If you or a family member applied for an older persons grant, a care dependency grant, a foster child grant, a grant-in-aid or a war veterans grant, the SRD status website will tell you nothing. That site only holds R370 Social Relief of Distress applications. Permanent grants run on a separate system, and whether you can follow one online depends on how the application was lodged.
Child support and disability grants have their own guides: see the child support grant status check and the disability grant status guide.
Applied online: the SASSA Services portal
SASSA’s grant application portal is services.sassa.gov.za. It is a different site from srd.sassa.gov.za. If the application was submitted there, log in to the same account that lodged it. According to the portal’s own help pages, the home screen lists every active application linked to that account with its current stage, and SASSA also sends status changes as notifications to the account holder and the applicant.
The stages you can expect, in plain terms, are: submitted and waiting for SASSA to look at it; captured by an official and waiting for approval; incomplete because documents are missing; and waiting for a final decision. A missing-documents stage is the one that needs action from you, so upload or bring what SASSA asks for as soon as you see it.
To log in you need the email address and password for the portal account and, ideally, access to the cellphone it was registered with, since SASSA uses that number for PINs and notifications. If a child, a social worker or a relative opened the account for an older applicant, that person has to log in.
Applied at a SASSA office: no online tracker
Many applications are made in person at a local office, especially where SASSA needs a means test interview, biometric enrolment or a medical or functional assessment, as with care dependency grants and grants-in-aid. SASSA has no public website where you can look these up with an ID number.
The grants booklet SASSA published for 2026 says that when the office cannot give an outcome on the day, the applicant must follow up. It lists three ways:
- go back to the SASSA local office where you applied;
- phone the toll-free call centre on 0800 60 10 11 (weekdays, 08:00 to 16:00);
- email GrantEnquiries@sassa.gov.za and ask for the status of the application.
Have these ready when you ask
- The applicant’s 13-digit ID number. For a foster child or care dependency grant, also the details from the child’s birth certificate or ID.
- The date you applied and the office you used.
- Any receipt or reference the office or the portal gave you.
- For a grant-in-aid, the ID number linked to the older persons, disability or war veterans grant it is added to, since a grant-in-aid cannot be paid on its own.
- If you are asking for someone else, the applicant with you or on the line, because SASSA may want to speak to the applicant directly.
From application to the first payment
SASSA treats your application date as the day all required documents were handed in and checked by an official. Processing can take up to three months. If the grant is approved, SASSA back-pays it to that application date; for a foster child grant, the back-pay goes to the date of the court placement order instead.
If SASSA turns the application down, it must give you written reasons. You can ask SASSA to reconsider, and you have 90 days to lodge an appeal with ITSAA, the social assistance appeals tribunal, either through an office or by emailing grantappeals@dsd.gov.za.
Once approved, the grant joins the fixed monthly cycle. Older persons grants are paid first each month, with war veterans grants and grants-in-aid paid alongside the adult grants, while foster child and care dependency grants come with the children’s grants a day or two later. The 2026/27 SASSA payment schedule lists every date. Collect or use the first payment promptly: SASSA lets a grant lapse if it is not claimed within 90 days of approval.