Can you buy soda with SNAP?
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Yes, you can buy soda and other nonalcoholic drinks like juice, sparkling water, and energy drinks with SNAP benefits (also called food stamps) as of April 2025.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is meant to help low-income American families supplement their grocery budget.
You can use your SNAP benefits to buy most groceries, including dairy products (like milk and cheese), fruits and vegetables, beans and nuts, snack foods (like chips and cookies), bread, pasta, and other types of grains.
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The USDA rules allow SNAP benefits to be used for most cold drinks, including soda, energy drinks, juice and juice concentrates, sparkling and bottled water, cold coffee drinks, and seltzer.
The only things that you aren’t allowed to buy with SNAP are hot foods, alcoholic beverages (even if you’re going to use them for cooking), tobacco products, pet food, and any “non-food” items, including vitamins and supplements, medicine, paper products like toilet paper or paper towels, baby wipes and diapers, cleaning products, and toiletries.
Is soda going to be banned from SNAP?#is-soda-going-to-be-banned-from-snap
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a vocal supporter of changing the SNAP rules to prohibit families from using their benefits on certain products, including soda.
But actually putting a new rule like this in place may be complicated. States that want to try it will have to submit waivers to the USDA, which oversees SNAP, in order to change the rules about what is and isn’t allowed for purchase with SNAP benefits.
Then, if the waivers are approved, each state will have to figure out how to put the new rules in place so that SNAP recipients can no longer swipe their EBT card for certain items.
Some states have started this process: In early April, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would prohibit SNAP recipients from using their benefits to purchase energy drinks, sweetened beverages, carbonated beverages, candy, chips, and cookies.
The bill still allows SNAP benefits to be used for milk substitutes (like soy, rice, almond, and oat milk) and certain kinds of fruit and vegetable juice.
In Louisiana, lawmakers introduced a similar bill that would prohibit the purchase of "soft drinks" using SNAP benefits. The bill defines soft drinks as "nonalcoholic beverages that contain natural or artificial sweeteners, including but not limited to sodas, sports drinks, and sugar-sweetened beverages."
Right now, the rules for what is and isn’t SNAP-eligible are the same everywhere, since they’re set by the USDA. If individual states change the rules around soda and soft drinks, these rules could be different state-to-state.
When would these changes take effect?#when-would-these-changes-take-effect
The process to change the rules around soda could take a long time. Even if state legislatures pass bills into law, they will need USDA approval before they can implement changes.
