When the Compensation Fund issues your Notice of Assessment, you have 30 calendar daysto dispute it if you believe the figure is incorrect. Not 30 business days — 30 calendar days. If you are reading this after receiving your assessment notice, check the date on it before continuing.
What grounds can you dispute a COIDA assessment on?
Not every assessment error qualifies for a revision. The Compensation Fund will consider a dispute where the assessment was calculated on incorrect inputs— wrong tariff, wrong earnings, wrong workers, or earnings above the threshold incorrectly included. Here is what each ground means in practice.
Wrong industry tariffis the most common cause of a significantly overstated COIDA assessment. The Compensation Fund assigns your business to an industry class at registration, and your annual assessment is calculated by applying that class’s tariff rate to your total payroll. If the Fund classified your business incorrectly — or if your business has changed since registration and your class was never updated — the tariff applied to your assessment may bear no relationship to your actual risk profile.
The financial impact can be substantial. A consulting firm incorrectly classified under a construction industry tariff faces a rate of 2.65% of payroll instead of 0.18%. On a payroll of R2 million, that is the difference between a R3,600 assessment and a R53,000 assessment. If your Notice of Assessment looks significantly higher than you expected, the industry tariff is the first thing to check. Your registered tariff class appears in your employer account on cfonline.labour.gov.za.
Incorrect earnings declared or capturedis the second most common ground. If your Return of Earnings contained a data error — whether your own error in completing the form or a system capture error on the Fund’s side — the resulting assessment will be based on the wrong earnings figure. Overstating your payroll by including non-qualifying payments, double-counting employees, or entering annual figures where monthly figures were required can all produce an inflated assessment. Supporting documentation showing the correct earnings figure is required to dispute on this ground.
Assessment applied to non-qualifying workers can inflate your assessment where the Fund included workers who should not be subject to COIDA contributions. Working directors who do not draw a salary are not subject to the contribution. Independent contractors who are not employees are generally excluded. Certain categories of temporary and casual workers may also not qualify. If your earnings declaration included payments to any of these categories, the assessment should be revised downward to reflect only qualifying earnings.
Earnings above the threshold incorrectly included applies where payroll entries exceed the maximum assessable earnings per employee for the year. For 2025/2026, the earnings ceiling is R633,168 per employee. Earnings paid to any individual employee above this figure must be excluded from the ROE calculation — they do not attract COIDA contributions. If your submission included the full earnings of a high-earning director or executive without applying the R633,168 cap, or if the Fund applied the cap incorrectly, the assessment is overstated. Check each employee’s earnings against the R633,168 ceiling before concluding whether this ground applies.
The 30-day revision window
An application for revision of assessment must be lodged within 30 calendar days from the date printed on the Notice of Assessment. This is prescribed by the COIDA regulations and the Compensation Fund applies it strictly.
If you are within 30 days of the notice date: act now. The window does not pause while you gather documentation or seek advice.
If you are outside the 30-day window: the position is more difficult but not necessarily closed. Approaching the Compensation Fund with a formal written request explaining the reason for the delay and the grounds for revision is the appropriate step. The Fund has discretion to consider late revision requests in cases where the employer had reasonable grounds for not acting within the prescribed period — but this is not guaranteed and becomes harder the longer the delay. A qualified Labour Practitioner who handles COIDA assessment reversals regularly will know whether the Fund is likely to accept a late application in your specific circumstances.
Do not assume that because you are outside 30 days the matter is finished. Act, and let the Fund make that determination.
How to submit a revision request
The revision process is conducted through the Compensation Fund’s online portal at cfonline.labour.gov.za.
- Log in to your employer account
- Navigate to your current Notice of Assessment
- Select the revision or dispute option — this may be labelled “Revision of Assessment”, “Query Assessment”, or similar depending on which version of the portal your account runs on
- State your grounds clearly in the text field — be specific: identify the exact error (wrong tariff, overstated earnings, non-qualifying workers) and the correct figure you believe should apply
- Attach supporting documentation — corrected payroll records for earnings disputes, evidence of correct industry classification for tariff disputes, contractor agreements for non-qualifying worker disputes
- Submit and record the reference number issued by the system
- The Fund will review the submission and, if the dispute is upheld, issue a revised Notice of Assessment reflecting the corrected amount
The Fund’s turnaround time on revision requests varies. Complex disputes — particularly those involving industry tariff reclassification — can take several weeks to resolve. For straightforward earnings corrections with clear documentary support, the process is typically faster.
What happens while the revision is being reviewed
Interest accrues on unpaid assessments from 30 days after the notice date, regardless of whether a revision request is in progress. The Compensation Fund does not suspend interest while a dispute is under review.
This creates a practical decision for employers disputing a large assessment: pay the assessed amount under protestwhile the revision is reviewed, and receive a refund or credit if the dispute is upheld — or withhold payment, risk accumulating interest, and receive a revised notice if the dispute succeeds. Where the disputed amount is significant and the Fund’s review is likely to take several weeks, paying under protest is usually the better financial outcome. Where the assessment is modest or the dispute is likely to be resolved quickly, it may not matter.
If you pay under protest, note this clearly on your payment reference and submit a written record of the protest alongside your revision request so the Fund can process any refund efficiently.
What if the Fund rejects your revision request
A rejected revision request is not the end of the road. The employer can escalate to the Compensation Commissioner— the statutory authority with oversight of the Compensation Fund’s decisions. An application to the Commissioner is a formal process requiring written grounds, supporting documentation, and a clear articulation of why the Fund’s assessment is incorrect. This is the stage where professional representation becomes valuable. A Labour Practitioner who handles COIDA assessment reversals will know the Commissioner’s current approach to specific grounds and can structure the submission accordingly.
The 30-day window from your Notice of Assessment date is the single most important number in this process — if you have not yet acted, count the days.