What is the average monthly SNAP benefit amount for immigrant households in the US as of 2025?

Executive Summary — What the evidence shows about immigrant households and SNAP benefits in 2025

The available documents do not provide a reliable, published figure for the average monthly SNAP benefit specifically for immigrant households in 2025. Public reporting and government guidance instead cite two different headline averages for all SNAP recipients—$187 per month in multiple news explainers and guides, and $351.28 per month in one recent article—while policy documents focus on eligibility rules, verification steps, and sponsor deeming rather than producing immigrant-specific average benefit statistics ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}. Multiple sources therefore document the absence of a specific immigrant-household average, and emphasize administrative and legal changes affecting who among immigrants will receive SNAP rather than calculating a distinct benefit average for that subgroup ^{[6] [7] [8]}.

1. What people claimed and what each source actually said — pulling apart the headlines

The claims in the material fall into two classes: statements about average SNAP benefits for all recipients and policy-oriented statements about immigrant eligibility. Several articles repeat a widely circulated figure of $187 per month as an average SNAP benefit for recipients generally (often framed as about $6 per day), but those pieces explicitly do not disaggregate immigrant households separately ^{[1] [2] [4]}. One recent news piece reported a higher overall average—$351.28 per month—again without immigrant-specific breakdown ^[3]. Policy and agency releases do not provide an immigrant-household average; they instead document new verification steps, enforcement against noncitizen access, and sponsor deeming that affect immigrant eligibility ^{[6] [7] [8] [5]}. The net effect is contradictory headlines about overall averages and an explicit data gap for immigrants.

2. Reconciling the disparate dollar figures: different measures, different contexts

The divergent averages—$187 and $351.28—reflect different data points and journalistic contexts rather than an error about immigrant households. Several explainers present $187 as a commonly cited median or per capita figure used in public storytelling about SNAP’s per-person impact, often emphasizing seniors and people with disabilities; these pieces do not cite an official USDA household-average calculation ^{[1] [2] [4]}. The $351.28 figure appears in a separate report that frames it as an average for recipients but also lacks immigrant-specific disaggregation; the material does not reconcile methodology differences across outlets ^[3]. Because the sources do not provide methodology comparisons or underlying administrative datasets, the two headline numbers cannot be directly harmonized into a single authoritative average for any subgroup, including immigrants.

3. Why no clear immigrant-household SNAP average exists in these sources

None of the provided materials include a direct calculation of SNAP benefits restricted to households identified as immigrant-led or containing noncitizens. Policy documents and agency guidance emphasize eligibility verification, sponsor deeming, and enforcement to prevent ineligible individuals from receiving benefits, but do not publish benefit-level averages for immigrant households ^{[6] [7] [8]}. News coverage focuses on programwide impacts of shutdowns and rule changes and repeats programwide averages without subgroup breakdowns ^{[1] [5] [3]}. Producing an immigrant-household average would require linking SNAP administrative benefit amounts to immigration-status data—information that is sensitive, often siloed, and not disclosed at the granular level in these sources—so the absence of an immigrant-specific number in the documents is consistent with known data constraints.

4. Policy shifts that change who among immigrants receives SNAP and why that matters

The documents document recent USDA and federal actions that tighten verification to exclude unauthorized noncitizens, instruct states on identity/immigration checks, and require sponsors to be financially counted or to reimburse benefits—changes that directly affect immigrant access without quantifying benefit levels ^{[6] [7] [8] [5]}. Several news pieces report that policy changes or federal funding issues could remove millions from SNAP and emphasize programwide averages in that context, but they do not translate those removals into an immigrant-household average ^{[1] [3]}. The policy focus in these sources explains why analysis centers on eligibility and enforcement rather than on producing a published average for immigrant households.

5. Bottom line, implications, and where to look for a definitive number

Bottom line: based on the material provided, there is no authoritative published average monthly SNAP benefit specific to immigrant households in 2025. Journalists cite programwide averages (commonly $187 and in one instance $351.28) but the sources explicitly lack immigrant-disaggregated benefit calculations, and federal guidance concentrates on eligibility verification and sponsor deeming rather than subgroup statistics ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [6] [7]}. To obtain a definitive immigrant-household average, researchers should seek linked administrative microdata from USDA/FNS or peer-reviewed analyses that combine SNAP payment records with immigration-status information; none of the supplied sources provide that linkage.