Eight states have already passed the dates USDA set for keeping soda, candy and other items off the list of foods that SNAP benefits can buy, and USDA lists five more states starting Nov. 1. The eight are Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. The five are Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia. Which items are barred depends entirely on the state.
The eight states whose start dates have passed
The list comes from the food restriction waiver table on the USDA Food and Nutrition Administration website, which was updated Sept. 25. Its column is labeled “target implementation date,” and eight states show dates that have already gone by. Indiana and Utah came first, both on Jan. 1, 2026. Idaho and Oklahoma followed on Feb. 15, Louisiana on Feb. 18, Texas on April 1, Florida on April 20 and Arkansas on July 1.
The dates are USDA’s targets, and the table itself does not say which states have begun enforcing at the register. Idaho shows why a target can move: its waiver page says the effective date was modified from the original Jan. 1, 2026 to Feb. 15, 2026, with the change approved on Dec. 12, 2025.
What each of the eight bars from a SNAP purchase
The restrictions are not uniform, so a household’s experience at the checkout depends on the state. According to the table, Arkansas covers soda, fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% juice, energy drinks and candy. Florida lists soda, energy drinks, candy and prepared desserts. Idaho names soda and candy. Indiana lists soft drinks and candy, and Louisiana adds energy drinks to soft drinks and candy. Oklahoma and Texas cover candy plus soft drinks or sweetened drinks, and Utah restricts soft drinks only.
Idaho’s waiver page describes the mechanism: the waiver changes the definition of “food or food product for home consumption” for SNAP so that soda and candy fall outside it. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins signed the Idaho approval on June 10, 2025. When USDA announced the first such waiver, for Nebraska, Rollins called it “a historic step to Make America Healthy Again.”
The five with a Nov. 1 target
Five more waivers carry a Nov. 1, 2026 target on the same table. Montana lists high-sugar beverages, energy drinks, candy and prepared desserts. North Dakota lists sweetened beverages, energy drinks and candy. Ohio lists sugar-sweetened beverages and fountain drinks, South Carolina lists candy, energy drinks, soft drinks and sweetened beverages, and Virginia lists sweetened beverages.
Two of those dates were pushed back. Newsweek reported on Aug. 31 that the South Carolina and North Dakota restrictions had been delayed to Nov. 1 after a federal court ruled against similar policies elsewhere. Because the dates are targets, and the table does not say whether a state has confirmed a start, Nov. 1 should be read as USDA’s listed date, not a guarantee. That is especially true for Ohio, where the table gives the date but the state’s own confirmation is not part of the record.
Five waivers a federal court vacated
The same table carries a warning. It says that on June 22, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in Aragon et al. v. Rollins et al., 1:26-cv-00861, “ordered that FNA’s approval of the waiver be vacated and that the waiver’s implementation may not proceed.” That decision, reported by Newsweek as the work of Judge Amy Berman Jackson, covers Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia, all now marked as vacated with a pending date.
That matters for anyone counting states. Nebraska, the state that received USDA’s first-ever waiver, is on the vacated list, so the federal count of 23 approvals splits into 18 active waivers and five vacated ones. Of the 18, eight are past their target dates and five sit at Nov. 1. The other five come later, according to the table: Wyoming on Feb. 1, 2027, Kansas and Missouri on Feb. 15, 2027, Hawaii on April 1, 2027 and Nevada on Feb. 1, 2028.
What the limits change for a household budget
A restriction does not reduce a household’s monthly SNAP amount. It narrows what that amount can buy, so a family that had spent part of its benefit on soda or candy has to cover those items with other money. In a state on the Nov. 1 list, that change is still ahead, and the items affected are the ones named in the table for that state.
The table’s own limits are worth keeping in view. It does not report how many households are affected in any state, and it does not say how retailers are being held to the rules. Idaho’s page says only that USDA committed to finalize “key implementation parameters such as a threshold standard for retailers.” The primary record for all of it is the USDA table of Sept. 25, which lists 23 waivers in total and remains the place to check a state’s current status.
Purchase limits change what SNAP buys, not when a case is renewed
State purchase restrictions narrow which foods SNAP benefits can pay for, but they leave in place the recertification and reporting steps that decide whether a household’s benefits continue at all. Those steps and their dates differ from one state to the next, and a missed one can end benefits regardless of what the checkout rules say.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer is a 13-page organizer with 51 state packs, a renewal document checklist and a renewal and reporting calendar for keeping a household’s paperwork in order.
Click here to get The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer →
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against USDA’s waiver table and the other sources named in the text before publication.
