Florida Unemployment Biweekly Certification — How to Request Benefit Payments

Filing your initial claim is step one. Step two — the one that actually puts money in your account — is requesting benefit payments every two weeks through Reconnect. If you miss your scheduled date by more than seven days, your claim can become inactive. FloridaCommerce says to contact the Help Center to ask for missed weeks to be made available.

How It Works

After your initial claim is filed, Reconnect assigns you a biweekly reporting schedule. Every 14 days, you log in and request benefit payments for the two preceding calendar weeks. A claim week runs Sunday through Saturday.

Each certification covers two separate weeks, and you answer questions for each week individually:

• Did you work? Report any work performed during the week, including part-time, temporary, or self-employment. Report gross earnings for the week the work was done, not when you received the paycheck. If your employment does not follow a regular pay schedule, such as commission work, report earnings in the week you were paid.
• Were you able and available to work? Confirm you were physically and mentally capable of performing the duties of the occupation you are seeking, actively seeking work, and ready and willing to accept suitable work.
• Did you refuse suitable work? Report any offer of suitable work you refused.
• What work search contacts did you make? Report the required employer contacts (5 per week in counties with populations above 75,000, or 3 in smaller counties), or indicate if you qualify for an exemption.
• Did you receive other payments? Report any severance, vacation pay, PTO, or pension income.

What Happens If You Miss a Certification

If you do not request payment within seven days of your scheduled report date, your claim status changes to inactive and you must reopen it. If you missed weeks, contact the Help Center to request that those weeks be made available.

This is the single most common way people leave benefits on the table. Set a recurring reminder for your payment request dates.

Keep Certifying While Issues Are Pending

If your claim is stuck in adjudication, identity verification, or an employer protest, you still need to certify every two weeks. If the hold is cleared and you are found eligible, FloridaCommerce can release payments for certified weeks retroactively. But only for weeks you actually certified.

Skipping certification because your claim is "pending" is the most expensive mistake you can make during the process.

Correcting a Certification Error

If you realize you reported something incorrectly — wrong earnings amount, wrong answer on a question — do not submit a new claim. Contact the Reemployment Assistance Help Center online to request a correction. Submitting false information on a certification, even by accident, can trigger an overpayment investigation.

The Florida Unemployment Claim Guide includes a biweekly certification calendar with your reporting dates mapped out, along with a worksheet for calculating partial benefit deductions when you have part-time earnings to report.

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