A federal law signed in the summer of 2025 quietly reversed protections that Congress had built into the food-stamp program just two years earlier. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended three special work-requirement exceptions that had shielded people experiencing homelessness, veterans, and young adults leaving foster care from SNAP’s standard benefit time limit. States finished folding the change into their screening systems by November 1, 2025, and the same law widened the pool of adults who fall under that time limit in the first place. For someone in one of the three affected groups, the practical effect is a return to rules that applied before 2023.
The Time Limit These Exceptions Used to Interrupt
SNAP has long limited food-stamp eligibility for “able-bodied adults without dependents,” shortened in program rules to ABAWDs, to three months out of every three years unless the person works or trains at least 80 hours a month, or qualifies for one of a short list of exceptions. Before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that time limit applied to adults ages 18 through 54. The 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act had carved three additional groups out of the time limit entirely: people experiencing homelessness, veterans, and young adults who had aged out of foster care at 18 or later. Those carve-outs meant a homeless SNAP recipient or a 22-year-old former foster youth could keep receiving benefits past three months without documenting work hours, treatment enrollment, or another qualifying activity.
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What the 2025 Law Repealed and Added
According to a USDA Food and Nutrition Service implementation memo, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed on July 4, 2025, removed all three of the 2023 exceptions outright, returning homeless individuals, veterans, and former foster youth to the same time-limit exposure they faced before that earlier law existed. The same provision raised the ABAWD age ceiling from 54 to 64, so adults age 55 through 64 who previously fell outside the time limit are now newly subject to it, absent another qualifying exception. A separate change narrowed the caregiver exception to a parent or household member responsible for a child under 14, down from under 18 previously, so a parent whose only dependent is 15, 16, or 17 no longer qualifies for that exception on the child’s account alone. The same memo notes the law also created a new exception for enrolled tribal members, Urban Indians, and California Indians, a category that did not previously exist in ABAWD rules.
The Exceptions That Still Apply to Everyone
The repeal did not touch exceptions available to any ABAWD applicant regardless of housing status or foster-care history. A recipient who is pregnant, caring for a household member under 14, enrolled in a drug or alcohol treatment program, or documented as physically or mentally unfit for work can still claim an exception under those categories. General SNAP work requirements, which are separate from the ABAWD time limit, continue to exempt anyone age 60 or older, and the same USDA guidance confirms states are barred from requiring that age group to participate in SNAP Employment and Training. Those standing exceptions are now the only path available to a homeless adult or former foster youth who cannot meet the 80-hour work or training threshold.
How States Are Applying the Rollback Now
The changes took legal effect the day the law was signed, but USDA gave state agencies a 120-day window, ending November 1, 2025, to update screening and notice systems without facing federal quality-control penalties for misapplying the new criteria. Guidance for state agencies, last updated in mid-September 2026, still directs caseworkers to screen every work registrant against the modified exception list at both initial application and recertification, and to send affected households a consolidated written notice explaining which work requirements now apply. For a homeless SNAP recipient or a young adult recently out of foster care, that notice is often the first sign that a benefit which continued automatically for nearly two years now requires proving work, training, or another qualifying activity to keep coming.
Keeping food benefits through a rule change
A newly applied work requirement usually surfaces at the same moment as a recertification deadline, and the two paperwork tracks are easy to confuse under a short state-set clock. Missing either one can pause SNAP benefits outright, and for a household that also relies on Medicaid, the same lapse often triggers a parallel coverage review. The window for restoring dropped coverage runs on its own separate deadline, which is where these cases most often go wrong.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer is a 13-page organizer with 51 state packs, a renewal document checklist, and a renewal and reporting calendar built around the 90-day window after coverage is dropped.
Compare renewal deadlines against the current screening rules with The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer.
This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI and reviewed by an editor.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
