State denied nearly 260,000 SNAP applications in Michigan last year

Michigan rejects more than a quarter of a million applications for food-stamp benefits every year, according to records obtained by Michigan Capitol Confidential.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helps feed about 1.4 million people.

State residents apply for benefits that can be spent at about 10,000 SNAP retailers statewide. Those people must submit information about their income and other matters so the state can determine if they qualify for benefits, and if so, how much.

Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained records seeking how many applications the state has denied since 2022, along with the reasons it denied those requests.

Here’s how many SNAP applications were denied over more than four years.

• 2022: 259,978 applications denied

• 2023: 282,777 applications denied

• 2024: 290,252 applications denied

• 2025: 259,311 applications denied

• 2026 to date: 87,094 applications denied

The most commonly mentioned reason for denial in 2025 was a lack of eligible household members (132,115 cases). Another 82,547 applications were denied benefits because they failed to attend an intake interview within 30 days of applying. The state denied about 81,600 applications because the applicant failed to provide the required information.

”Non-cooperation of child support requirements” explains the rejection of more than 2,000 applications submitted in the years 2022 through 2025.

The state health department also closes accounts of people who had been receiving SNAP benefits. The department closed hundreds of thousands of accounts in each year of the four-year period:

• 2022: 940,768 accounts

• 2023: 926,625 accounts

• 2024: 898,509 accounts

• 2025: 695,842 accounts

• 2026 to date: 209,592 accounts

In 2025, the common reason for closing an account was that there were no eligible members in the household. The state pulled the plug on 184,000 accounts for this reason. About 84,946 people failed to return the DHS-1046, an eligibility form. Roughly 53,054 people failed to provide information within the required time. About 51,420 reported having greater than 130% of the federal poverty level.

Michigan is spending about $37 million to lower the error rate. About one out of every 10 times the state health department disburses benefits, it’s an incorrect amount, according to the data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture released in late June 2026.

The federal government, in a campaign to reduce SNAP fraud, is suing Michigan over the state’s failure to share data on SNAP recipients.