Five states have SNAP food restrictions on the books that reach only what goes in a cup, not what goes in a candy dish. Utah, Ohio, Virginia, Wyoming and Hawaii each restrict beverages under waivers the U.S. Department of Agriculture lists, and none of the five lists candy. Only Utah’s limit has started, and the others follow on dates between November 2026 and April 2027.
Five drinks-only waivers, state by state
The Department of Agriculture’s table of SNAP food restriction waivers lists each state’s start date and scope. Utah began on January 1, 2026, with soft drinks. Ohio is listed at November 1, 2026, for sugar-sweetened beverages and all fountain drinks. Virginia is listed at November 1, 2026, for sweetened beverages. Wyoming follows on February 1, 2027, with sweetened, carbonated beverages, and Hawaii on April 1, 2027, with soft drinks.
The USDA’s Utah waiver page is explicit on the point that gives the story its shape: the items are soft drinks only, and candy is not restricted. For the other four, the table’s scope column names only beverages.
How the candy line differs from other waiver states
Other states on the same table go further. Arkansas, whose limits took effect on July 1, 2026, lists candy along with soda, energy drinks and certain other drinks. Florida, with an April 20, 2026 start, lists soda, energy drinks, candy and prepared desserts. Missouri, with a February 15, 2027 start, lists candy, prepared desserts and certain unhealthy beverages. In those three, a SNAP card cannot pay for candy once the waiver is in effect.
The result is a split map. A candy bar is a restricted item in Arkansas and Florida and a permitted one in Utah, and it is scheduled to remain permitted in Ohio, Virginia, Wyoming and Hawaii when their drink limits begin.
Ohio and Virginia moved to November 1
The Ohio and Virginia start date deserves a careful read. A mirror of the Federal Register notice for Ohio’s demonstration project (91 FR 58409), reproduced by thefederalregister.org, carried an October 1 date, and it states that the project excludes sugar-sweetened beverages and fountain drinks, with written comments due by October 15, 2026. The USDA table read for this article lists November 1, 2026, for both Ohio and Virginia, and that is the date used here.
The gap is a reminder that waiver start dates can change after a first announcement, and the USDA table is the reference that reflects the most recent one. Ohio and Virginia households shopping today are under no drinks restriction, since neither waiver has started.
The notice also matters as a process marker. Ohio’s demonstration was still open for written comments, due October 15, 2026, in the mirrored Federal Register text, which means the Ohio project was still moving through its paperwork as of the last reading. The table date of November 1 is the operative one until USDA’s own listing changes.
Fifteen months from first start to last
Laid end to end, the five schedules stretch from January 1, 2026 to April 1, 2027, a span of 15 months. Utah went first. Ohio and Virginia share November 1, 2026. Wyoming follows on February 1, 2027, three months after that, and Hawaii closes the set two months later. Each state defines its drink category differently: Utah and Hawaii say “soft drinks,” Virginia says “sweetened beverages,” Wyoming says “sweetened, carbonated beverages,” and Ohio says “sugar-sweetened beverages and all fountain drinks.”
Five other waivers are not counted
The table also records that five waivers, for Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia, were vacated by a federal court order on June 22, 2026, in a case captioned Aragon v. Rollins. A vacated waiver is not in effect, so those states are left out of the set of states with active restrictions described here.
What “drinks only” means for a grocery cart
In the five states, a household’s SNAP card keeps paying for candy, and the change falls on the beverage aisle. Sugar-sweetened drinks, sweetened carbonated drinks and soft drinks are the categories named, and the fine print differs. Ohio’s list adds all fountain drinks to sugar-sweetened beverages, so a fountain soda at a convenience store falls into the restricted group under the scope listed on the table.
Utah shoppers are the only ones of the five living under a drinks rule today. For Ohio and Virginia, the change is weeks away; for Wyoming and Hawaii, it is months away. Any waiver can be modified before its start date, as Ohio’s and Virginia’s dates show, so the USDA table and each state’s own agency are where to confirm a date before planning a shopping trip around it.
The controlling source for the five-state set is the USDA table, whose latest update is dated September 25, 2026, and the Utah page, dated September 15, 2026.
Tracking SNAP purchase rules that start on different dates
Drink-only limits in Utah, Ohio, Virginia, Wyoming and Hawaii sit next to candy limits in other states, and the start dates are staggered across seven months. Each SNAP household also carries its own renewal and reporting dates.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes 51 state packs, a renewal document checklist and a renewal and reporting calendar for keeping state-specific SNAP dates organized.
Sort SNAP dates by state with a reporting calendar →
This article was prepared with AI assistance and checked against the cited USDA and Federal Register pages.
