The short answer
SNAP limits adults aged 18 to 64 who have no qualifying exception to three months of benefits in three years unless they work or train for 80 hours a month. By January 1, 2027 at the latest, adults covered through the Medicaid expansion will have to show 80 hours a month of work, training, school or community service, or earnings of at least $580 a month, unless they are exempt.
Two programmes, two different rules
Both changes come from the budget law enacted in July 2025, and they work differently in each programme. In SNAP the rule is a time limit: an adult who is subject to it and does not meet the work requirement can receive benefits for only three months in a 36-month period. In Medicaid it is a condition of eligibility: an adult who is subject to it and cannot show qualifying activity is refused coverage, or loses it at renewal.
Neither rule applies to everyone who receives the benefit. Children, older people, people with disabilities, pregnant women and most parents of young children are outside both. The rules are aimed at working-age adults without those circumstances, and the details of who falls outside them decide most cases.
SNAP: the time limit now reaches age 64
SNAP has long limited able-bodied adults without dependents to three months of benefits in three years unless they worked, took part in a work or training programme, or did workfare for at least 80 hours a month. The age range used to be 18 to 54. Since July 4, 2025 it has been 18 to 64, so people aged 55 to 64 who were outside the rule are now inside it unless another exception applies.
The law also narrowed the exception for parents, which now covers adults in a household with a child under 14 rather than any child under 18. It removed the exceptions added in 2023 for veterans, for people experiencing homelessness and for young adults who aged out of foster care, and it added one for people who are Indian, Urban Indian or California Indian as the Indian Health Service defines those terms. States put the changes into effect on their own schedules, so the date the rule reached a particular household depends on the state.
Who is still outside the SNAP time limit
The exceptions that remain are the ones most people would expect. Someone who is physically or mentally unable to work is excepted, as is someone who is pregnant. So is anyone already exempt from SNAP's general work rules - for example because they work at least 30 hours a week, receive unemployment benefits, or take part in a drug or alcohol treatment programme.
States could also ask to waive the time limit in areas without enough jobs. That option is now much narrower: an area generally needs an unemployment rate above 10% to qualify, with a separate test for Alaska and Hawaii. Far fewer places can qualify under that test than under the old one, which is one reason the rule is reaching people it had not reached in recent years.
Medicaid: 80 hours a month for expansion adults
The Medicaid requirement applies to adults aged 19 to 64 who are covered through the Medicaid expansion group or a similar state waiver, who are not pregnant and who are not entitled to Medicare. States must start it no later than January 1, 2027, and may start sooner. A state that shows a good-faith effort can be given more time, but no later than December 31, 2028, under a federal rule published in June 2026.
The requirement is 80 hours a month of work, community service, a work programme or at least half-time education, in any combination. Earning at least 80 times the federal minimum wage - $580 a month - satisfies it without counting hours. States check it when a person applies, looking back over one to three months, and again at renewal, which for expansion adults moves to every six months. A person refused Medicaid under this rule is generally barred from Marketplace premium tax credits as well.
Who is exempt from the Medicaid rule
The law lists people who are excluded outright. They include people who are pregnant or postpartum, parents and caretakers of a child aged 13 or younger or of a person with a disability, people who are medically frail or have a disability, veterans rated totally disabled, American Indians and Alaska Natives, people in drug or alcohol treatment, and people recently released from jail or prison. Anyone already meeting the work rules of SNAP or TANF is treated as meeting this one.
States can also grant short-term hardship exceptions, for example during a hospital stay, in a county with very high unemployment or a declared disaster, or while travelling for medical care. None of this is automatic everywhere: the state decides how an exemption is verified, and many will try to confirm it from records they already hold before asking you for paperwork.
What this does not tell you
This article describes the federal framework. Each state runs its own version, sets its own start date within the federal deadline and decides how exemptions are verified, so the notice from your state agency is what applies to you.
None of our calculators models a work requirement. They estimate what a household might receive if it is eligible; whether an adult in that household must also meet a work rule is a separate test the agency applies.
Official sources
What you can do next
Read every notice from your SNAP or Medicaid office and answer requests for information by the date given - under rules like these, people most often lose benefits over paperwork rather than over work. If you think an exemption applies, say so and ask what evidence the agency will accept. Then use the calculators to check what the household may qualify for.