Grocery-store checkout rules for food-stamp shoppers in five states flipped back in June, after a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had no authority to let those states bar soda, candy and other items from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases. The ruling covered Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia, the only states whose waivers were formally challenged in court. USDA has since appealed, asking a federal appeals court to revive the bans, but for now the purchasing rules in those five states are the same ones that applied before any waiver ever existed.
Why A Federal Judge Vacated The Waivers
USDA had granted more than 20 states waivers letting them add categories such as soda, candy, energy drinks and prepared desserts to the list of items SNAP benefits could not buy, arguing the restrictions would improve participants’ health and nutrition. Recipients in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia sued, arguing the agency had gone beyond the authority Congress gave it under the Food and Nutrition Act when it approved their states’ versions of the restriction.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the recipients on two separate grounds. The court found that USDA relied on a statute meant to improve the SNAP program’s operating efficiency, not the separate, stricter provision Congress wrote specifically for diet-and-health pilot projects, and that the agency also skipped a required 30-day public notice before rolling the restrictions out, as a legal analysis of the June 22 decision detailed. On those two grounds, the court vacated and sent back to USDA the waivers covering all five states.
The ruling touches a much broader question about how far a federal agency can go in redefining what counts as an eligible grocery purchase without a new act of Congress. The court was explicit that USDA cannot use its general pilot-project authority to rewrite the statutory definition of “food” simply because a state wants a nutrition-focused restriction; if that kind of change is going to happen, the ruling suggests it has to run through the stricter process Congress specifically wrote for it.
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What Changed At The Checkout In The Five States
For SNAP recipients in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia, the practical result is that an EBT card now works the way it did before their state ever applied for a restriction waiver. Federal law defines SNAP-eligible food broadly, covering any food or food product intended for home consumption except alcoholic beverages, tobacco and hot foods ready for immediate eating, and none of the five states currently has an approved waiver narrowing that definition.
The debate behind the waivers has not gone away just because the waivers themselves were vacated. States that pursued the restrictions argued that removing soda, candy and similar items from SNAP-eligible purchases would push participants toward healthier groceries, while critics warned that a state-by-state patchwork of exemptions would confuse both shoppers and the retailers who ring up their purchases at the register. That disagreement is now playing out again at the appellate level rather than at checkout.
USDA’s own approvals show how quickly the restriction program had been expanding before the ruling. The agency approved Nebraska’s waiver in May 2025, calling it the first of its kind, and went on to approve more than 20 similar requests within roughly a year. Nebraska’s own waiver is among the five now vacated, meaning the very first state to receive the restriction is currently operating without it.
Where The Case Stands Now
USDA filed its notice of appeal on August 20, one day ahead of its deadline, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reverse the district court and revive the restrictions in the five states. Filing a notice of appeal does not, by itself, put a vacated program back into effect while the case is pending.
According to the National Agricultural Law Center’s reading of the appeal, the five programs “remain blocked unless the ruling is stayed or reversed,” meaning shoppers in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia can keep buying soda and candy with SNAP benefits while the case works through the appellate court. The roughly 18 other states with USDA-approved restriction waivers were not part of the lawsuit, and those programs continue to operate unaffected by the ruling.
The district court’s reasoning reached further than just the five waivers it formally vacated. By concluding that USDA lacked the underlying statutory authority to use its general pilot-project rules for health-driven food restrictions at all, the ruling raises the identical legal question for every other state’s waiver, even the ones the lawsuit never directly challenged. That is one reason the appeal carries stakes beyond the five named states, regardless of how narrowly the court’s order was written.
For now, the only certainty is procedural: a district court vacated five specific waivers on June 22, USDA appealed on August 20, and no stay has been reported since, so the pre-waiver purchasing rules control in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia until the D.C. Circuit says otherwise. Shoppers in those five states do not need to wait for the appeal to resolve before buying groceries normally — the restriction is off unless and until an appellate court revives it.
Keeping A SNAP Case Current While Rules Shift
Court rulings and appeals change which foods a household can buy with SNAP benefits, but they do not change the recertification paperwork that keeps the benefit itself active. Every state still requires SNAP households to renew their eligibility on a set schedule, and a missed renewal step can shut off benefits regardless of which purchase rules apply that month. Many SNAP households also carry Medicaid coverage on a parallel renewal clock.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer is a 13-page organizer built around 51 state packs and a renewal and reporting calendar that tracks both benefits on one timeline.
See how the renewal calendar lines up SNAP and Medicaid deadlines in The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer.
This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Money Overview editorial team.
