Maryland’s old magnetic-stripe food stamp card stops working on its own the moment a household activates the new chip card and sets a new PIN. The Department of Human Services says about 85 of every 100 of the nearly 507,000 new cards are already activated. The rest of the households are living on a card the state says will be deactivated, with no date given.
Two steps turn the old card off
Maryland DHS’s October 1 announcement gives the sequence. A household activates the new card using the instructions that came with it, or by calling 1-800-997-2222, and then picks a new PIN. The department says activation is not complete until the new PIN is established.
The cutover follows from that second step. DHS says that once a household activates and selects a new PIN for the new card, the old card “will stop working automatically.” The department describes no separate call to cancel the stripe card.
Setting the PIN is part of activation, not an optional extra. Maryland is the fourth state to move to chip-enabled EBT cards, DHS says, and cards began arriving about three months before the announcement. Households that have had the card the longest have had the most time to switch.
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Stripe-only cards will deactivate soon, on a date Maryland has not named
The department says magnetic-stripe-only cards “will deactivate soon.” It names no date, so the household that has not yet switched cannot count down to a shut-off. DHS asked households to activate the new card today to avoid a possible disruption to benefits.
Roughly 15 of every 100 cards were still inactive when the department wrote, which on a base of about 507,000 works out to something like 76,000 cards. DHS said it would keep contacting customers who had not used the new card over the following month. That group, not the 85 percent already switched, is where the stripe-card question applies.
The state reports that the new cards have been used in more than 4.8 million transactions since July. It says it sent over four million email and text touchpoints during the rollout. Both numbers describe the card that is already in use, not the stripe cards still waiting.
DHS states that a household’s benefit amount, current balance and deposit schedule will not change. The switch changes the card, not the benefit loaded on it.
One number, 1-800-997-2222, handles both jobs: activating a card and reporting one lost, missing or stolen. The DHS Call Center, 1-800-332-6347, handles address and case questions, and the local department of social services handles in-person visits for households that prefer them, including a visit to report a card that never arrived.
A household that never got the new card
Cards began arriving about three months before the announcement. A household that did not receive one is told to call EBT Vendor Services at 1-800-997-2222, follow the prompts and report the card as lost, missing or stolen, or to go to the local department of social services.
Mail that goes to the wrong address is the usual reason a card does not arrive. DHS says to update an address at marylandbenefits.gov, through the DHS Call Center at 1-800-332-6347, or at the local department of social services. TTY users can call 1-800-735-2258.
The department also says fraud claims are “dropping dramatically,” but it has not published numbers and expects to share validated data later in October. USDA’s proposed card rule notes that seven states had issued chip cards as of August 2026, and it would remove magnetic stripe references from federal rules ahead of a future move away from stripes.
Why the PIN step carries the weight
The new PIN is what finishes the switch, so it is also the piece a thief would want. USDA’s stolen benefits page says to avoid simple PINs such as 1111 or 1234, to cover the keypad and to change the PIN at least once a month, right before the benefit issuance date.
The same page says state agencies and EBT processors never call or text to ask for a PIN or card number. A message claiming to be Maryland and asking for the new PIN to finish activation does not come from the state.
The proposal USDA published on October 23 would make this kind of step national. It says states would issue cards that stay inactive until the recipient enables them, and it would bar certain common PINs, such as sequential or repeated digits. It is only a proposal, with comments due December 22, and Maryland’s activation rule is already in use.
For a household still holding the stripe card, the open question is simple. The state has said the old card will go dark and has not said when, and the only step that removes the uncertainty is completing both activation and the PIN.
Is the old Maryland card still in a drawer?
A card change is one more date a SNAP household can miss, and a missed card step can interrupt benefits the same way a missed recertification does. DHS asked households to activate to avoid possible disruption, and recertification and reporting dates run on their own schedule.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes a Maryland state pack among its 51 state packs and a renewal and reporting calendar. Part 7 covers reporting changes and EBT problems, so the card activation and the renewal dates can sit on one calendar.
Put Maryland’s card activation and SNAP renewal dates on the renewal organizer’s calendar →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
