Summer EBT
Summer Food Benefits for Children
Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) provides certain families with $120 per child to buy food for their children in the summer. Children who get Summer EBT can still participate in other programs, such as Summer Meals and FoodShare. Receiving Summer EBT will not affect children’s or families’ immigration status.
Summer EBT benefits are issued once a summer to eligible children. This means that once a child has been sent benefits, they will not get any more Summer EBT benefits for the year.
Who can get Summer EBT?
In general, children automatically qualified for Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) in 2026 if they had an approved application to get free or reduced price meals at their National School Lunch Program (NSLP) participating school for the 2025-2026 school year.
Children also qualified if their household was in a qualifying program any time during the 2025-2026 school year or 2026 summer. The qualifying programs are:
- FoodShare
- Wisconsin Works
(W-2) - The Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations
(FDPIR) - Certain income-based Medicaid programs
If a child did not go to a school that participates in the NSLP and their household was in one of the qualifying programs, they must have been school-aged to qualify. Children are considered school-aged for 2026 if they were born on or between July 1, 2007, and August 31, 2020.
Children who qualified for Summer EBT will be sent benefits automatically. If a child did not get Summer EBT benefits yet, their families may be able to take steps to see if they can still qualify for Summer EBT this year.
If your child qualified for Summer EBT, learn how to use the benefits.
Summer EBT Benefit Management Tool
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) created the Summer EBT Benefit Management Tool for parents or caretakers of eligible children to easily submit a request to update contact information or opt their student(s) out from receiving Summer EBT benefits.
Using benefits
Your Summer EBT benefits will be put onto an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card that works like a debit card. If you already have a QUEST card or a Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) card from the COVID-19 pandemic, we will put your Summer EBT benefits on that card. If you do not already have an active EBT card, we will mail you a new QUEST card with the benefits already loaded onto it.
Once the benefits are added to your EBT card, you have 122 days (about 4 months) to use them. Any Summer EBT benefits that you have not used after that time will be removed from your card. You will get a reminder in the mail before we remove any Summer EBT benefits from your card.
In rare cases, families may get multiple cards if their eligible children are on different cases. If this happens, the benefits cannot be combined or transferred between the different cards.
