Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have lost access to subsidised bread and food this month as the government presses ahead with a sweeping review of its ration card system.
The move has prompted an outcry over new eligibility criteria that critics say are not accurate indicators of wealth.
Many families only found out that they had been cut off at the start of July, when they went to collect their monthly rations. They discovered their ration cards had been frozen and automated messages told them they were “not found in the supply database”.
The Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade says the exclusions are part of a continuing “purification” of its beneficiary database. This is intended to steer subsidies towards those who need them most, based on “social justice determinants” approved by a ministerial committee.
In a statement, ministry spokesman Ahmed Kamal said around 850,000 people were removed during June.
Members of parliament, whose constituents have expressed fury over their removal from the subsidy system, put the figure closer to one million.
The system still serves more than 65 million people, over half of Egypt’s 110 million population. However, most Egyptians are struggling to cope with a significant increase in the cost of living during recent years.
A mother of five from Giza, near Cairo, said that when she went to collect bread from her local ministry outlet, she was told she was no longer eligible because her daughter is enrolled at a private university.
“They can’t possibly believe that this somehow makes me wealthy,” she said. “The fees for this university are not that much higher than what I would have paid at Cairo University, and besides, everything is so expensive now.”
She spoke to The National on condition of anonymity because she intends to contest her removal.
“If they only came to my home or saw how much I have had to work to put my daughter in this programme, they would know how much I depend on these food rations.”
According to the criteria published by the ministry, having a child enrolled at a private school whose fees exceed 20,000 Egyptian pounds (about $389) annually is grounds for removal from the subsidy system.
Other criteria include having a monthly household income or pension exceeding 13,360 pounds; ownership of a car made in 2018 or later, or any car valued at more than one million pounds; holding more than 10 feddans (about 42,000 square metres) of farmland; owning a company; paying at least 100,000 pounds in annual taxes; and living in a gated compound.
Also on the list is electricity consumption of more than 650 kilowatt-hours a month along with a bill more than 800 pounds, since Egypt has varying power tariffs.
A resident of Cairo’s Al Salam district said she was cut off because her monthly electricity bill had risen to 1,000 pounds per month. She said this was because her husband had turned part of their home into a workshop to earn extra income from carpentry.
“My husband has been without work for the past six months, which is why he started the carpentry project at home in the first place. We should not have been removed because the high electricity in my situation shows that I am poor and not rich,” she told The National.
The electricity threshold has caused anger because the government sharply increased power tariffs this year, pushing many households over the limit.
However, the education criterion has proved the most contentious and the government has been forced to clarify it repeatedly.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that “merely enrolling children in private schools does not lead to [ration] card cancellation”. He insisted the measure was “limited to schools with high fees that reflect a high family income”.
However, this contradicts many reports from people who have had ration cards cancelled simply because their children were enrolled in private schools. Many of these schools are considered to be safer and better than state-run institutions without charging significantly more.
Mr Madbouly said in June that bread subsidies cost the state 140 billion pounds a year, of which 35 billion went to wealthy households who did not qualify.
The issue has been raised repeatedly in parliament. In a formal parliamentary complaint, MP Hussein Ghita, of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, denounced “the lack of transparency” and “repeated cases of the random cancellation of ration cards”. He demanded that the government notified citizens in advance and published its criteria more “honestly”.
Opposition MP Freddy El Bayadi said a constituent had lost his benefits for owning a luxury car but did not own any vehicles and had a letter from the Traffic Department to prove it.
In another statement, MP Ihab Mansour said he had received “thousands of complaints” from families with no modern car “or even a bicycle” and no private schooling. He said this was evidence of “errors in the databases”.
The purge of subsidy beneficiaries coincides with the start of Egypt’s 2026-27 fiscal year and a broader overhaul of the system to shift from food subsidies to a cash-value “commodity portfolio” loaded on to ration cards.
This was a key aspect of a loan agreement reached with the IMF, under which the government pledged to reform the economy and the overall subsidy system.
The budget allocates roughly 178 billion pounds for food and bread subsidies.
The supply ministry says beneficiaries who have been cut off can file appeals through the Egypt Digital platform and local supply offices within 15 days of suspension. If eligibility is proven, benefits will be restored from the following month.
However, the mother of five from Giza said her local office and four others she visited in her area had told her they were not accepting any complaints for the time being. She said she took this to mean that trying to regain her benefits would be a lost cause.