Closing your doors does not close the account

Why the bill keeps coming

COIDA is the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, and the Compensation Fund is the body that runs it. Every registered employer owes it a return of earnings each year, which is the form declaring what you paid your staff.

Stop sending them and the Fund does not stop. In the Compensation Commissioner’s own words, if an employer fails to notify the Fund of the status of their business, the Fund will assume that an employer is still operating and estimate assessments for all outstanding returns, and any notice of assessment issued on those estimates will be legally binding on the employer for payment. Unpaid amounts then attract interest and penalties.

So the yearly bill on a business that has not traded since 2021 is not an administrative glitch. It is the system working exactly as it was designed to, on an account nobody ever closed. The Fund’s minimum assessment alone is around R1 621 a year, and it compounds with interest and penalties while you ignore it.

The form that actually closes it

Deregistration runs on form CF-1C, the Application for Employer Deregistration. Two things about it catch people out.

• It is not an online processYou cannot do this on CompEasy with the rest of your COIDA admin. The completed form and its supporting pack go to the Fund by email and then wait.
• Nothing tells you where it isThere is no reference number that you can track and no status screen. If it is never actioned you find out the following year, when the next estimated assessment arrives. Following it up is most of the value here.

You tick one reason on the form, and the reason decides what the Fund wants with it: liquidation or sequestration, cease trading or no employees, amalgamation, sold or taken over, a deceased owner, or other.

What the Fund asks for, by reason

These are the lists printed on the form itself. UIF is the Unemployment Insurance Fund and CIPC is the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.

Notice that UIF deregistration is on every single list. If you closed the business and never told UIF either, that is a second open account quietly doing the same thing, and it has to be dealt with first or the COIDA application is incomplete on arrival.

What you get for R1 290

• Your account read firstEvery assessment notice gone through so you know what is actually sitting on the account and which years are estimates rather than real figures.
• Every outstanding return of earnings filedHowever many years are behind, at one fixed fee rather than per year. This is what replaces the Fund’s estimates with your real position, and an account full of binding estimates is not one the Fund will simply close.
• Form CF-1C prepared correctlyWith the right reason ticked, which decides everything else, and the declaration completed properly. A false declaration on this form is something the Commissioner can act on.
• The supporting pack assembledThe documents the form demands for your reason, checked against the list before it goes rather than after it bounces.
• Lodged with the Fund and followed upSubmitted to the Compensation Fund and chased, because there is no tracking and a silent application is indistinguishable from a lost one.
• Written confirmation of where you standWhat was lodged, when, and what remains owing if anything, in writing, so you are not guessing next year.

Not sure whether you should close it or bring it back to life? Ask us first and you get a written answer within one business day.

Close it, or bring it back? Read this before you decide

Deregistering is the right answer only if you are genuinely finished as an employer. It is the wrong answer if you might need a letter of good standing again, because a closed account means starting over.

• Close it ifThe business has stopped, or it runs with no employees at all and no plan to hire, and nothing you bid for will ever ask you for a letter of good standing.
• Do not close it ifYou still tender, still work on other people’s sites, or still have anyone on a payroll including a director drawing a salary. In that case you want the account current, not closed.
• If you owe and still need the letterOwing the Fund does not block a letter of good standing if you get onto an instalment arrangement. That is a different job and it is our COIDA arrears service at R1 890.

We would rather talk you out of the wrong one than take the money for it.

What this does not cover

• Money you already oweA balance does not vanish when the account closes. Deregistering stops new assessments being raised. It does not write off old ones, and we will tell you the figure in writing before you decide anything.
• A guarantee that the Fund closes itThe decision is the Compensation Fund’s. We make the application complete and correct, which is what it turns on, but nobody can promise the outcome or the date.
• UIF and CIPC deregistrationThe Fund wants proof of both and they are separate jobs at separate authorities. If you need those too, say so and we will quote them together rather than let you discover it halfway through.
• A penalty or interest waiverInterest and penalties already raised are the Fund’s to remit, not ours to promise.

What we will need from you

• Your Compensation Fund employer number, the one starting 99, from any notice or old letter of good standing.
• Every assessment notice you still have, including the latest one showing the balance. Photographs of them are fine.
• The date the business stopped trading, or the date the last employee left, whichever applies.
• Actual earnings paid in each outstanding year, even where the figure is nil or close to it.
• Certified copies of the identity documents of every director or owner, because the form asks for all of them and one missing copy stalls the whole application.
• Proof of UIF deregistration and CIPC deregistration if you already have them, and if you do not, tell us and we will deal with that first.
• The email address your CompEasy account sits under, not the password. We never ask anyone for a password and you should never send one to anybody. If nobody remembers the login we walk you through resetting it from your side.

Frequently asked questions