SNAP provides support for low-income seniors, people with disabilities living on fixed incomes, and other low-income households. The Florida Department of Children and Families Office of Economic Self-Sufficiency (ESS) is responsible for determining SNAP eligibility and distributing benefits to Florida SNAP accounts on a fixed monthly schedule.
Your Florida EBT card can be used anywhere displaying the Quest logo, which includes most major grocery store chains, some retailers and participating farmers’ markets. Depending on your location, groceries may even be purchased using your EBT card and delivered to your home.
Your benefits can be used to purchase most food items, including:
- Fruits and vegetables
- Meat, poultry and fish
- Dairy products
- Breads and cereals
- Snack foods and non-alcoholic beverages
- Seeds and plants, which produce food for the household to eat
Among the items you can’t buy with SNAP benefits are alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, vitamins, medicines, supplements, live animals, pet foods, cleaning supplies, paper products, cosmetics and hot, ready-to-eat foods.
There’s also the SUNCAP Program, which is a food assistance program for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients. If you already receive SNAP benefits, you may be automatically enrolled in the SUNCAP Program when you become eligible for SSI.
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Florida also offers a wide range of benefits and services to SNAP customers, including the following:
- Amazon Prime: Florida SNAP recipients can sign up for an Amazon Prime EBT Discount for $6.99 per month, which is about half the regular cost of a subscription.
- Computers/internet/cell phones: Through the Affordable Connectivity Program, eligible SNAP recipients could receive up to a $30 per month discount on internet service (up to a $75 per month discount if a household is on qualifying Tribal lands) or a one-time discount of up to $100 for a laptop, tablet or desktop computer and a low-cost service plan covered by the ACP. Eligible SNAP participants can also get a free cell phone through the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program.
- Farmers’ markets: Fresh Access Bucks (FAB), an initiative of Feeding Florida, is a statewide nutrition incentive program that encourages Florida SNAP recipients to use their benefits at farmers’ markets, produce stands, CSAs, mobile markets and community grocery outlets. If you buy $1 worth of fresh food using your EBT card, you’ll receive $1 in Fresh Access Bucks. Here’s a map with the locations of outlets that are accepting and doubling SNAP and P-EBT benefits.
- Museums/zoos/aquariums: The Museums for All initiative gives Florida EBT cardholders free or discounted admission to over 600 museums, aquariums and zoos nationwide.
Florida’s SNAP benefits are sent out between the 1st and the 28th of every month, based on the 9th and 8th digits of your Florida case number (read backward) after dropping the 10th digit.
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Here are Florida’s food assistance payment dates for December 2022:
| Case number’s 9th and 8th digits are: | Benefits available: |
| 00-03 | Dec. 1st |
| 04-06 | Dec. 2nd |
| 07-10 | Dec. 3rd |
| 11-13 | Dec. 4th |
| 14-17 | Dec. 5th |
| 18-20 | Dec. 6th |
| 21-24 | Dec. 7th |
| 25-27 | Dec. 8th |
| 28-31 | Dec. 9th |
| 32-34 | Dec. 10th |
| 35-38 | Dec. 11th |
| 39-41 | Dec. 12th |
| 42-45 | Dec. 13th |
| 46-48 | Dec. 14th |
| 49-53 | Dec. 15th |
| 54-57 | Dec. 16th |
| 58-60 | Dec. 17th |
| 61-64 | Dec. 18th |
| 65-67 | Dec. 19th |
| 68-71 | Dec. 20th |
| 72-74 | Dec. 21st |
| 75-78 | Dec. 22nd |
| 79-81 | Dec. 23rd |
| 82-85 | Dec. 24th |
| 86-88 | Dec. 25th |
| 89-92 | Dec. 26th |
| 93-95 | Dec. 27th |
| 96-99 | Dec. 28th |
SNAP recipients will also receive another big payment in December which includes the 12.5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) approved for 2023. The COLA for 2023 will run through Sept. 30, 2023, which will help SNAP recipients deal with rising food costs.
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