COIDA Season Opens Tomorrow: Why the New 10% Penalty is a Game-Changer

No one likes paying a "stupid tax" to the government. But starting tomorrow morning, thousands of South African households are walking straight into an entirely avoidable fine. The Department of Employment and Labour opens its Return of Earnings portal in exactly 24 hours. Missing this submission window carries a mandatory penalty that you will definitely feel.

Let us look at exactly what is happening and how to get your submission sorted before the system inevitably slows down.

The Compliance Window is Shrinking

Every year between April 1 and Jun 30, all employers must submit their Return of Earnings to the Compensation Fund. In the corporate world, entire HR and payroll departments are dedicated to this task. For private households employing a domestic worker, a nanny, or a gardener, this job usually falls on you late at night after a long workday.

The Return of Earnings is simply a declaration of how much you paid your employee over the past year alongside an estimate of what you will pay them in the coming year. This calculation determines your annual COIDA assessment fee.

Since the landmark 2020 Constitutional Court ruling, domestic workers have been fully included under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act. Your private home is officially a registered workplace. This legislation is a massive win for worker safety. If your domestic worker slips while washing floors or your gardener is injured using equipment, the Compensation Fund covers their medical costs and a portion of their wages while they recover. It protects your employee from ruinous medical bills while protecting you from massive personal liability.

The catch is that this protection relies on your paperwork being up to date.

The New 10% Penalty Explained

Historically, many household employers treated the June deadline as a loose suggestion because enforcement was sporadic. The new COIDA Amendment Act changes the landscape completely.

For the 2026 cycle, late submissions will automatically trigger a 10% penalty on your assessed fee. The minimum assessment for household employers has been set at R560.00 per year for 2026. Adding a penalty on top of this base fee is completely unnecessary. Household budgets are already under immense strain from rising food costs, high interest rates, and soaring electricity tariffs. We all have better places to spend our money than on late fees.

Furthermore, failing to submit your return means you cannot get a Letter of Good Standing. Without this document, your household is exposed to the very liability COIDA is meant to prevent.

Beating the Portal Blues

The administrative burden is the primary frustration for most households. The Department's online CF-Filing portal has a reputation for technical glitches, timeouts, and a generally poor user experience.

Human nature dictates that most people will wait until the final week of May to log in. When tens of thousands of users hit the servers at the same time, the system frequently buckles. Pages refuse to load. OTPs disappear into the digital void. Frustration peaks.

You can bypass this entire headache by acting this week. The portal is usually highly responsive in the first few days of April. Getting in early means you can complete the process in ten minutes. You completely avoid the frustration of spending three days refreshing a frozen webpage.

What If You Are Not Registered Yet?

If you are reading about the Return of Earnings and realizing you have never registered your domestic worker for COIDA, this is the perfect time to correct the situation. There is a common fear that coming forward now will result in overwhelming backdated fines.

The Department of Employment and Labour encourages compliance above all else. Registering late is always better than remaining outside the system. The online registration process requires a copy of your ID, a copy of your employee's ID, and a basic employment contract. Once registered, you will receive your CF registration number, allowing you to submit your returns and pay your assessment.

Delaying registration only increases your financial risk. If a serious accident occurs at your home and you are unregistered, you could be held personally liable for hospital bills and continuous compensation. The R560 annual fee is incredibly cheap insurance compared to the cost of private emergency medical care.

Your Step-by-Step Submission Plan

Handling your Return of Earnings requires a bit of preparation. Having everything in front of you before you log in makes the process seamless.

Step 1

First, calculate the actual earnings paid to your employee between March 1, 2025, and February 28, 2026. You must include their basic wage and any regular cash allowances like a separate transport payment. You do not include discretionary gifts or severance pay. For context, if you paid the 2025 minimum wage of R28.79 per hour for a standard 160-hour month, your annual total would be around R55,276.

Step 2

Second, calculate the projected earnings for the current year running from March 1, 2026, to February 28, 2027. You need to factor in the new National Minimum Wage which increased to R30.23 per hour earlier this month. The system uses this projection to calculate your assessment. Because domestic wages fall well below the maximum earnings threshold of R633,168 per year, the full salary is assessable. However, most households will find their final invoice just hits the minimum R560 baseline.

Step 3

Third, gather your reference numbers. You will need your CF registration number, your ID, and your employee's ID number.

Final Step

Finally, log into the CF-Filing portal tomorrow or at some point this week. Enter your actual earnings for the past year and your projected earnings for the year ahead. Submit the return. The system will generate an invoice called a Notice of Assessment. You can then pay this amount via EFT using the specific reference number provided on the invoice.

A Fairer System Requires Less Friction - try Askmandla

We know that domestic employers want to do the right thing. You want your staff to be protected if an accident happens. The barrier is almost always the confusing bureaucracy and the fear of making a mistake on a complicated government website.

Getting this task out of the way in April buys you peace of mind for an entire year. You avoid the new 10% penalty. You dodge the late-May website crashes. Most importantly, you secure a vital safety net for the person who helps keep your household running.

Managing domestic employment compliance is complicated, but AskMandla is here to simplify the process. Our platform helps you track hours, manage payslips, and store your wage records securely. When April rolls around, you will have your exact annual totals ready to copy and paste.