Assistance program
Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program for Children
$8.3 Billion committed in FY2024–FY2026
- Agency
- Food and Nutrition Service, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 10.646
- What it does
- Summer EBT is a Federally-assisted program through which participating States and Indian Tribal Organizations provide EBT benefits to children who lose access to free and reduced price meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) during the summer when school is not in session.
- Who benefits
- Children eligible for Summer EBT are those who are eligible for free or reduced price school meals. In some cases, children will be automatically enrolled based on administrative data available at the state level indicating eligibility for free or reduced price school meals. Those who cannot be identified through administrative data must apply for Summer EBT benefits and be determined eligible.
- Who applies
- States, including U.S. Territories and the District of Columbia, and Indian Tribal Organizations that administer the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
- Authorized by
- Section 502 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L 117-328) amended the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1751 et seq.) to authorize a permanent, nationwide Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (Summer EBT) Program for Children beginning in 2024.
- Program site
- https://www.fns.usda.gov/sebt ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments