UI19 Form: Download, Who Files It and When (UIF Employer Declaration, 2026 Guide)

What the UI-19 is

The UI-19 is the Employer’s Declaration of Employees under section 56 of the Unemployment Insurance Act. It is not a tax return and no money goes with it. It is a list: for each person you employ, their ID number, gross pay for the month, hours worked, the date they started and, if they left, the date and a reason code. The Fund uses it to build the employment record that decides whether that person can claim unemployment, maternity, illness or dependants’ benefits later, and how much.

That is the part employers miss. The 2% contribution reaches the Fund through SARS, on the EMP201, and it is easy to assume that paying it is the whole job. It is half of it. The Fund cannot tell from a SARS payment who the money was for. The UI-19 is what ties the contribution to a named person, and every UIF claim form the Department publishes lists “UI-19 from the employer” among the documents the claimant must produce.

The form was originally paper: the gazetted version still carries fax numbers for 14 labour centres. Today most employers file the same information through uFiling, the Fund’s online portal, or send a payroll file. The paper form remains valid and is the one to download if you need to hand a leaving employee something for their claim.

Who must file it

Every employer who pays anyone who works 24 hours or more a month for them. That includes a company with one part-timer, a sole proprietor with a single assistant, and a household employing a domestic worker or gardener. Households register with the UIF the same way and use the same declaration; the gazetted form’s full title covers “commercial employees and workers employed in the private household”.

• Workers on fewer than 24 hours a month for you are excluded, and go on the form as non-contributors with reason code 1.
• Commission-only earners are excluded (non-contributor code 2), as are learners on a learnership, public servants, and foreign nationals working on a fixed contract who will leave when it ends.
• Directors who draw a salary from their own company are employees for UIF and go on the declaration like anyone else.

If you are registered for PAYE, SARS has told the Fund you exist, but that does not register you with the Fund or declare your staff. The Department’s own guide is blunt about it: “Employers who pay contributions via SARS must also register with the UIF and declare their employees.”

When it is due

By the 7th of each month, for the month before. The form’s instruction reads: “An employer must by the seventh day of each month inform the Commissioner with all the information during the previous month regarding the employer’s contact details or employees remuneration details including new appointments and termination of service.” The uFiling portal says the same thing in fewer words: returns no later than the 7th for the preceding month.

In practice the declaration falls on the same day as the EMP201, because the 7th is when the contribution itself is due to SARS. A payroll month therefore ends with two filings on two portals: the money and the PAYE, UIF and SDL split to SARS on eFiling, and the names behind the UIF figure to the Fund on uFiling.

There is no “nothing changed” exemption. A month in which nobody joined, left or got a raise still gets a declaration showing the same people and the same pay. The record the Fund keeps is month by month, and a gap reads as a month the person was not employed.

What goes on the form

Section 1 is the employer: UIF reference number, PAYE reference if you have one, trading name, addresses, company registration number and the person authorised to sign. Section 2 is a row per employee. Remuneration is “actual basic salary plus payment in kind”, declared gross. Weekly wages are converted to a monthly figure with the form’s own formula, weekly pay times 52 divided by 12.

Column H takes a reason code when someone leaves. The codes on the gazetted form are:

The form notes that code 7, constructive dismissal, “can only be determined by the CCMA, Bargaining Council or Labour Court”, so an employer does not pick it on their own view of events. The choice of code matters to the employee: resignation (code 6) does not qualify for unemployment benefit; retrenchment (11), dismissal (4) and an expired contract (5) do. Codes 9, 10, 18 and 19 are not terminations at all but the declarations that open a maternity, illness or parental leave claim while the person stays employed.

Column J takes a separate code where someone is on the payroll but not contributing: 1 for under 24 hours a month, 2 for commission only, 3 for no pay in the period.

The contribution that goes with it

UIF is 1% of the employee’s pay deducted from them and 1% added by you, 2% in total, up to a ceiling. SARS puts the ceiling at R 17 712,00 of remuneration a month, so the most either side pays is R 177,12, for a combined R 354,24 on anyone earning that or more. The ceiling has stood at that figure since June 2021; the Minister sets it by notice and it can move.

Where the money goes depends on whether you are registered for PAYE. A PAYE-registered employer pays UIF to SARS as a line on the monthly EMP201, and uFiling will not take a payment from you: the portal states that “SARS registered employers may still submit Returns online however may not make payments via uFiling and payment needs to be made directly to SARS.” An employer with no PAYE registration, typically a household or a business whose staff all earn under the tax threshold, pays the Fund directly through uFiling by debit pull or bank transfer, by the same 7th.

What a missed UI-19 costs

The direct penalties sit on the money, not the form. Pay the contribution late through SARS and the EMP201 rules apply: a 10% late-payment penalty plus interest. The Unemployment Insurance Act makes failing to comply with a duty under it, or making a false statement on the form, an offence carrying a fine or imprisonment; the declaration you sign says as much above the signature line. Prosecutions of small employers for a late declaration are not something we have seen.

The cost that does arrive is the one your former employee pays, and then brings to you. A worker who was never declared, or whose termination was never declared, cannot get a UIF claim finalised. The labour centre sends them back to the employer for a UI-19 and a salary schedule, and an employer who has not been filing must now reconstruct months of declarations, sometimes years, before the claim moves. Filing the declaration every month is far cheaper than doing that under pressure.

Step-by-step: filing the UI-19 on uFiling

The paper form still works, faxed or handed in at a labour centre, but uFiling is faster and keeps a record you can print for a leaving employee. The steps below follow the Fund’s system user guide. Employers with payroll software can skip the manual capture and email the payroll declaration file instead.

1. 1

   Register with the UIF first, if you have not

   You need a UIF employer reference number before you can declare anyone. It comes from the UI-8 registration (UI-8D for households). Govchain can register your business for UIF if you do not have one; SARS PAYE registration does not create it.
2. 2

   Create and activate a uFiling account

   Go to ufiling.labour.gov.za, register with your ID number and contact details, and click the activation link the Fund sends by email or SMS. Log in with the temporary password and change it. Then link your employer reference number to the profile. An accountant or payroll bureau can link several employers to one profile as an agent.
3. 3

   Open Declarations Manager and pick the employer

   Declarations Manager lists every employer linked to your profile. Select yours to see the employment summary: everyone currently declared, and the months already submitted.
4. 4

   Add each employee, or upload a payroll file

   Click “Add Declaration” for each new employee and capture their ID number, start date, gross remuneration, hours worked and whether they contribute. For more than a handful, use Bulk Upload with the Fund’s file layout; the guide says to upload the “SA Citizens Only” file first, then any foreign nationals.
5. 5

   Declare anyone who left, with the reason code

   Open the employee under Edit/View, enter the last day worked and choose the termination reason. Pick the code that matches what actually happened; the employee’s claim is assessed on it.
6. 6

   Submit the month by the 7th

   Review the return under View Returns and submit. If you are PAYE-registered, pay the UIF as part of your EMP201 to SARS by the same date. If not, pay the Fund on uFiling by debit pull or bank transfer. Keep the confirmation; it is the proof an employee will ask you for.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from one of these documents. Check them before quoting a number; the regulators change them without telling anyone who linked the old one.

1. Form UI-19, Employers Declaration of Employees (gazetted 4 November 2019), Department of Employment and Labour: the seventh-day instruction, the fields, the termination and non-contributor codes, and the false-statement warning
2. uFiling: How to declare and pay, Unemployment Insurance Fund: returns by the 7th for the preceding month, the information required per employee, and that SARS-registered employers pay SARS, not uFiling
3. uFiling System User Guide, Unemployment Insurance Fund: account activation, Declarations Manager, adding and terminating employees, bulk upload
4. Basic Guide to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, Department of Employment and Labour: who is excluded, the duty to register and declare even when paying via SARS, the 1% plus 1% contribution, and the documents a claimant needs
5. Unemployment Insurance Fund, SARS, updated 19 August 2026: the R17,712 ceiling and R177.12 maximum, exclusions, and payment on the EMP201
6. Unemployment Insurance Act 63 of 2001, South African Government: section 56 duties of employers and the offences and penalties provisions