Increases penalties for stores that illegally trade SNAP benefits and improves how the government tracks such fraud.
This bill would increase the maximum fines for retail food stores caught illegally trading food stamp benefits from $100,000 to $250,000. It would also require the government to improve how it estimates and reports this kind of fraud, and potentially check high-risk stores more often.
Today, the maximum civil money penalty for retail food store trafficking in SNAP benefits is $100,000. The Food and Nutrition Service estimates this activity using certain assumptions and reauthorizes stores every 5 years. After this bill, the maximum civil money penalty would increase to $250,000, and the Food and Nutrition Service would be required to update and validate its trafficking estimates, report them with uncertainty ranges, and assess more frequent reauthorization for high-risk stores.
HR 9649 · 119th Congress · July 13, 2026 · AI Summary by gemini-2.5-flash · 10/10
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