FY 2026 SNAP Process and Technology Improvement Grants (PTIG)

FY 2026 SNAP Process and Technology Improvement Grants (PTIG)

This page is a historical reference for the FY 2026 Process and Technology Improvement Grants (PTIG) competition administered by the USDA Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA), formerly presented under the Food and Nutrition Service name. The FY 2026 competition is closed. The official USDA program page records a June 29, 2026 closing date, and the Grants.gov listing is archived. No later PTIG cycle is announced on the official program page, so this page keeps the completed cycle’s real deadline rather than inventing a future date.

The program supports projects that use technology and process improvements to make SNAP application and eligibility determination systems more efficient, accurate, coordinated, and manageable for households and administering agencies. It is not an unrestricted software grant. A project must be tied to SNAP operations and at least one of the objectives in the FY 2026 Request for Applications (RFA).

FY 2026 status and key details

The award figures describe the announced competition, not money that remains available. A page visitor should not interpret the archive entry as an invitation to submit. The listing’s closed status and the historicalReference = true metadata are intentional: they preserve the funding information while making clear that the deadline has passed.

What FY 2026 PTIG was intended to fund

The RFA organized eligible work into three objective areas. A proposal could address one or more of them, but each proposed activity needed a clear SNAP connection.

1. Customer service and client communication

The first objective focused on improving the experience of applying for SNAP and managing a case. Relevant work could include technology that makes application processing more efficient, transparent, or accurate; gives households better information about their case; or improves communication during eligibility determinations. A useful proposal would connect a service problem to a concrete change in the application or case-management process. For example, it could describe how a redesigned status workflow reduces uncertainty for households while giving staff more consistent information to share.

2. Administrative infrastructure and daily operations

The second objective addressed the work performed by agencies while processing applications and determining eligibility. The official description emphasizes service levels and accurate, timely case processing. Projects under this objective should therefore explain the operational bottleneck, the technology or process change, and the measurable improvement expected in agency work. A broad claim that a new platform will modernize government is not enough. The project needs to show how it improves SNAP administration.

3. Coordination and verification across assistance programs

The third objective covered technology and systems that coordinate application and eligibility determination processes, including verification practices, between SNAP and other federal, state, and local assistance programs. This does not make every shared-services project eligible. The grant can fund only SNAP’s share when a project benefits other programs, and the proposal must make that allocation understandable. A strong design would identify the participating programs, explain which process is being coordinated, and separate SNAP costs from costs attributable to other beneficiaries.

Across all three objectives, the most important scope test is practical: the project should improve the quality or efficiency of SNAP application or eligibility determination systems. Proposals centered on unrelated technology, general organizational capacity, or services with no SNAP operating connection would not satisfy that test.

Who was eligible to apply

The FY 2026 competition listed several categories of eligible entities:

• the 53 State agencies that administer SNAP, meaning the agencies serving the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and Guam;
• state or local governments;
• agencies providing health or welfare services;
• public health or educational entities; and
• private nonprofit entities such as community-based or faith-based organizations, food banks, and other emergency feeding organizations.

The FY 2026 listing does not identify Indian Tribal Organizations as a separate eligible category, so the earlier version of this page’s eligibility list has been corrected rather than carried forward from a prior-year description.

There was also a lead-entity restriction. An entity that received a PTIG award in either of the two previous fiscal years, FY 2024 or FY 2025, was ineligible to apply as the FY 2026 lead entity. The restriction applied to the lead recipient named on the award, not automatically to every partner organization or government agency involved in a project. That distinction mattered for coalitions: a previously funded organization could potentially participate as a partner, while an eligible lead still had to meet every application requirement.

Unless a State SNAP agency submitted an application on its own, the package had to include a letter of commitment or letter of endorsement from the relevant State SNAP agency. A nonprofit, local government, public entity, or other non-State applicant therefore needed to establish the State relationship before finalizing its package. The letter requirement was not a substitute for eligibility; it was part of the submission package for applicants that were not applying directly as a State agency.

Funding, duration, and cost allocation

FNA stated that it intended to award up to $5 million in PTIG funds, contingent on the availability of funds, through a competitive process. Individual applicants could request between $20,000 and $2 million. The agency anticipated making between six and 12 awards. Those figures should be read together: the ceiling for an individual request was not a promise that every applicant would receive the maximum, and a submission did not guarantee funding.

