SRD SASSA Grant Extended: Payment Updates and Eligibility Until 2026

The SRD SASSA grant will be extended for a further year, after Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana made the announcement in the 2025 Budget Review. The Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, which pays R370 per beneficiary every month, has been allocated R35.2 billion for the 2025/26 financial year.

The SRD grant, originally brought in as a short-term intervention in 2020 to support the unemployed during the pandemic, has now become an important source of income support for many millions of South Africans. But even though it has been repeatedly extended, its long-term fate is still far from certain. The National Treasury has said that a decision on whether or not to make the grant permanent will await the outcome of an extensive review of social protection and employment support programs, to be finalized by September 2025.

Path Towards a Basic Income Grant?

Although SRD SASSA grant continues to be a stop-gap measure, the government debate on a sustainable Basic Income Grant (BIG) is also gathering momentum. Treasury has tentatively budgeted R36.8 billion in the 2026/27 year and R38.4 billion in 2027/28, in case the government chooses to sustain or reconstitute the grant into a more formalized social support system. The most daunting challenge, however, still persists: funding.

The Treasury is considering different funding avenues, such as raising taxes or diverting current budget spending, but nothing has yet been finalized. Economic analysts caution that declaring the SRD grant permanent without specific financing arrangements in place might heighten fiscal pressure on an already strained budget.

Legal Battle Over SRD Grant Eligibility

Apart from financial constraints, the government has been grappling with issues of legality when it comes to SRD grant requirements. Recently, a court declared that the qualification requirements in place currently—like the low income threshold for qualification—were too narrow and had to be examined. Treasury is protesting the ruling, though, claiming that making the requirements wider without acquiring additional funding may destabilize the social grants system.

Civil society organizations that promote a Basic Income Grant posit that the SRD SASSA grant needs to be extended to more individuals in need, highlighting that unemployment is still high, and South Africans are still struggling to provide basic needs.

As the deadline for review in September 2025 looms near, the government is under increasing pressure to give much-needed clarity regarding the way forward for the SRD grant. Meanwhile, millions of beneficiaries can look forward to receiving payments until March 2026, but the future of social protection policies remains unclear.