How to check your EBT balance (official ways only)

There are exactly four reliable ways to see how much SNAP money is on your EBT card. All of them are free, none of them ask for anything beyond your card number and PIN, and none of them are ads.

1. Your last receipt

Every SNAP purchase prints the remaining balance at the bottom of the receipt. It is the fastest check if you shopped recently, and it is the one method that cannot be faked.

2. The number on the back of your card

Each state has a toll-free EBT customer-service line that runs 24 hours a day. It is printed on the card, and we list it on every state page under “if your deposit is late.” The automated system asks for your card number and PIN and reads the balance, the last transactions and, in most states, the date of your next deposit. Calling the number is also how you report a lost card or freeze it.

3. Your state’s EBT portal

The two companies that process EBT for nearly every state run the cardholder websites:

• ebtEDGE (FIS) serves roughly half the states, including Texas, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona and Washington. The site is ebtedge.com and the app is called ebtEDGE.
• ConnectEBT (Conduent) serves most of the rest, including California, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts. The site is connectebt.com and the app is ConnectEBT.

A few states run their own portal (for example Your Texas Benefits also shows balances, and California’s BenefitsCal links to the card). Your state agency’s site names the right one; so does the paperwork that came with your card. Registering takes the card number and a PIN, and the apps add a card-freeze switch and transaction alerts that are worth turning on.

4. Your state agency’s benefits account

Most states’ online benefits portals (the one you used to apply or recertify) show the issuance history for your case, which tells you whether benefits were issued for the month and on which date even if the card balance has not updated yet.

What to avoid

Search results for “EBT balance” are crowded with third-party apps and websites that offer to check your balance for you. Some are legitimate budgeting tools; some are skimming operations that collect card numbers and PINs and drain accounts the night benefits post. You cannot tell which is which from the page, so do not use any of them. Your state agency will never text you a link to “verify” your card, and no official site asks for your Social Security number to show a balance.

If you did enter your card details somewhere you now doubt, change your PIN immediately through the customer-service line or the official app, and consider freezing the card until your deposit day. Our guide to lost or stolen cards covers what to do if money is missing.

Reading the balance

SNAP and cash assistance are separate accounts on the same card, so the system reads two balances. Only the SNAP balance works for food. Benefits that are not spent roll over month to month, but an account with no activity for nine months is emptied under federal rules (the state must notify you first), so a dormant card does not keep its balance forever.