once, with its start date pushed from April 30 to October 30, 2026, before the court cut it off entirely.
The other four vacated states — Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia — lose their approvals on the same terms. None of those five demonstrations may take effect while the order stands, regardless of whatever start date each state had previously scheduled.
Free SNAP checklist: A missed recertification step can pause food benefits, and EBT problems have their own fixes. Get the free recertification and EBT checklist.
Free download from RetireShield. Getting it also signs you up for the free Retirement Money Brief, a weekday email. Unsubscribe anytime.
Eighteen Approved Waivers Still Carry a Live Start Date
Subtract the five vacated states from USDA’s full list of twenty-three approved SNAP food-restriction waivers and eighteen remain on track. Some of those eighteen have already taken effect; others are still counting down to a scheduled date. Nothing in the Aragon ruling reaches them — the decision applies only to the five demonstrations named in the suit, and the other approved restrictions stay in effect unless USDA withdraws them on its own or a separate lawsuit knocks them out state by state.
That distinction matters for a SNAP household budgeting a grocery trip. A restriction that is live means certain items — often sugary drinks, candy or other categories a state singled out — will not ring up as SNAP-eligible at the register, full stop. A restriction that was scheduled but got vacated means the old rules, covering any food or food product for home use, still apply in that state. Eighteen states are, as of today, on the “still restricted or about to be” side of that line; five are not.
Why USDA’s Legal Authority Fell Short
The court’s reasoning turned on which part of the Food and Nutrition Act USDA used to approve the projects. The agency relied on Section 2026(b), a general pilot-project authority meant to test changes that improve program efficiency and delivery. But Congress wrote a separate, more demanding provision — Section 2026(k) — specifically for demonstrations aimed at improving participants’ dietary and health outcomes, and that section requires publicly available evaluation criteria, evidence-based design and rigorous outcome measurement before a project can run.
The court concluded the five states’ plans matched the health-focused purpose of Section 2026(k) far more than the general efficiency purpose of Section 2026(b), yet none of them met 2026(k)’s evaluation standards. USDA also skipped a separate procedural step: federal regulations require a Federal Register notice at least 30 days before a demonstration likely to significantly affect the public takes effect, and the court found USDA never published one despite describing the projects internally as historic and unprecedented.
What the Ruling Leaves Unsettled
The decision does not close the door on food-restriction demonstrations generally, and it does not decide the fate of the eighteen remaining approvals. USDA can appeal the Aragon ruling, and Nebraska’s situation carries an added wrinkle: the state had a second waiver request pending when the case was decided, which could raise separate questions the court has not yet reached. States that have not yet implemented their own approved restrictions are left to weigh whether to proceed while related litigation continues, since the same legal argument that sank the five vacated waivers could, in principle, be raised against any of the other eighteen.
The Households Behind the Case
The five plaintiffs who brought the suit described concrete, individual reasons the restrictions would hurt them. One plaintiff with diabetes relied on juice boxes and small cans of soda to treat sudden drops in blood sugar; another, managing kidney disease, used electrolyte drinks like Pedialyte and Gatorade to stay hydrated. A Nebraska plaintiff with chronic insomnia and allergies depended on low-sugar energy drinks a dietitian had recommended because coffee and tea were not safe options, and a Tennessee mother said several of her daughter’s limited “safe foods” — tied to an eating disorder — would no longer have qualified for purchase under the state’s plan. The court’s docket, still open in the District of Columbia, remains the authority on which of the twenty-three approved waivers stand and which do not — and for the eighteen still moving forward, USDA’s own waiver page is where a state’s actual start date gets confirmed or corrected next.
Tracking SNAP Renewal Dates While State Rules Are in Flux
None of the litigation over purchase restrictions changes a household’s underlying SNAP renewal schedule or reporting duties, and a missed deadline can end benefits faster than any waiver dispute does. Coverage that lapses because a renewal packet arrived late is difficult to reinstate, and Medicaid runs on a similar clock in most states. The gap between when a program rule shifts and when a household actually learns about it is where benefits most often get lost.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes a renewal and reporting calendar, a renewal document checklist, and 51 state packs covering both programs.
Compare state renewal deadlines against the calendar in The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer.
AI-assisted research and drafting; reviewed by an editor.
