Food stamp purchase limits are not in force in Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee and West Virginia. A federal court vacated the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s approval of each state’s waiver on June 22, 2026, and the agency’s own waiver table still shows all four rows as vacated. For SNAP households there, that means no federal approval stands behind a restriction on what the EBT card buys.
The table was last updated Oct. 13, 2026. It lists 23 states in all, so removing the four leaves 19 with a standing approval.
What USDA’s table shows for the four states
Most rows on the table carry a target implementation date. The rows for Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee and West Virginia carry a court notice in place of one. USDA’s page says the order vacated its approval of each affected waiver.
The order came in Aragon et al. v. Rollins et al., case number 1:26-cv-00861, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Fox Local reported that Judge Amy Berman Jackson found USDA lacked the legal authority to approve the bans.
Can a SNAP card in those states still buy soda and candy?
People on SNAP in Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee or West Virginia should read the state’s row on USDA’s food restriction waiver table and keep shopping as they did before the waiver plans, unless the state SNAP office says otherwise. A state can announce its own rules, so anyone who hears about a new limit at the register should call the office printed on the benefit notice.
The ordinary rules still apply everywhere. USDA’s SNAP eligibility page sets out what benefits may and may not be spent on, and the waivers only add state limits on top of it.
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News coverage of the ruling has not always matched the table. Fox Local’s account of the decision named Nebraska alongside the other four, but USDA’s table lists Nebraska with a Dec. 1, 2026 target date and not as vacated. The table is the agency’s own record, and it names four states.
Anyone in Nebraska should treat that Dec. 1 date as a target and watch for word from the state agency. The same goes for any other state with a future date on the table.
What USDA has said, and where the limits do start
Food Dive reported on Sept. 9 that USDA’s general counsel and the Justice Department were still reviewing the ruling. The same report said the ruling also affects other previously approved waivers. The agency also began asking states to wait while it seeks public comment in the Federal Register at least 30 days before a waiver’s start date.
Shiela Corley, acting administrator at USDA’s food and nutrition agency, said that process would “demonstrate FNA’s commitment to transparency.” The report named South Carolina and North Dakota as states asked to push their start dates to Nov. 1, and Food Dive did not say whether USDA would try to restore the four vacated approvals.
Four other states are scheduled to start Nov. 1: Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia. The restrictions vary by state, and Fox Local reported that most target soda, energy drinks and candy.
The other 15 states with standing approvals run on their own calendars. Indiana and Utah were listed for Jan. 1, 2026, and Idaho, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Arkansas followed through July 1. Nebraska is listed for Dec. 1, 2026. Kansas, Missouri, Wyoming, Hawaii and Ohio are set for 2027, and Nevada is the last on the table at Feb. 1, 2028.
A neighbor’s rule does not carry across a state line. A household in Iowa, for example, is covered by Iowa’s row alone, and so are the SNAP recipients of Colorado, Tennessee and West Virginia by their own rows.
Benefit amounts are unaffected by any of this. Monthly allotments follow the fiscal 2027 tables in USDA’s cost-of-living guidance, and the waiver fight is only about what the card can buy.
Could the four states come back?
Nothing on the table says so. The rows show a court notice and no new date, and neither USDA nor the four states has announced a new waiver request. Households there should expect the card to work as it did before, and should check the table again if a state office announces a change.
Keep the most recent benefit notice from the state SNAP office, and keep the renewal date on it in view. The court order changed what the federal government approved, but it did not change the dates by which a household has to recertify or report a change in income or address.
A household that was told to expect limits earlier this year should ask the state office whether that notice still stands. The answer may differ from one of the four states to the next, since each state ran its own announcement.
Not sure what your state’s EBT rules are now?
Rules that flip between a court order, a new waiver and a state announcement are easy to lose track of, and a missed renewal or reporting date can cost a household its benefits regardless of what the card may buy.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer keeps the dates that matter in one place. It includes 51 state packs and a renewal and reporting calendar, along with a section on reporting changes and EBT problems.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
