How to claim UIF benefits online

The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) gives short-term financial relief to workers who contributed to it. Your employer takes the UIF contribution from your pay and adds its own share. Claiming is free.

What UIF pays for

• Unemployment: your employer ended your job or your contract expired. Workers who lose income because their working hours were cut can also claim.
• Illness: you are too ill to work for more than seven days.
• Maternity: pregnancy and the birth of your child.
• Adoption of a child under 2.
• Parental leave.
• Dependants: a contributor has died, and the surviving spouse, life partner or children claim. If the death isn’t registered yet, see how to register a death.

UIF doesn’t pay unemployment benefits if you resigned or absconded, unless you prove you were constructively dismissed. If you think your dismissal was unfair, you can also refer it to the CCMA.

Where to claim

The Department of Employment and Labour launched UIF Online on 1 April 2025, and it replaced the old uFiling portal for workers’ claims. If a page or message tells you to claim on uFiling, it is out of date.

You can also get help at a labour centre. Older department publications say parental and dependants’ claims, and claims by foreign nationals, are made at a labour centre, so ask there if UIF Online doesn’t offer your benefit.

What you need for an unemployment claim

• your 13-digit bar-coded ID, Smart ID or passport (foreign nationals: a valid passport, asylum seeker or refugee document),
• the UI-19 form from your employer, which declares your employment,
• your salary details from your employer, and a service letter,
• your banking details, on the UI-2.8 form completed by your bank,
• proof that you are registered as a work seeker: register free on ESSA.

Your employer must complete its forms for you. If your employer refuses, ask the UIF call centre or a labour centre for help.

Claim deadlines

The Unemployment Insurance Amendment Act of 2016 changed the unemployment claim period from six to 12 months. Some government pages still say six months. Don’t wait: apply as soon as you can. Our deadline calculator works out the last day.

How much UIF pays

• Your rate: UIF pays 38% to 60% of your average daily earnings for the first 238 days of benefits. People who earned less get a higher percentage.
• After 238 days: any days of benefits you have left are paid at 20% of your daily earnings.
• The ceiling: earnings above R17 712 a month are not counted.
• How long: the department’s guide says you earn one day of benefits (a credit) for every 4 days you worked and contributed, up to 365 days. To build up the full 365 days, you must have contributed for at least four years.
• Maternity: 66% of your earnings, for up to 121 days.

To work out an estimate from your own pay and how long you worked, use our UIF calculator.

After you apply

Follow your claim on UIF Online. For unemployment benefits, you also submit a continuation form (UI-6A) every month so that payments keep coming.

The department’s publications give different waiting times: one says 15 working days for a decision on a complete claim, another says 20. If your claim is rejected, you can appeal at the labour centre that dealt with it.

Stay safe

• Claiming UIF is free. Don’t pay an agent to claim for you, and never share your UIF Online password or a one-time PIN.
• Apply only on uifonline.labour.gov.za or at a labour centre. Report problems to the UIF call centre on 0800 030 007 or uifcomplaints@labour.gov.za.

If you have no income at all while you wait, see whether you qualify for the SRD grant. If you belong to a retirement fund, you may also be able to make a two-pot savings withdrawal, but read what it costs you first.