WIC income guidelines for 2026-2027

The 2026-2027 income tables

USDA published the guidelines in the Federal Register on April 29, 2026, effective July 1, 2026. The method is set by law: WIC uses the income standard for reduced-price school meals, which is 185% of the HHS poverty guideline, multiplied out and rounded up to the next whole dollar. States had to apply the new tables no later than July 1, 2026, or earlier if they aligned them with their Medicaid update. The tables below give the annual figure and the four pay periods the notice uses, so that you can compare directly with a pay stub.

These figures are maximums. The WIC regulation, 7 CFR 246.7(d)(1), lets a state use instead the income guidelines of its own free or reduced-price health care programs, which can be lower, but never above the reduced-price meal line and never under 100% of the poverty guideline. Different local agencies in a state may even use different guidelines when those are the ones they use for health care. Most clinics simply apply the table above; the clinic will tell you which one it uses.

Automatic income eligibility through SNAP, Medicaid or TANF

Paragraph (d)(2)(vi) of the regulation makes the income test unnecessary for many families. The state must accept as income-eligible any applicant who documents that he or she is certified as fully eligible for SNAP, certified or presumptively eligible for TANF or Medicaid, or is a member of a family certified for TANF, or of a family in which a pregnant woman or an infant is certified for Medicaid. People who qualify this way are not subject to the income limits at all. A state may also accept participation in other state programs that require income documentation, if their income limits are at or below the WIC line.

That matters because Medicaid for pregnancy reaches far above 185% in many states. Iowa, for example, covers pregnant women up to 220% of poverty, about $5,008 a month for a household of three, under the levels CMS publishes. A pregnant woman enrolled there is income-eligible for WIC even with income well above the table, and so is the rest of her family. The same shortcut works the other way round: being on WIC does not make anyone eligible for SNAP or Medicaid, which have their own tests (see Medicaid income limits).

Who WIC serves

Income is one of three conditions. Under paragraph (c), an applicant must belong to a WIC category, live within the state's jurisdiction, and meet the nutrition risk criteria. The categories are pregnant women, postpartum women, breastfeeding women, infants and children. Certification periods in paragraph (g) set how long each stays on the program: a pregnant woman for the whole pregnancy and up to the end of the month in which the baby turns six weeks; a postpartum woman up to the last day of the 6th month after the birth; a breastfeeding woman about every six months, up to the month the baby turns 1; an infant about every six months, and a child about every six months until the month of the fifth birthday. States may not impose a minimum length of residency, and the certification is free.

Nutrition risk is assessed by a competent professional authority on the staff of the local agency, through a medical or nutritional assessment, sometimes based on a referral from a doctor. The finding shapes the food package and the nutrition advice, and is documented in the file.

Counting household size and income

A pregnant woman whose income is over the line counts each expected baby, as paragraph (d)(2)(vii) provides. Expecting twins in a household of two earning $52,000 a year, she would be over the two-person line of $40,034 but within the four-person line of $61,050 once both babies count. Income means gross cash income before taxes and payroll deductions. Clinics can use the family's income over the past 12 months or its current rate, whichever better reflects its situation, and a family whose adult lost a job is judged on income during unemployment. A state may exclude the housing allowance of service members living off base or in privatized housing and certain overseas cost-of-living allowances, and the value of in-kind housing is always left out.

Applicants must bring proof of income, or of the program that makes them adjunctively eligible, together with proof of identity and residence. The regulation exempts from the income documentation rule people for whom no documentation exists, such as a migrant farmworker with no pay records, or a homeless woman or child for whom the requirement would be an unreasonable barrier.

WIC and the other programs

At 185% of poverty, WIC sits well above SNAP's federal gross line of 130% and close to the 185% of poverty figure used for reduced-price school meals, which is the same number by design. A family that does not qualify for food stamps may still get WIC for a pregnant member or a young child; the SNAP calculator and the poverty level calculator show where your household stands for each program. The WIC rules are federal, but a state WIC agency may limit participation to citizens, nationals and qualified non-citizens, and must notify USDA if it does; under federal rules, qualified non-citizens are eligible without regard to how long they have held that status.