USDA SNAP Integrity Team Disqualifies 5,335 Retailers and Shuts 1,840 EBT Devices, Blocking $5.8 Billion in Fraud Losses
USDA enforcement actions under the 2025 executive order and SNAP integrity team produced quantified retailer-level fraud prevention totaling $5.8 billion. The measures coincide with scheduled state penalties for error rates above 6 percent beginning October 2027. Data access reforms and cross-agency matching altered the prior tolerance for improper payments without addressing root eligibility verification gaps at the state level.
The March 2025 executive order granted agencies direct access to state SNAP databases for matching against SSA death files and immigration status records. By June 2025, 185,986 deceased recipients were identified across 29 states. The September 2025 USDA announcement quantified the downstream effect: $5.8 billion blocked via retailer enforcement rather than recipient removal alone.
Payment error rates exceeded 6 percent in more than 40 states in FY2025, triggering state cost-sharing penalties under the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act effective October 2027. This shifts fiscal exposure from the federal government to states, altering the incentive structure that previously tolerated high improper payments averaging above the statutory threshold.
The $5.8 billion figure reflects prevented EBT redemptions at disqualified outlets, not recovered funds. Average household benefits fell from $13.4 billion monthly in 2022 to $6.8 billion in May 2026 after emergency allotments ended, yet maximum allotments for a family of four rise to $1,023 in October 2026 under COLA rules.
States facing penalties after October 2027 must either improve eligibility verification or absorb a larger share of error costs. USDA has not published state-level breakdowns of the 5,335 disqualifications or the geographic distribution of the 1,840 devices.
USDA: At least 15 states will report SNAP payment error rates below 6 percent in FY2028 after the first penalty assessments take effect.
Sources (2)
- [1]Primary Source(https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2025/09/15/usda-snap-integrity-update)
- [2]Supporting Source(https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-108212)