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Wisconsin · Food assistance

Food stamps (SNAP) in
Wisconsin.

By Subha, Public Benefits Writer · Verified

Apply on ACCESSCheck income limits
Fresh groceries on a kitchen counter, for a guide to food stamps in Wisconsin
State programFoodShareWisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS)
Gross income limit200% of poverty line200% of poverty, from the DHS FoodShare chart
Most for 4 people$1,023 a monthFrom October 1, 2026
Benefit cardQUEST cardUsed like a debit card

Quick answer: Wisconsin calls SNAP FoodShare.

You apply on ACCESS or through your county or tribal agency, and most homes face a gross line of 200% of poverty, $4,554 a month for three, with no asset test. Benefits load onto the QUEST card between the 2nd and the 15th, set by the eighth digit of your Social Security number.

Eligibility

FoodShare's 200% chart for October 2026 through September 2027

These are the gross lines on DHS's own FoodShare chart, effective October 1, 2026: everyone's income in the home before taxes, held to 200% of the poverty level. A home at or under the line passes the gross test, and DHS then subtracts its deductions to find the benefit.

Wisconsin FoodShare gross and net monthly income limits and maximum monthly benefit by household size
HouseholdGross limit (200%)Net limitMax benefit
1 person$2,660$1,330$306
2 people$3,608$1,804$562
3 people$4,554$2,277$808
4 people$5,500$2,750$1,023
5 people$6,448$3,224$1,217
6 people$7,394$3,697$1,463
7 people$8,340$4,170$1,616
8 people$9,288$4,644$1,841

Each extra person adds $474 to the net limit and $225 to the maximum benefit.

Gross limit rule: Wisconsin DHS: FoodShare Monthly Income Limits, October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027. Net limits and maximum benefits: USDA Food and Nutrition Administration FY2027 standards. Verified October 30, 2026.

A home drops off the 200% chart if a member is disqualified for fraud or a drug felony, wins a large lottery or gambling prize, or the primary person breaks the basic work rules. Those homes are tested at 130%: $1,729 for one person, $3,575 for four.

Copied from the DHS chart and Operations Memo 26-32. A few rows run $1 above a plain 200% calculation, and DHS's rows for 9 and 10 people do not match its $948 per-person add-on, so larger homes should confirm with their agency. Members must report gross income rising past 130%.

A home with someone 60 or older, blind or disabled whose gross income tops the 200% chart is not turned away. DHS retests it under regular SNAP rules: no gross limit, a net line of 100% of poverty ($2,277 for three), and a $4,750 asset limit.

Meeting the income limit does not guarantee benefits. Your amount is figured from net income after deductions, so a household near the limit may get a small benefit or none.

An Eau Claire couple and their toddler: $3,100 a month in gross pay, $1,100 rent, and a gas furnace on a bill in their own name
  1. 1Their $3,100 would not pass the 130% federal line of $2,960 for three people. FoodShare uses the DHS chart instead, where three people can earn up to $4,554, so the family moves on to the deduction math.
  2. 2The agency takes off $620 for working income and the $217 standard deduction, leaving $2,263. Rent of $1,100 plus Wisconsin's $930 heating allowance makes $2,030 in shelter costs, which beats half of their income, $1,131.50, by $898.50.
  3. 3That excess is capped at $769 for a home with nobody 60 or older or disabled, so $769 comes off. Net income comes to $1,494, under the $2,277 line. Thirty percent of it, $449, is taken from the $808 maximum, so roughly $359 reaches the QUEST card each month.

Walk through the full SNAP benefit formula.

The card pays for groceries and seeds or plants that grow food, not alcohol, tobacco, vitamins, hot prepared food, pet food or household supplies.

Payment schedule

The eighth digit of a Social Security number sets a day from the 2nd to the 15th

Wisconsin spreads FoodShare over ten days between the 2nd and the 15th. The eighth digit of the case member's Social Security number picks the day, and it is the same every month.

Wisconsin SNAP deposit schedule
Eighth digit of the Social Security numberBenefits arrive
02nd
13rd
25th
36th
48th
59th
611th
712th
814th
915th

SSN 123-45-6789 has 8 as its eighth digit, so benefits arrive on the 14th. Benefits carry over, but any month's benefit older than 274 days is erased if the card has had no use for 274 days. Check the balance on ebtEDGE or at 877-415-5164.

Source: FoodShare Wisconsin Handbook 7.1.1.9: EBT Benefit Issuance Calendar.

Get started

ACCESS, your county consortium, MilES in Milwaukee, or form F-16019

Apply on ACCESS, which DHS calls the fastest way, or call or visit your county or tribal income maintenance agency. You can also mail the Wisconsin FoodShare Application, F-16019, to that agency. In Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Enrollment Services (MilES) takes applications by phone, fax, mail and in person.

