Kenya: Most Social Grants Are Going Up but Covid Relief Grant Stays At R370

The National Treasury confirmed grant increases in the 2026 Budget Review, with old age grants rising by R85 to R2,400.

The Covid-19 relief grant stays at R370 and 8.2-million people depend on it, but the money dries up after 2027.

Most social grants will go up in the new financial year, but the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant is staying at R370 a month.

The National Treasury announced the increases in the 2026 Budget Review on Wednesday.

Old age, disability and care dependency grants will all go up by R85, from R2,315 to R2,400. The child support grant and grant-in-aid will each go up by R20 to R580. The foster care grant rises by R45 to R1,295.

About 8.2-million people rely on the SRD grant. The government is setting aside an extra R36.4-billion to keep paying it until 31 March 2027.

But the grant's future looks shaky. Budget figures show the money set aside for it drops towards 2028/29, with only R1.7-billion and R1.2-billion put aside for those years.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) earlier this year that the grant is being changed to work more like a job-seeker's grant.

South Africa has 26.5-million grant recipients in total. Spending on grants, excluding the SRD, will grow from R246.6-billion in 2025/26 to R276.5-billion in 2028/29.

The Social Development budget will go up by about 4.2%, from R412.2-billion to R466.4-billion over the same period.

The Treasury also announced a crackdown on grant fraud. The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) was told its funding came with strings attached - it had to do better checks on who qualifies.

By December 2025, Sassa had checked the bank accounts of about six million clients and eight million credit bureau records. Those checks flagged 291,581 people for review.

Grant amounts were changed for 8,599 disability and old-age grant recipients. A further 34,661 grants were cancelled, saving an expected R170.7-million by the end of 2025/26.

Sassa is also bringing in biometric checks for new applicants to fight fraud while protecting people who genuinely qualify.

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