How to Write Affidavit for SASSA Child Support Grant? 2026

The affidavit for a SASSA child support grant is a standard form called Annexure I-4. You do not write it from scratch. SASSA gives you the wording and you fill in the blanks, then you sign it in front of a Commissioner of Oaths and hand it in with the rest of your child support grant application at a SASSA office.

On the form you confirm who you are, who the child is, that you are the primary caregiver or the biological parent of that child, that the child lives with you, that you are not being paid to care for the child, and that the child is not in a state funded institution. You also give your marital status and every source of income you and your spouse receive.

The form is free. Getting it commissioned is free too. A Commissioner of Oaths is not allowed by law to charge you for it.

Download/View Affidavit in PDF

Why you need an affidavit for a child support grant

An affidavit is a sworn statement. When you sign it in front of a Commissioner of Oaths, you are swearing under oath that everything on it is true.

SASSA needs this because a child cannot apply for anything themselves. The grant is not paid to the child either. It is paid to the primary caregiver, which is the person who takes daily responsibility for that child. So SASSA needs a sworn record of who you are, what your relationship to the child is, and why the money should come to you.

The affidavit also carries your income declaration. The child support grant is means tested, so SASSA uses what you write in the income section to decide whether you qualify. As of 1 April 2026 the grant pays R580 per child per month, and to pass the means test you must not earn more than R67 200 a year (R5 600 a month) if you are single, or R134 400 a year combined (R11 200 a month) if you are married.

Because you sign under oath, false information on the affidavit is perjury, not just a rejected application.

Who can sign your affidavit as a Commissioner of Oaths

A Commissioner of Oaths is a person authorised under the Justices of the Peace and Commissioners of Oaths Act to witness sworn documents. Some hold the status automatically because of the job they do, and others are appointed personally.

The ones you are most likely to reach:

Any police station. SAPS members are Commissioners of Oaths and stations are open around the clock. This is the most common route and it costs nothing.
An attorney, advocate or notary. Every practising attorney is a Commissioner of Oaths.
A bank branch. Bank employees at supervisor level and above generally qualify. Ask at the enquiries desk.
The Post Office. Postmasters can commission documents.
Chartered Accountants and Professional Accountants, through the designated bodies they belong to.
Traditional leaders.

Three rules matter more than the list itself.

The Commissioner cannot be a SASSA official. SASSA is explicit about this. The person witnessing your oath has to be independent of the agency deciding your application.

The Commissioner must be independent of you. They may not commission a document in a matter they have an interest in, so a relative who happens to be a Commissioner of Oaths cannot sign yours.

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They must watch you sign. You cannot fill in the affidavit, sign it at home, and take it to be stamped. The signature has to go on the page in front of them. This is where most affidavits get sent back.

Note that a minister of religion is not automatically a Commissioner of Oaths. Ministers of religion, councillors, traditional leaders, social workers and school principals appear on a different SASSA list, as reputable people who can give a sworn statement vouching for your identity when you have no ID. That is a separate document, and we cover it further down.

What the affidavit asks you for, section by section

Work through the form in order. Leave nothing blank. If a line does not apply to you, write N/A rather than skipping it.

Your personal details

Surname, full names, age, physical address, postal code, and your identity number. Note that the age asked for here is yours, not the child’s.

The child’s details

Name and surname, date of birth in the CCYYMMDD boxes, the child’s ID number, and the name of the clinic or hospital where the child was born.

If you are applying for more than one child, the form does not have space for all of them. Attach a separate list with the additional children’s names.

The caregiver declaration

This is a single sentence with two options in it, and you delete the one that does not apply to you. You are declaring that you are either the primary care giver or the biological parent of the child, and that the child lives with you.

In the same sentence you confirm two more things: that you are not being paid to care for the child, and that the child does not reside in a State Funded Institution. Being paid to care for the child means being employed as that child’s carer. It has nothing to do with maintenance or other grants, which are handled separately in the income section.

Marital status

Mark the box that applies with an X. The options are Married, Unmarried, In community, Out of community, Civil Union, Customary Union, Asiatic Religion, Never Married, Divorced, Widow or Widower, and Deserted for more than 3 months.

That last one matters. If your spouse has deserted you for longer than three months, your marital status is not counted against you in the means test, but you have to attest to the desertion.

Your spouse or ex-spouse

Complete this only if you are married, divorced, or a widow or widower. You give their full names, surname and ID number.

The form then gives you space to state reasons if you do not have your spouse’s or ex-spouse’s ID document, decree of divorce, or death certificate. Do not leave these blank if the documents are missing. Explain why they are missing.

