All social grants, barring the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, will increase in the next financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is according to the 2026 Budget Review released by the National Treasury on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the country’s grants will all increase by R20 to R85 per month, the SRD grant will remain at R370, with payments continuing until next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSocial grants constitute the largest share of spending on social development. Excluding the [SRD] grant, spending increases from R246.6 billion in 2025\/26 to R276.5 billion in 2028\/29,” the Treasury said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The social relief of distress grant is allocated an additional R36.4 billion to extend payments until 31 March 2027 at the current R370 per month per beneficiary.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notably, the provision for the SRD grant over the medium term dissipates to 2028\/29, where only R1.7 billion and R1.2 billion are pencilled in over the outer years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA) that the grant was being redesigned to align more closely with a work-seeker’s grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 8.2 million people currently benefit from the SRD grant, with 26.5 million grant recipients overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grant increases are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The social grant allocation has been adjusted down over the medium-term in line with a lower inflation outlook and improved grant targeting and verification, which is expected to yield savings of R2 billion in 2026\/27 and R1 billion in 2027\/28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Social Development function’s overall budget will increase by some 4.2%, rising from R412.2 billion in 2025\/26 to R466.4 billion in 2028\/29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis supports poverty reduction by providing social grants, risk benefits through social insurance and welfare services,” the department said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It also funds development initiatives, empowerment programmes, gender equality efforts, and advocacy for children, women, youth, the elderly and people with disabilities.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n National Treasury reported that the 2025\/26 allocation for the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) was made conditional on the agency \u201cimproving biometric and income verification processes, undertaking more frequent eligibility reviews for social grants, and implementing other measures to tighten compliance\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy December 2025, the agency had checked the bank accounts of about six million clients and eight million credit bureau clients. These checks flagged 291,581 grant beneficiaries for review.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs a result of the review process and strict implementation of the sliding scale, which bases grant values on recipients\u2019 incomes, grant amounts were adjusted for 8,599 disability and old\u2011age grant recipients in accordance with the eligibility criteria.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n This results in projected savings of R36.4 million in 2025\/26. A further 34,661 grants were cancelled, generating expected savings of R170.7 million by the end of 2025\/26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The agency has rolled out biometric verification for new applicants to \u201cstrengthen beneficiary authentication\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt will intensify efforts to combat fraud and corruption, while ensuring that legitimate beneficiaries remain protected,\u201d Treasury said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With SA News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All social grants, barring the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, will increase in the next financial year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":829995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13716],"tags":[4103,18480],"class_list":["post-852176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget-speech","tag-social-grant","tag-srd-grant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852218,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852176\/revisions\/852218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Grant<\/th> 2025 value<\/th> 2026 value<\/th> Change<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Old age grant<\/td> R2,315<\/td> R2,400<\/td> +R85<\/td><\/tr> War veterans grant<\/td> R2,335<\/td> R2,420<\/td> +R85<\/td><\/tr> Disability grant<\/td> R2,315<\/td> R2,400<\/td> +R85<\/td><\/tr> Foster care grant<\/td> R1,250<\/td> R1,295<\/td> +R45<\/td><\/tr> Care dependency grant<\/td> R2,315<\/td> R2,400<\/td> +R85<\/td><\/tr> Child support grant<\/td> R560<\/td> R580<\/td> +R20<\/td><\/tr> Grant-in-aid<\/td> R560<\/td> R580<\/td> +R20<\/td><\/tr> SRD grant<\/td> R370<\/td> R370<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n