Can you Buy Pet Food with EBT Card for Food Stamps?

Can you buy pet food or dog food with your Food Stamps or EBT Card? The food stamps program is designed to get people who need food assistance the help they need to buy nutritious food for their household. Based on your income level and the total income for your entire household, they determine what your food stamps amount should be. To apply for food stamps in your state, see our post on SNAP Benefit Application Process.

Here are our Top 5 Articles on Where to Use EBT
List of Grocery Stores that accept Food Stamps
The 50 Gas Stations that accept EBT
Does Sam’s Club Accept EBT Card?
Does Walgreens Accept EBT Card?
Amazon Prime Discount for EBT Recipients

Can you Buy Pet Food with EBT Card?

To answer the question, let’s look at the list of eligible items you are allowed to buy with your SNAP benefits card.

As you can see, it says that you cannot buy pet food with EBT/Food Stamps/SNAP Benefits. This is directly from the USDA Website so there is no doubt about where that information is coming from. If you attempt to use your card to buy pet or dog food, you will be violating the law – which could land you in jail. You are only allowed to use it for foods that are approved on the list above, which mainly include nutritious food that you absolutely need to maintain a healthy family. If you have questions about this, tell us in the comments section below.

Kwame Kuadey

Kwame Kuadey writes about personal finance and the social safety net. His career started in banking but he caught the entrepreneurial bug and has spent the last decade building successful businesses, including an Inc. 500 Company. Kwame believes everyone has the power to improve their quality of life by seeking knowledge and taking action. In 2012, Kwame founded Empower Media to help low-income households improve their financial situation. His expertise is in topics relevant to low-income households, including government benefits and assistance, banking products, access to credit, plus tools & resources to help reduce income volatility and build wealth. Kwame has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, Washington Post, ABC, and NPR.

Comments

comments

Maria

Sunday 2nd of October 2016

I think that they should make it to where you can buy pet food with your ebt card. There is alot of homeless animals out there backseat of people not being able to afford pet food for there animals. But if America wants to help in stop all the homeless cats and dogs that are on Maryland streets then they should pass it to where you can buy food for your pets on your ebt card so that way it will help with less animals being thrown on the streets because of them not having the money to feed the animals...

Comments are closed.