Four thousand five hundred dollars is the ceiling on countable assets a household can hold in federal fiscal year 2026 and still qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so long as at least one member is age 60 or older or has a disability. Every other household stops at $3,000. That $1,500 gap is one of the few places in federal benefits policy where having an older member in the home widens the door instead of narrowing it, and it holds for the full fiscal year running October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026.
The $4,500 ceiling sits directly beside a $3,000 one
USDA publishes both numbers side by side in a single short table headed Maximum Asset Limits. One column covers a household with at least one member age 60 or older or disabled. The other covers all other households. There is no sliding scale for family size, no separate figure for Alaska or Hawaii, and no phase-out band. The limit is either $4,500 or it is $3,000.
The Food and Nutrition Administration’s fiscal 2026 SNAP standards page carries that table and does not itemize, on that page, which specific resources count toward the ceiling. A household sitting near the line has to settle that question with the state agency handling its case. What the federal page does settle is the ceiling itself, and the fact that the higher one is triggered by age or disability rather than by income, household size or state of residence.
For a household that has been slowly setting money aside for a funeral bill or a transmission, the effect is concrete. A retiree holding $3,800 in savings is over the general limit and under the older-household limit at the same moment. Nothing about the money changed. The presence of someone 60 or older in the home is what moves the line.
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A second door: the 165 percent test and its $2,152 figure
Income is measured separately from assets, and SNAP does not use a single income ceiling. Gross monthly income limits are set by law at 130 percent of the poverty level, and net monthly income limits at 100 percent. Gross income means a household’s total non-excluded income before any deductions. Net income means gross income minus allowable deductions.
There is also a third table, and it is the one that matters most to older applicants. Where elderly or disabled members count as a separate household, the gross monthly income limit is set at 165 percent of the federal poverty level. In the 48 states and the District of Columbia that works out to $2,152 for one person, $2,909 for two, $3,665 for three and $4,421 for four, with $757 added for each additional member. Alaska and Hawaii run higher, at $2,689 and $2,474 respectively for a single person.
The contrast with the ordinary test is the whole point. The regular 130 percent gross limit for one person in the 48 states and DC is $1,696, and for two people $2,292. The 165 percent figure is $456 a month higher for a single person. On the net side, the 100 percent limit for one person is $1,305. Those numbers appear in the printable fiscal 2026 income eligibility standards the agency posts alongside the tables.
Deductions decide which income number gets tested
Because the net test measures income after allowable deductions, the deduction figures are not footnotes. In the 48 states and DC, the standard deduction for fiscal 2026 is $209 for households of one to three people, $223 for four, $261 for five and $299 for six or more. The maximum excess shelter deduction is $744. The homeless shelter deduction is $198.99 in every state and territory listed.
At the other end, the fiscal 2026 allotment and deduction tables set a minimum monthly allotment of $24 for one and two person households in the 48 states and DC. A household that clears every test can still land at the floor. That is worth knowing before anyone decides an application is not worth the paperwork, and equally worth knowing before anyone budgets around a larger figure.
Every figure above expires on September 30, 2026
USDA adjusts maximum allotments, deductions and income eligibility standards at the beginning of each federal fiscal year, which starts October 1, and bases the changes on movement in the cost of living. Maximum allotments come out of the Thrifty Food Plan, the agency’s estimate of what a nutritious low cost market basket costs a family of four, calculated every June. The formula accounts for economies of scale, so smaller households receive slightly more per person than a four person household and larger ones slightly less.
That mechanic has a practical consequence. Every dollar figure in this article is a fiscal 2026 figure. On October 1, 2026, a new set replaces it, and any household comparing its savings to $4,500 or its income to $2,152 will need to check the refreshed tables rather than a remembered number.
The agency behind these tables renamed itself on June 1
Anyone searching for the source document should expect a different name than the one that has been on it for decades. A notice at the top of the standards page reads: “As of June 1, 2026 the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is now the Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA). We are in the process of updating our website to reflect this change.” The tables now live under fna.usda.gov, and the standards page itself is stamped as last updated April 27, 2026.
The rename does not alter a single amount. It does mean older bookmarks, printed handouts and third party summaries may point at an address or an agency name that no longer matches the live record. The current tables, the $4,500 and $3,000 asset limits among them, sit on the agency’s SNAP program pages under that new name.
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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