Every new FoodShare case needs an interview. Call your agency or wait for it to call you; the interview is done by phone, and you can ask to meet in person instead. At renewal an interview may also be required.

DHS suggests bringing proof of your answers: a driver's license or passport for identity, a pay stub (or last year's taxes if self-employed), medical bills, and a lease, mortgage statement or utility bill. Its Examples of Proof sheet, P-02116, lists more documents that count.

If postponed proof is not in by day 30 of the application, ongoing benefits are denied. Homes with under $150 in gross income and $100 or less in liquid assets, or whose income and assets fall below rent plus the utility allowance, get expedited benefits by the seventh day, with only identity proved first.

The heating allowance went from $553 to $930 in three months

If you pay for heat, FoodShare does not add up your bills. It gives a flat Heating Standard Utility Allowance (HSUA). On July 1, 2026, after federal approval in May, Wisconsin raised it from $553 to $870 under new federal rules for setting these amounts.

Then the October 1, 2026 cost of living update lifted it again, to $930. That figure is added to rent or mortgage before DHS works out the shelter deduction, so a heated home can now get far more of its housing cost counted.

Homes without heating costs get smaller allowances: $466 for electricity plus one other utility, $149 for electricity alone, $120 for water and sewer, $113 for phone, $50 for trash and $36 for cooking fuel. DHS sends a Notice of Decision when an allowance change moves your benefit.

Source: Wisconsin DHS Operations Memo 26-32: FoodShare Cost of Living Adjustments.

Your county agency, its consortium, and MilES in Milwaukee

Counties run FoodShare day to day as income maintenance agencies, grouped into 11 consortia such as Bay Lake, Capital and Great Rivers. Any agency in your consortium can take your application, run the interview, process changes and handle renewals. Nine tribes run their own agencies.

Milwaukee and Forest counties are served by Milwaukee Enrollment Services. MilES has offices at 6055 N. 64th St. and at UMOS, 2701 S. Chase Ave., and closes at noon on Thursdays; for an application then, call 262-288-3584 or use ACCESS.

Not ready to finish the full form? At a MilES office you can fill out a short Doc 1 form to set your filing date, which is the date benefits are counted from. Mail goes to 6055 N. 64th St., Milwaukee, WI 53218, and applications can be faxed to 414-438-4580.

Source: Wisconsin DHS: Milwaukee Enrollment Services (MilES).

Since March 2026 the QUEST card works in five states by default

From March 1, 2026, the QUEST card's default security setting allows purchases only in Wisconsin and the bordering states of Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota. For online orders, the delivery or pickup address decides where the purchase happened.

Traveling farther? Call QUEST Card Service at 877-415-5164 and say Card Security, or open ebtEDGE, choose Protect My Account and pick the states to allow. The change is temporary: at midnight on the 1st of each month the card returns to the five-state setting.

You can pay online with the card at retailers including ALDI, Amazon, Instacart, Meijer, Target, Walmart and Woodman's. FoodShare covers only the food, so delivery fees need a second payment method.

Source: Wisconsin DHS: FoodShare, Wisconsin QUEST Card.

When W-2 cash ends, FoodShare holds steady for five months

Wisconsin Works (W-2) is the state's TANF cash program. When a W-2 or Tribal TANF payment stops, Transitional FoodShare automatically keeps the FoodShare case open for five more months, as long as the member was on an active case in the month of the last payment.

The amount is frozen. DHS uses the income, minus the W-2 payment, and the expenses and group size from the month before the last cash payment. During those five months the home has no change reporting duty, and at the end it must reapply.

Source: FoodShare Wisconsin Handbook 5.1.1: Transitional FoodShare Benefits (TFS).

The six month report, and the $150 change that started in October

Most cases are certified for 12 months, with a Six Month Report Form (SMRF) due in month six. The form and any proof must be in by the end of that month. Elderly, blind or disabled homes with no earned income on 12-month periods skip the SMRF.

Miss it, and you have one more month to finish; benefits then restart prorated from the day the last step is done. After 4:30 p.m. on that month's last business day, a new application is needed.

From October 1, 2026, the SMRF asks you to report unearned income that changed by $150 or more, up from $125. For a renewal, finish any required interview by the end of the renewal month, or DHS says you will not get a full month of benefits.

Source: FoodShare Wisconsin Handbook 6.1.2: Six Month Reporting Requirement.

Appeals go to the Division of Hearings and Appeals in Madison

A state agency outside DHS, the Department of Administration's Division of Hearings and Appeals (DHA), hears FoodShare appeals. DHA must receive the request within 90 days of the first day the action hit your benefits, and you may appeal your current amount at any point in a certification period.

