WIC Policy Memorandum #2026-2: FY 2026 Cash-Value Voucher/Benefit Amounts

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is one of the nation’s most trusted and important public health programs. Under the leadership of USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, WIC supports the Trump Administration’s commitment to encouraging healthy choices, healthy outcomes, and healthy families through the federal nutrition programs.

This memorandum encourages state agencies to allow more fruit and vegetable options for participants to purchase with their monthly cash-value voucher/benefit (CVV/B) and lists the inflation adjustments to the CVV/B amounts for fiscal year (FY) 2026 – which runs from Oct. 1, 2025, to Sept. 30, 2026.

Providing More Fruit and Vegetable Options for WIC Families

In line with Congressional directives accompanying the FY 2026 WIC appropriations, FNS strongly supports state agency efforts to provide more fresh, frozen, canned, and dried fruit and vegetable options for WIC participants.¹ Allowing WIC families to purchase additional forms of fruits and vegetables with their CVV/B promotes healthy outcomes for participants.

FNS acknowledges that state agencies are already working to ensure that WIC families have more fruit and vegetable options. Recent changes to the WIC food packages require state agencies to authorize at least one form (i.e., frozen, canned, and/or dried) of fruits and vegetables in addition to fresh by April 2026.² As of Nov. 2025, 95% of state agencies are in compliance, authorizing fresh and at least one additional form of fruits and vegetables. We appreciate state agencies' timely implementation of these changes and support state agency-led efforts to expand healthy options for families.

FY 2026 CVV/B Amounts

WIC regulations require annual inflation adjustments to the baseline CVV/B monthly values.³ Increases to the CVV/B amounts are rounded down to the next lowest whole dollar.⁴

In FY 2026, the CVV/B inflation adjustment is 11.8% over the FY 2022 baseline amounts. This results in a one dollar increase over the FY 2025 CVV/B amount for pregnant and postpartum participants and no change to the amounts for children and breastfeeding participants.

Therefore, the FY 2026 amounts are:

CVV/B Juice Substitution Amount

The FY 2026 inflation adjustment does not result in a whole dollar increase to the monthly CVV/B substitution amount for juice. Therefore, the FY 2026 amount remains at:

CVV/B Infant Food Jarred Fruit and Vegetable Substitution Amounts

The FY 2026 inflation adjustment does not result in a whole dollar increase to the monthly CVV/B substitution amounts of infant food jarred fruits and vegetables. Therefore, the FY 2026 amounts remain at:

State agencies may direct any questions related to this memorandum to their respective FNS regional office.

Sara Olson
Director
Policy Division
Supplemental Nutrition and Safety Programs

¹ See theJoint Explanatory Statement for Division B of the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026 (PL 119-37).
² Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC): Revisions in the WIC Food Packages final rule,89 FR 28488.
³7 CFR 246.16(j)
⁴ The inflation adjustment must equal the percentage (if any) by which the annual average value of the Consumer Price Index for fresh fruits and vegetables, computed from monthly values published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the twelve months ending on March 31 of the fiscal year immediately prior to the adjustment year, exceeds the average of the monthly values of that index for the twelve months ending on March 31, 2021. If any increase in the CVV/B is not a multiple of $1, the increase must be rounded to the next lowest multiple of $1.