UIF for SA employers
The 1%+1% that funds South African unemployment
UIF is the simplest payroll tax in South Africa: 1% off the employee’s salary, plus 1% from the employer, paid over monthly to SARS. The rate hasn’t changed since 2002. The only variable that moves is the salary ceiling — and even then, not often.
How the maths actually works
For each employee whose monthly remuneration is at or below the ceiling:
- Employee contribution = salary × 1% (deducted from the payslip).
- Employer contribution = salary × 1% (your cost, not the employee’s).
Above the ceiling, both 1%s apply to the ceiling, not the actual salary. So once an employee earns above the ceiling, their UIF stops growing — for them and for you.
The EMP201 — the monthly filing
UIF doesn’t have its own return; it’s rolled into the monthly EMP201 alongside PAYE and SDL. The EMP201:
- Declares the totals you owe to SARS for the month — PAYE deducted from employees + UIF (both sides) + SDL if you have one.
- Is due by the 7thof the following month. April’s EMP201 = due 7 May. Late = penalties + interest from SARS.
- Is filed on SARS eFiling. Most payroll software (Sage, SimplePay, PaySpace, Xero Payroll, etc.) generates the EMP201 file automatically.
You also submit a separate UI-19 declarationper employee through uFiling at ufiling.co.za — that’s how the UIF system actually knows who’s contributing. The EMP201 pays the money; the UI-19 logs who it’s for.
What UIF pays out
Five benefit types, each claimable through a Department of Employment and Labour office or via uFiling:
- Unemployment benefits — if the employee loses their job (resignation usually doesn’t qualify; retrenchment and dismissal do).
- Illness benefits— when an employee can’t work for more than 7 days due to illness.
- Maternity benefits — up to 17.32 weeks of paid maternity leave from UIF.
- Adoption benefits — if an employee adopts a child under two.
- Dependant’s benefits — paid to the spouse, child, or financial dependants of a contributor who passes away.
Benefits are a sliding scale — higher percentage for lower-paid workers — capped at the same ceiling that capped contributions.
Who’s exempt
- Employees working less than 24 hours a month for you.
- Independent contractors — they’re self-employed; UIF doesn’t apply. (Make sure the relationship is genuinely contractor, not disguised employment — SARS and the Department both watch this.)
- Employees on registered learnerships.
- Certain categories of public servants (parastatals and government employees follow their own schemes).