Use form DHA-28 or a letter, sent to DHA, P.O. Box 7875, Madison, WI 53707-7875, by fax to 608-264-9885 or by email to DHAMail@wisconsin.gov. You can also ask your worker out loud, and the worker must fill in the form for you.

To keep your old amount while you wait, ask for continued benefits before the change takes effect. If DHA rules against you, the extra becomes an overpayment to repay. Annual cost of living changes cannot be overturned at a hearing.

Source: FoodShare Wisconsin Handbook 6.4.2: Fair Hearing Request.

Only in Wisconsin

Wisconsin fine print: spoiled food, meal sites and the $25 floor

Food spoiled in a power outage of four hours or more, a fire, a flood or a broken fridge can be replaced. Report the loss within 10 calendar days, then send the Request for Replacement form, F-00330, within 10 days of that report; the replacement is capped at that month's benefit.

The QUEST card can also pay for meals at a senior group meal site or for home-delivered meals, and at a drug and alcohol treatment center, a domestic violence shelter, a homeless shelter or a group home for people with disabilities, if the site accepts EBT.

Categorically eligible homes of one or two people receive at least $25 a month from October 1, 2026, up from $24. The first, prorated month is the exception: anything under $10 is not issued.

Cash in the bank seldom counts here: Homes approved on the 200% chart have no asset test. Only homes moved to regular SNAP rules face one: $3,000, or $4,750 for a home with a member who is elderly, blind or disabled and gross income over 200%.

Even then, Wisconsin ignores every vehicle, all real estate and retirement accounts.

Work rules: Members 16 to 59 must not quit a job of 30 hours a week or cut below 30 hours without good cause. Adults 18 to 64 with no child under 14 in the food unit get three months in Wisconsin's January 2025 to December 2027 clock, then need 80 hours a month of work or an allowable work program.

  • Summer EBT for school-age childrenFamilies who qualified got $120 per eligible child for summer 2026, worth $40 for each of June, July and August, in a one-time load. The first issuance went out June 6, 2026, onto an existing QUEST card or a new one by mail. Unused Summer EBT benefits disappear after 122 days.Official page
  • FoodShare Employment and Training (FSET)FSET offers job search, training and education help to any FoodShare member who wants it. Work registration is required, but the handbook says FSET itself is voluntary and skipping it brings no sanction. Adults under the time limit can meet the 80 hours through an allowable work program.Official page
  • Temporary QUEST cards at your agencyNewly approved expedited cases, and members whose card is lost, stolen or damaged, can ask the agency in person for a temporary card using form F-02260A. It works for 30 days or until the new card is activated, and it is limited to one per case every 12 months, with exceptions.Official page

Related guides

Wisconsin households working through FoodShare often need these next:

Frequently asked questions

FoodShare questions answered from the DHS handbook

Most homes must have gross monthly income at or under 200% of poverty on the DHS chart: $2,660 for one, $3,608 for two, $4,554 for three and $5,500 for four, effective October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. Some homes are held to 130% instead.

Not for homes approved under the 200% chart. Homes tested under regular SNAP rules face $3,000, or $4,750 with an elderly, blind or disabled member, but cars, houses, land and retirement accounts never count.

On one day between the 2nd and the 15th, by the eighth digit of the Social Security number: 0 on the 2nd, 1 on the 3rd, 2 on the 5th, 3 on the 6th, 4 on the 8th, 5 on the 9th, 6 on the 11th, 7 on the 12th, 8 on the 14th and 9 on the 15th.

Since March 1, 2026, the card's default setting allows only Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota. Allow other states through ebtEDGE or at 877-415-5164. The setting resets to those five states at midnight on the 1st of every month.

Yes. Wisconsin is not on USDA's list of SNAP food restriction waivers, which we checked on October 30, 2026, so the federal rules apply. Soda and candy remain eligible; alcohol, tobacco, vitamins, hot prepared food and nonfood items do not.

If your gross income is under $150 with $100 or less in liquid assets, or your income and assets are below rent plus the utility allowance, benefits must be issued by the seventh day. Apply after the 15th and you get that month and the next together.

$930 a month from October 1, 2026, for homes that pay for heat. It was $553 until July 1, 2026, then $870. The allowance is added to your housing cost, which can raise the shelter deduction and the benefit.

Adults 18 to 64 who can work and have no child under 14 in the food unit, unless exempt. They get three months in the January 2025 to December 2027 period, then need 80 hours a month of work or a work program.

Send form DHA-28 or a letter to the Division of Hearings and Appeals, or ask your worker, within 90 days of the action. Ask for continued benefits before the change takes effect to keep your old amount, which you repay if you lose.

Official resources

Official links

Independent guide

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