Almost 9 percent of SNAP and P-EBT benefits were redeemed online by end of FY 2023

USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Online Purchasing Pilot allows households in participating States to purchase groceries online from select authorized retailers using SNAP and Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) benefits. The pilot was originally slated to roll out in fiscal years (FY) 2019 and 2020. Given the onset of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, USDA rapidly expanded the pilot beginning midway through FY 2020 to additional States and retailers. By the end of FY 2020, online benefit redemption was available at seven retailers in 45 States and Washington, DC. With the expansion to Alaska in June 2023, online redemption became available in all States, and the pilot had expanded to 341 retailers by the end of FY 2023. Online SNAP and P-EBT benefit redemption grew steadily from FY 2020 to FY 2023. During April–June 2020 (the first quarter for which complete information on online redemptions was available), $234 million in benefits were redeemed online, or just less than 1 percent of total SNAP and P-EBT redemptions. By the last quarter of FY 2023 (July–September), the value redeemed online had increased almost tenfold to $2.3 billion, or 8.8 percent of all redemptions. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report, released June 2024.

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