COIDA Registration in South Africa: Everything You Need to Know

Every employer with one or more employees must register with the Compensation Fund, file a return of earnings by 31 March each year, and pay a penalty of up to 10% of the assessment if that return is late. Those three rules are the whole of COIDA for a small business. The rest of this page is how to meet them.

Reviewed 7 September 2026 by Stefan Kritzinger, head of compliance and support at Govchain. The figures come from the Act and the Compensation Fund's own notices, and the sources are listed at the end. For the annual return itself, the filing window and the assessment rates, see the Return of Earnings guide.

Who must register

The Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, 130 of 1993, applies to any employer with one or more employees. Full-time, part-time, casual or seasonal makes no difference, and a working director who draws a salary counts as an employee of the company. Section 80 says an employer "shall within the prescribed period" register with the Fund and must report any change in its registered details within seven days. There is no grace period for a small payroll and no threshold of five or ten staff. Treat the day you hire your first person as the deadline.

Households are employers too. Domestic workers were outside COIDA until the Constitutional Court's Mahlangu judgment in November 2020, brought by the daughter of a domestic worker who drowned at her employer's home in 2012 and whose family could claim nothing. Since 2021 a household with a domestic worker registers and files like any other employer, with a lower minimum assessment.

Two groups register elsewhere. Mines and the metals industry are covered by Rand Mutual Assurance, and the building industry by the Federated Employers Mutual Assurance Company, both licensed to carry that cover under the Act. If you are in one of those industries, your registration goes to the mutual, not the Fund, and it is the mutual's letter a site will ask to see. A sole proprietor with no staff does not register at all.

What the Fund does in return

Employers pay an annual assessment and the Fund carries the risk of injury at work. If an employee is hurt on duty or contracts a work-related disease, the Fund pays the medical costs, compensation for lost earnings, and disability or death benefits, and the employee cannot sue the employer for the same injury. That trade only holds if the employer is registered and the return is filed. An unregistered employer is on its own when a claim arrives, and the Fund can still assess it for the years it should have been registered, with penalties and interest.

The assessment is a rate multiplied by the payroll you declare. The Fund groups employers into industry classes by how dangerous the work is, and the rates in Schedule A of Gazette 43959 run from 0.18% of payroll for office work, through 0.81% for retail and hospitality, to 2.65% for construction, transport and security and 2.71% for underground mining. Whatever the rate produces, minimum assessments apply: R1,621 for a commercial employer and R560 for a household. Our free COIDA calculator carries all 13 classes and applies the earnings ceiling.

How to register

Registration is on the Compensation Fund's online portal, with form W.As.2 as the application. The Fund charges nothing to register; the cost is the assessment that follows. You will need:

• The company's CIPC registration certificate
• The company's SARS tax number
• A certified copy of a director's ID, not older than three months
• Proof of the business address
• An estimate of the annual payroll, which sets the first assessment
• A bank confirmation letter for the assessment payments

The Fund works through applications in a queue and issues a CF registration number when it is done. In Govchain's filings that takes around 21 working days, and longer from April to June, when the return of earnings season fills the same queue. A registration started in May sits behind the whole season's returns. If a tender or a site induction is the reason you need the number, start in the quiet months.

In our experience the Fund's records are the part that stalls. An application with a trading name that differs from the CIPC name, or an address that does not match the CIPC record, comes back with a query, and every query restarts the wait. Match the CIPC documents exactly.

The return of earnings and 31 March

Once registered, the employer declares its payroll to the Fund every year on form W.As.8, the return of earnings. Section 82 of the Act sets the deadline at 31 March; in practice the Fund gazettes a submission window each season, and the 2026 window ran from 1 April to 30 June. The return carries two figures, actual earnings for the year just ended and an estimate for the year ahead, each employee capped at the published ceiling, R633,168 for the 2025/26 year. The Fund assesses you on it and payment is due within 30 days of the notice.

Miss the deadline and section 83(6) lets the Fund assess you on its own estimate of your earnings and add a fine of up to 10% of that assessment. File late rather than not at all: the portal accepts late returns, and a late return with a penalty is a far smaller problem than an unfiled one, because an unfiled return blocks the letter below. The Return of Earnings guide covers the filing step by step.

The Letter of Good Standing

The Letter of Good Standing is the Fund's confirmation that the employer is registered, the current return is filed and the assessment is paid or under an arrangement. It is valid for 12 months at most, and it is what a tender board, a main contractor on a JBCC or NEC site, or a client's procurement team asks for before they let your staff on site. The Fund runs a public verifier at cfonline.labour.gov.za that checks a letter by its certificate number, so a forged or expired letter is found in seconds.

The annual rhythm is: file the return in the window, pay the assessment, renew the letter. Companies find the gap in that rhythm on the day a tender pack asks for a valid letter, and the outstanding return is then the thing standing between them and the bid. Govchain renews Letters of Good Standing for R810, which includes filing any outstanding W.As.8.

COIDA is not UIF

The two get confused because both start with the first hire. UIF is the Unemployment Insurance Fund: a monthly contribution through SARS that pays out when an employee loses a job or takes maternity or illness leave. COIDA is the Compensation Fund: an annual assessment that pays out when an employee is injured or falls ill because of the work. They are separate registrations with separate returns, and a company needs both. UIF registration is a separate service.

Sources

Every rule on this page comes from one of these documents. Check them before quoting a figure; the Fund changes its dates and rates each season.

1. Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993, Department of Employment and Labour. Section 80 (registration of employer and the seven-day rule for changes), section 82(1) (return of earnings by 31 March) and section 83(6) (a fine of up to 10% of the assessment for a late return).
2. ROE Online, Department of Employment and Labour. The submission portal and each season's gazetted filing window.
3. Return of Earnings guide, Govchain. The 2026 window, the earnings ceiling, the minimum assessments and the class rates from Schedule A of Gazette 43959.
4. Verify a Letter of Good Standing, Compensation Fund. The public certificate-number check.

Register your company for COIDA with Govchain

Govchain handles the W.As.2 employer registration with the Compensation Fund on your behalf. Fixed price of R1,890 once-off, around 21 working days. You complete the online form, we submit the application and answer the Fund's queries, and your COIDA registration number is emailed to you once issued. Register your company for COIDA.