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Retroactive Certification for Unemployment

Update

The retroactive certification period ended on November 21, 2020. 

What is Retroactive Certification?

Certifying is answering basic questions every two weeks that tells us you’re still unemployed and eligible to continue receiving payments. Usually, you certify for benefits through UI OnlineSM, EDD Tele-CertSM, or the paper certification.

The certification requirement was temporarily suspended for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims early in the pandemic through the week ending May 9, 2020. This was an emergency effort to help process a historically high number of unemployment claims.

If you received benefit payments during this time and did not submit a certification, we asked you to certify for those weeks to confirm your eligibility. This is known as “retroactive certification.”

Next Steps

The EDD will determine if you were eligible for benefits during that suspended period based on the information available. If you were not eligible for benefits, you may receive a Notice of Overpayment with the amount you must repay the EDD.

To be considered for a waiver, you must complete the Personal Financial Statement, which will be mailed to you along with the Notice of Potential Overpayment. The information you provide on the statement will be used to determine whether an overpayment would cause extraordinary hardship.