A day after telling states that it was complying with a federal court order, the USDA told states on Saturday not to load full SNAP benefits for November onto participants’ EBT cards.
The Saturday notice followed the Supreme Court’s temporary freeze of the Rhode Island court’s order that the USDA fully fund November benefits.
“States must not transmit full benefit issuance files to EBT processors,” the Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, the agency within the USDA that oversees SNAP, said Saturday. Instead, states must process and load 65% of SNAP benefits for November, as outlined by the agency last week.
The new notice is the latest move in a chaotic saga surrounding the federal food aid program. Federal funding of SNAP ran out due to the government shutdown, marking the first time the food assistance program has had a funding lapse. After two courts rejected its argument that it couldn’t temporarily cover benefits, the Trump administration said it would tap $4.65 billion in contingency funds to partially cover SNAP benefits for November, but would not use other emergency funds, which would cover the full monthly food aid amounts.
At the start of last week, a senior USDA official said in court filings that states would face procedural challenges with recoding systems to partially dole out benefits, likely resulting in weeks or even months of delays. The USDA also said that, based on new calculations, it could fund 65% — instead of the initially estimated half — of SNAP benefits for November.
On Thursday, the Rhode Island court ordered the USDA to fully fund SNAP benefits, with the judge citing the expected delays as well as the availability of other emergency funds as the main reasons for the ruling. The Trump administration filed an appeal the same day. On Friday, the USDA said it was starting to issue funds to states to comply with the Rhode Island ruling. Several states, including Oregon and Wisconsin, said they were loading the full amounts onto consumers’ EBT cards.
“To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” the Saturday notice said. “Accordingly, States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”
States that had begun loading full benefit amounts must share how they plan to “correct any actions taken that do not comply with this memorandum,” the notice said, adding that noncompliance may result in cancellation of federal funding for that state’s administrative costs and holding states liable for overissuances.
The conflict over SNAP has left millions of consumers as well as retailers in limbo. Over 40 million people participate in SNAP. Several states have set up ways to tap their own funds to provide temporary funding to load onto EBT cards.
Meanwhile, seven Senate Democrats and an independent senator over the weekend voted to advance a deal that gets Congress closer to ending the government shutdown. That deal, which would reopen the government until Jan. 30, includes funding for SNAP through September 2026, USA Today reported.
