Once you have applied for a Child Support Grant, the way to follow it depends on how you applied. An application made on SASSA’s online services portal can be tracked on that portal. An application made at a SASSA office is tracked by contacting SASSA with your ID number and the receipt you were given. The SRD website, srd.sassa.gov.za, does not show Child Support Grant applications at all, so a check there will tell you nothing about your child’s grant.
Where a Child Support Grant application can be tracked
If you applied online
Sign in at services.sassa.gov.za with the email address you registered. The home page lists your active applications with a status for each. According to the portal’s help pages, the stages run roughly from submitted, to assessed (captured by a SASSA official), to pending final approval. A “documents outstanding” status means SASSA found something missing; you should also get an SMS or email saying what to fix, so upload it promptly.
If you applied at an office
- Phone the free SASSA line, 0800 60 10 11, between 8am and 4pm on a weekday, with your ID number at hand.
- Email GrantEnquiries@sassa.gov.za with your name, ID number, the child’s name and the date on your receipt.
- Message SASSA’s WhatsApp channel on 082 054 0016.
- Return to the office where you applied and ask staff to look up the application.
From application day to the first R580
- Application and receipt. You apply as the child’s primary caregiver with your ID, the child’s birth certificate and proof of income. SASSA records your biometric details, which has been compulsory for grant applications since September 2025, and gives you a receipt. Keep it: it is your proof of the application date.
- Checks. SASSA verifies identities with Home Affairs and runs the income test: R5,800 a month if you are single, or R11,600 combined if you are married.
- Decision. SASSA allows itself up to three months to decide. A refusal comes in writing, with the reason stated.
- First payment. An approved grant is paid from the date you applied, so the first payment can include the months you waited. After that, the grant arrives each month on the children’s grants pay day, into a bank account in your own name or a Postbank card.
This page does not repeat the amount or the monthly dates; our page on the R580 Child Support Grant pay day has both. If the grant was approved but a month’s money did not come through, work through our checklist for missed grant payments.
Problems that hold up a Child Support Grant
The child is not linked to you
SASSA has to connect the child to you as the primary caregiver. This can stall when the child’s birth is not yet registered at Home Affairs, when a name or ID number on the birth certificate differs from the Home Affairs record, or when you are not the child’s parent and cannot yet show you are the main carer. A grandparent, aunt or other relative can prove this with an affidavit, a social worker’s report or a letter from the school or crèche.
Someone else already gets the grant for the child
SASSA pays the grant for a child to one primary caregiver. If the child moved to you but the previous caregiver still receives the grant, your application waits while SASSA confirms who now cares for the child. Bring proof that the child lives with you. The previous caregiver’s grant for that child can be suspended once the child is no longer in their care.
Missing documents or contact details
An outdated cellphone number or email means you can miss SASSA’s request for documents. Keep both current, and answer any request quickly so the application does not sit incomplete.
Looking after more than one grant in the household? Our guide to tracking several SASSA grants in one home shows how to keep them apart. For older persons, disability, foster child and other grants, see checking permanent grant status online.
What if my Child Support Grant application is refused?
Ask SASSA to explain or reconsider the decision. If that does not resolve it, the next step is an appeal, lodged within 90 days with ITSAA (the tribunal that hears social grant appeals), either on the form SASSA offices keep or by emailing grantappeals@dsd.gov.za.