Budget 2026: Social Grants to Go up in April

The old age grant will rise to R2,400.

Social grant beneficiaries will receive an above-inflation increase from 1 April, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced in his budget speech on Wednesday.

The old age grant will go up 3.7% from R2,315 a month to R2,400, and the child support grant will go up 3.6% from R560 a month to R580.

Inflation is currently running at 3.5% a year.

The government plans to spend about R292.8-billion on social grants in the 2026/27 financial year. This includes R36.9-billion allocated to the social relief of distress (SRD) grant for unemployed people, which will remain at R370 per person per month.

The SRD grant is set to expire at the end of 2026/27. However, President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his State of the Nation Address earlier this month, announced that at some point the grant will become permanent and be transformed into a “livelihoods” grant.

Meanwhile, the National Treasury has provisionally allocated about R38-billion in 2027/28 and R39-billion in 2028/29 for the SRD grant.

A reform of the social grant system, the SRD grant, has been in the works for several years. Before tabling the budget before Parliament on Wednesday, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana told reporters that the “finer details” of the future of the SRD grant would be announced at the medium-term budget statement later this year.

Clampdown

About 26.5-million people are expected to receive social grants, including the SRD grant, in the 2026/27 year, up from 25.25-million in 2026/27.

But a programme by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) to tighten compliance and prevent fraud is expected to lead to a drop in the number of people receiving the child support grant in 2026/27, with further reductions over the next three years. Fewer people are also expected to receive the foster care grant.

The clampdown this year resulted in the review of about 292,000 grants (of which 34,600 grants were cancelled), reductions in the amounts paid to about 8,600 disabled and older people, and savings to the fiscus of about R36.4-million, according to Treasury’s budget review. New applicants for all grants are required to undergo biometric verification.

“Enhanced targeting of social grants authentication of beneficiaries to reduce fraud in the grant system will yield R3-billion of savings,” Godongwana told Parliament.

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