SNAP EBT Chip Card Technical Resources

Chip Card Technical Resources

The resources on this page are intended to support retailers and acquirers in preparing for states to move to EBT Chip enabled cards. Some acquirers or third-party processors may have tools to support you. If this is the case, you may use those resources.  On Aug. 28, 2024, the X9.58-2024 EBT standard was published and is available on the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) site.

Please note that a magnetic stripe will remain on the new EBT chip cards. Retailer POS systems should allow SNAP EBT chip cards to “fallback” to magnetic stripe transactions until SNAP EBT chip cards are supported by their equipment.

An EMV chip-enabled POS terminal will be able to recognize that an EBT card has a chip, but it will not recognize the specific EBT Application Identifier (AID) on the SNAP EBT chip until the EBT AID software update has been installed on the POS equipment.

Testing EBT chips cards on POS systems in the production environment is important to ensure that SNAP recipients can access their benefits without interruption during this EBT chip card implementation.  

Testing for ECL Fallback

The test scenarios provided by FNS are intended to test POS equipment/systems that currently accept credit and debit chip card (EMV) payments but have yet to be updated to accept SNAP EBT chip card payments. Testing with the scenarios provided by FNS will allow you to determine whether your POS equipment/system can successfully fallback to EBT magnetic stripe processing via ECL fallback. 

Please refer to the Empty Candidate List Testing Instructions for SNAP EBT Chip Cards and the ECL Test Scripts for a comprehensive list of test cases that should be completed.

Important Notes

• Contact your POS service provider/acquirer to obtain test cards.
• All test scenarios will eventually result in a declined magnetic stripe transaction with the response “card not found” because the EBT card number is not recognized by the host processor. (Also note that the test cards being distributed to support this round of testing are not funded.) 
• Ensure that your terminals fall back to magnetic stripe processing by updating your terminals to recognize the 220 service code. You must also continue to accept EBT cards with 120 service code.
• Please submit confirmation of your ability to perform ECL fallback to the SNAP EBT Modernization Technical Assistance Center (SEMTAC): Details if Your POS is Not Updated for EBT Chip.
• Additional technical assistance questions can also be sent to SEMTAC: ebtchip@nationalgrocers.org.

Retailer Testing for Chip Card Transactions

Depending on state preferences, SNAP EBT chip cards will be contact-only (insert) or dual-interface (insert and tap/contactless) cards. The test scenarios provided by FNS are intended to allow retailers to test their POS equipment/systems with these new SNAP EBT chip cards (contact-only and/or dual-interface). Testing with the scenarios provided by FNS will allow retailers to determine whether their POS equipment/system can successfully process transactions using these cards after implementing the new EBT Chip requirements detailed in the link below.

Refer to the EBT Chip Card Implementation Details for Retailers and the Retailer EBT Chip Card POS Test Scripts  for a comprehensive list of test cases that should be completed.  Please note that some acquirers or third-party processors may have tools to support you. If this is the case, you are more than welcome to use those resources.

Once setup with your acquirer, please submit confirmation to the SNAP EBT Modernization Technical Assistance Center (SEMTAC): Details if Your POS is Updated for EBT Chip.

For additional support and/or questions you can contact the FNS SEMTAC team:  ebtchip@nationalgrocers.org.