USDA confirms SNAP hub will move to Indianapolis

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Thursday it will move its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program office from Washington, D.C. to Indianapolis.

The relocation is part of a major reorganization underway at USDA as the agency establishes the Food and Nutrition Administration, a new division to replace USDA’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services.

The agency is relocating some 2,600 Food and Nutrition Administration employees from the nation’s capital to hubs and compliance offices in Indianapolis, Dallas, Kansas City, Raleigh and Denver.

Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Banks led a delegation of farmers to pitch Indiana as a potential hub in a meeting with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins last year.

“This is a huge win for Indiana. Government works best when it’s near the people it serves, and for the past year, we’ve been working with Hoosier ag leaders to move critical programs out of our nation’s capital,” Banks posted on X. 

The agency revealed Indianapolis would become home to one of five new USDA hubs in a memorandum released in 2025, though it did not specify which programs would move to which cities until Thursday.

A small staff will remain in Washington, D.C. for policy and regulatory work.

Some 42 million people participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to aid their monthly grocery budgets — one of 16 nutrition assistance programs overseen by USDA.

An agency spokesperson said these programs will continue without disruption throughout the reorganization, but did not confirm how many employees are expected to relocate to Indianapolis or when the hub will open.

In a statement Thursday, Rollins said she made customer service and a new vision for the agency’s nutrition programs a priority when she became secretary.

Deputy Under Secretary Patrick Penn said in a news release the new structure “will offer improved program support across the nation.”

“This reorganization is long overdue,” Deputy Secretary Stephen A. Vaden, said in the release. “(It) also reduces duplicative management and complexity within the agency, better prioritizes state service and participant needs, and expands the Department’s presence to fight fraud, waste, and abuse.”