The announced project period ran from September 2026 through September 30, 2029, giving successful grantees three years to use the award. FNA also specified that all grant funds had to be obligated and all activities completed by the end of that project period. Any future applicant planning from this archive should confirm whether a later RFA changes the award range, number of awards, or period of performance.

The official FY 2026 information also addressed larger eligibility-system projects. If the PTIG-supported activities were part of a larger eligibility-system project with total projected costs exceeding $6 million, an Advance Planning Document (APD) had to be submitted and approved before these grant funds could be spent. If the project benefited programs beyond SNAP, costs had to be allocated appropriately among all benefiting programs. PTIG funding could pay only SNAP’s share. This makes a defensible cost-allocation method essential for shared platforms, shared data services, and joint implementation teams.

How the FY 2026 application was submitted

Applications were submitted through Grants.gov by the June 29, 2026 deadline at 11:59 p.m. EDT. The USDA program page directs applicants to the Grants.gov RFA and identifies the federal forms available there. The core forms listed for this competition were:

• SF-424, Application for Federal Assistance;
• SF-424A, Budget Information;
• SF-424B, Assurances for Non-Construction Programs; and
• SF-LLL, Disclosure of Lobbying Activities.

The full RFA controlled the complete package, attachments, narrative instructions, and any certifications. Applicants should therefore treat the form list as a starting checklist, not as permission to omit a document required by the RFA. The package also needed to address at least one of the three PTIG objectives, explain the proposed SNAP improvement, identify the participating entities, and show how requested costs matched the work. A non-State lead needed its State commitment or endorsement letter in the application package.

A sound preparation sequence for the closed cycle would have been:

1. Confirm that the proposed lead fit one of the eligible entity categories and had not received a PTIG award in FY 2024 or FY 2025.
2. Confirm the SNAP agency relationship and obtain the required letter when the lead was not a State SNAP agency applying independently.
3. Select the objective area or areas and define the SNAP process problem in operational terms.
4. Build the project narrative around activities, outputs, and expected improvements in customer service, case processing, administrative infrastructure, or cross-program coordination.
5. Prepare a budget that stays within the $20,000 to $2,000,000 request range and separates SNAP costs from costs benefiting other programs.
6. Check whether the larger project crossed the $6 million APD threshold.
7. Complete the SF-424, SF-424A, SF-424B, SF-LLL when applicable, narrative, budget support, letters, and other RFA-required attachments.
8. Submit through Grants.gov before the stated deadline and retain the confirmation record.

The final step was especially important because the competition had a fixed closing time. After the deadline passed, a new submission could not be made to the FY 2026 listing. The archive is useful for planning, but it cannot reopen the application window.

How to use this page now

Readers researching a future PTIG cycle should use this page for historical context only. Start with the current USDA/FNA PTIG program page and the current Grants.gov search result. Verify the opportunity number, closing date, applicant categories, request range, required forms, and any year-specific restrictions in the new RFA before preparing materials. The annual program description explains the program’s continuing purpose, but it does not replace the cycle-specific announcement.

For organizations comparing their work with the FY 2026 competition, the clearest fit is a project that improves a SNAP application, eligibility, verification, communication, or case-processing function and can show who benefits and how the improvement will be measured. A project may involve a vendor or nonprofit partner, but the eligible lead remains responsible for the federal application, the State relationship when required, the budget, and compliance with the SNAP-only cost rule. Projects that cannot identify the SNAP operational owner, the relevant objective, or the allocation of shared costs would need substantial clarification before they could be competitive in a later cycle.

The official FY 2026 records are:

• USDA/FNA FY 2026 PTIG page: https://www.fna.usda.gov/grant/snap/ptig-2026
• Grants.gov/Simpler opportunity listing: https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/e1bc457a-bf73-4070-b141-bc5421c9eb9a

The USDA page is the best source for the program summary and cycle status. The Grants.gov listing preserves the FY 2026 opportunity record, funding amounts, applicant summary, RFA document reference, and archive status. Neither source announces a subsequent cycle on this historical entry, so no future deadline is stated here.