More than 42 million Americans rely every month on the federal food assistance program known as SNAP, and the exact date the money hits their EBT card can determine whether a family makes it through the month with food on the table. What many recipients don’t realize is that there’s no single national calendar: each state runs its own system, its own rules, and its own deposit dates.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds the program at the federal level but leaves each state in charge of managing the SNAP payments. That decentralization is why two families in the same country, with similar incomes and comparable needs, can receive their benefits on completely different days. Some states deposit on a single day. Others spread payments across nearly the entire month.
SNAP Schedules: Every State Has Its Own Payment Rules
The most common method for assigning payment dates is the recipient’s case number, specifically its last digit. For example, California uses that approach: households whose case ends in 1 get their CalFresh benefits on the 1st of the month, while those ending in 0 receive theirs on the 10th.
Furthermore, Texas, the state with the widest distribution footprint in the system, stretches its calendar from the 1st all the way to the 28th, using the recipient’s EDG number to determine when the deposit posts. Florida works the same way, with an identical distribution window running from the 1st to the 28th of every month.
Other states go by Social Security number. Arkansas and Colorado, for example, assign the payment date based on the last digit of the case holder’s SSN. Arizona, Connecticut, and Maryland sort recipients alphabetically by last name: if it starts with A, the deposit arrives before someone whose name starts with Z.
More State Rules that Define SNAP Calendars
A handful of states cut through the complexity entirely. Alaska, Vermont, Rhode Island, and North Dakota load benefits for every recipient on the 1st of the month, while New Hampshire uses the 5th and South Dakota the 10th as their fixed dates.
New York sits at the opposite end of the spectrum: the city runs a separate schedule from the rest of the state, assigning deposit dates by the last digit of each case number, which means two neighbors in the same building can see their EBT cards loaded days apart.
Fiscal year 2026, which began on October 1, 2025, brought cost-of-living adjustments to SNAP maximum allotments, as confirmed by the USDA in a memo issued on August 13, 2025. Benefits are calculated based on the Thrifty Food Plan, the federal government’s estimate of the cost of a basic nutritious grocery basket for a family of four.
The general monthly distribution schedule by state, based on consolidated active patterns, is as follows:
- Alabama: 4th through 23rd
- Alaska: 1st
- Arizona: 1st through 13th
- Arkansas: 4th through 13th
- California: 1st through 10th
- Colorado: 1st through 10th
- Connecticut: 1st through 3rd
- Delaware: 2nd through 23rd
- District of Columbia: 1st through 10th
- Florida: 1st through 28th
- Georgia: 5th through 23rd
- Hawaii: 3rd through 5th
- Idaho: 1st through 10th
- Illinois: 1st through 20th
- Indiana: 5th through 23rd
- Iowa: 1st through 10th
- Kansas: 1st through 10th
- Kentucky: 1st through 19th
- Louisiana: 1st through 23rd
- Maine: 10th through 14th
- Maryland: 4th through 23rd
- Massachusetts: 1st through 14th
- Michigan: 3rd through 21st
- Minnesota: 4th through 13th
- Mississippi: 4th through 21st
- Missouri: 1st through 22nd
- Montana: 2nd through 6th
- Nebraska: 1st through 5th
- Nevada: 1st through 10th
- New Hampshire: 5th
- New Jersey: 1st through 5th
- New Mexico: 1st through 20th
- New York: 1st through 9th
- North Carolina: 3rd through 21st
- North Dakota: 1st
- Ohio: 2nd through 20th
- Oklahoma: 1st through 10th
- Oregon: 1st through 9th
- Pennsylvania: 3rd through 14th
- Rhode Island: 1st
- South Carolina: 1st through 16th
- South Dakota: 10th
- Tennessee: 1st through 20th
- Texas: 1st through 28th
- Utah: 5th through 11th
- Vermont: 1st
- Virginia: 1st through 7th
- Washington: 1st through 20th
- West Virginia: 1st through 9th
- Wisconsin: 1st through 15th
- Wyoming: 1st through 4th
A Few Things to Know About SNAP Schedules
When an assigned date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or federal holiday, most states move the deposit forward to the last business day before it. But not all of them. California, New York and roughly 15 other states process deposits 365 days a year.
States like Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania don’t operate on weekends or holidays, meaning the money arrives on the next business day instead.
Maximum SNAP Benefits in 2026 afte COLA Increase
The maximum monthly allotments in effect for fiscal year 2026, applicable to the 48 contiguous states and Washington D.C., break down by household size as follows: a single-person household can receive up to $292; a two-person household, up to $536; three people, up to $768; four people, up to $994; five people, up to $1,182; six people, up to $1,419; seven people, up to $1,568; and an eight-person household can receive up to $1,756 per month. Each additional member beyond eight adds $219 to the applicable maximum.
In Alaska, the amounts run considerably higher due to the state’s elevated cost of living: a family of four can receive between $1,285 and $1,995 depending on the region. In Hawaii the maximum for that same household size is $1,689. In Guam it’s $1,465, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, $1,278. The minimum benefit for one- or two-person households is $24 per month across the 48 states and the District of Columbia.
The actual benefit a household receives isn’t necessarily the maximum: the USDA subtracts 30% of the household’s net monthly income from the maximum allotment for its size. The higher the net income, the lower the assistance