Sources of income

This is a grid, not a single line. You mark an X in the correct column, which is Self, Spouse, Dependant Child, or N/A, against each of the following:

Salary or wage
Profits, withdrawals or other benefits from a business or farm you own
Payments from a trust or inheritance
Payment from property rights
Pension or annuity
Ex-gratia payments received
Maintenance received
Rental income
Profits, withdrawals or other benefits from a business or farm you rent
Income from assets, meaning interest or dividends
Income from any RSA or international organisation

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Maintenance received is on this list. Declaring it does not disqualify you. Hiding it is what causes problems.

If you and your spouse have no income at all, the form gives you a space to explain how you currently survive. Fill it in properly. A blank here is a common reason applications stall.

The declaration and the oath

The declaration states that the information in the affidavit is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, that you have no objection to taking the prescribed oath, and that you consider the oath binding on your conscience.

You then sign, or place your thumb print if you cannot sign.

The Commissioner’s section

You do not fill this in. The Commissioner completes it in front of you. It includes their name, their signature, their rank or force number, the date, the place, and their official Commissioner or SAPS stamp. They also certify that you acknowledged you understood the contents.

Check before you leave that the stamp is actually on the page and that the date is filled in.

Other affidavits you may need with your application

People assume the child support grant needs one affidavit. Depending on your situation you may need more than one, and they are different documents.

Annexure I-4, the affidavit above. This is the standard one.

An affidavit if you have no ID or no birth certificate. If you do not have a 13 digit bar-coded ID, or the child has no birth certificate, you complete an affidavit in a standard SASSA format in front of a Commissioner of Oaths who is not a SASSA official. You back it up with a sworn statement from a reputable person who knows you and the child, such as a councillor, traditional leader, social worker, minister of religion or school principal, together with proof that you have applied to Home Affairs for the missing document.

An affidavit or letter from the parent if you are not the parent. If you are the primary caregiver but not the biological parent, you need written permission from the parent allowing you to care for the child. If a parent is missing, a missing person report from the police plus sworn statements can be used instead.

An unemployment affidavit. If you are unemployed and not receiving UIF, an affidavit stating you have no income can stand in place of a payslip or discharge certificate.

A desertion affidavit. If you are marking “Deserted more than 3 months” on the marital status block, expect to attest to it.

If you are caring for an orphan, look at the CSG Top-Up

This is where a lot of caregivers go down the wrong road.

If you are a relative caring for an orphaned child, such as a grandparent, aunt, uncle, brother, sister or cousin, you do not need to enter the foster care system. Since 1 June 2022 you can apply for the Child Support Grant Top-Up, which is an extra amount added onto the basic child support grant. From April 2026 the top-up is R290 per month on top of the R580.

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You do not need a court order for it, and you do not need a social worker’s report. The same eligibility criteria as the ordinary child support grant apply. The only extra proof required is that the child is an orphan, which means death certificates for both parents.

If you only have one parent’s death certificate because the other parent is unknown or their status is unknown, you complete an affidavit at the SASSA office explaining exactly that.

Court-ordered foster parents are a different case. They receive the Foster Child Grant, which has no means test, and that is a separate application entirely.

Mistakes that get affidavits sent back

Signing the affidavit before you get to the Commissioner of Oaths. The signature has to be placed in their presence.
Leaving blanks. Write N/A instead.
Skipping the income grid because you have no income. Use the survival explanation box.
Not deleting the option that does not apply in the caregiver declaration, so it still reads “primary care giver / biological parent”.
Missing the Commissioner’s stamp, or a stamp with no date next to it.
Using a relative as your Commissioner of Oaths.
Getting it commissioned by a SASSA official.
Paying someone for the commissioning. Nobody is allowed to charge you.

Before you hand it in

Take the completed affidavit to a SASSA office along with your 13 digit bar-coded ID, the child’s birth certificate, proof of income, and your spouse’s ID and proof of income if you are married. A SASSA official completes the application form itself with you, and you will be given a receipt. Keep that receipt. It is your proof that you applied.

Processing can take up to three months, though SASSA has been running same-day approvals at some offices where documents are in order. If your grant is approved, payment is backdated to the day you applied. If it is refused, SASSA must tell you in writing why, and you can ask for reconsideration or appeal to the Minister of Social Development within 90 days.

You may claim for a maximum of six children who are not your biological or legally adopted children.

The affidavit itself is the easy part. Get the form, read every line before you write on it, and take it to a police station to be commissioned. As long as nothing is blank and the signature goes down in front of the Commissioner, it will go through.