How and when do you file Idaho's weekly certification?

Idaho's weekly report is called the weekly certification, and it starts with the unpaid waiting week, so the first one can be filed from the Sunday after you open your claim. Keep filing every week until you are back at full-time work, even while the Department is still deciding whether you qualify.

When and how to file the weekly certification

An Idaho benefit week begins at 12:01 a.m. Sunday and ends at midnight the next Saturday. You certify for it during the following week, which gives you 7 full days, and the Department recommends filing on the Sunday.

1. Log in to the Claimant Portal (its sign-in pages also call it iUS) and choose File Certification Application.
2. Answer the availability questions, then the income questions, for the week you are certifying.
3. Add your work search actions, if your work search status asks for them.
4. Check the I agree boxes and choose Submit Certification Application.
5. Wait for the complete screen with your confirmation number. Until it appears, the certification has not been sent. You can then check its status on the Manage Claims tab.

The portal is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, holidays included, and local Labor offices have lobby computers for anyone without one at home. A certification filed before 6 p.m. Mountain Time is processed the same business day; one filed on a weekend is processed the first working day of the next week. For another way to file, call 208-332-8942 to reach an unemployment insurance specialist. On the portal you can change an answer any time before you submit; after that, call 208-332-8942 if one needs changing.

If you notice a mistake on a certification you already sent, call 208-332-8942 within 24 hours so the payment is not held up.

If a week goes unfiled

The Department's weekly reports page is blunt: Idaho does not allow backdating, so a week you never certify is never paid. Missing a single week leaves the claim open, but 2 weeks in a row without a certification closes it, and you have to log in and reopen it with your latest work history.

The Department's benefits rule gives more room than that page to one group: claimants the Department has told to report by mail, fax, email, or phone. Their report is on time within 9 calendar days after the week claimed. For portal filers the rule's window runs from 12:00 a.m. Mountain time on the Sunday after the week through 11:59 p.m. the following Saturday. The rule also accepts a replacement for a report you can show, with credible and corroborated evidence, that you properly filed. If you file online, treat that Saturday night as your limit. If a week slipped past or a report went missing, call 208-332-8942 at once rather than waiting.

Your first certification is the waiting week

Every Idaho claimant serves one unpaid waiting week each benefit year. It is the first week that would otherwise be payable, and it only counts if you meet every rule that week, including the work search your status requires, and certify it on time. File the certification for it starting the first Sunday after you open the claim, by that Saturday at 11:59 p.m.; the Department recommends the Sunday. A week in which you earn 1.5 times your weekly benefit amount or more cannot be the waiting week; a part-time week under that line can.

The Department says a week applied for late counts as neither the waiting week nor a payable week, which is why it asks you to open the claim in the week your hours are cut or the job ends. The filing page's section on when to file covers the timing.

What the certification asks

The answers decide whether you are paid for the week, so answer every question honestly. An answer that raises a doubt, such as a No on being able to work or a Yes on refusing a job, brings a call or email from the Department before it decides that week. The questions cover:

• whether you were physically and mentally able to work, and available for work, each day;
• whether you were away from the area where you normally look for work;
• any travel more than 100 miles from home, weekend trips, medical visits, and job searches out of the area included;
• whether you refused an offered job or missed scheduled work;
• whether you quit a job or were fired during the week;
• whether you attended school or training;
• all work and earnings for the week, including self-employment, which is entered as zero in a week with no earnings;
• for employer or union attached claimants, whether you kept the contact your employer or union requires.

A week is full time if you work the hours customary for your industry, usually 40 or more, or earn more than 1.5 times your weekly benefit amount, and a week of full-time work does not qualify.

How the Department pays you

Idaho pays by direct deposit or on a U.S. Bank ReliaCard, a Visa prepaid debit card mailed to anyone who does not choose direct deposit. You set up direct deposit on the Claimant Portal's Account tab, under Payment Method. The Department's pages give different timings for the first payment, so read these as the payment page's own estimates:

• The first payment comes no sooner than 2.5 weeks after you first apply, and eligibility issues or late certifications push it back.
• After the waiting week, a direct deposit usually lands 2 to 3 business days after a payable certification, and nothing is sent on weekends or on state, federal, or banking holidays.
• The ReliaCard is mailed after your first payable week is certified and takes 7 to 10 business days to arrive. After that, if you are eligible and nothing is pending on your claim, card funds arrive 2 to 4 business days after each certification: one filed Sunday before 7 p.m. should be funded by Wednesday around 8 a.m.

If a deposit has not posted within 4 days of your certification and no issue is pending, the Department says to contact your bank. If the Manage Claims tab shows a payment as processed and it is overdue, call 208-332-8942. ReliaCard Cardholder Services answers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at 855-203-3818.

The work search your status requires

Your work search status is set when you file, shown on the Claimant Portal home page, and sent to you in a letter. The Department names 3 statuses:

• Work Seeking: 5 work search actions each week, including the waiting week, entered on the certification with Add Work Search Action.
• Employer Attached: you keep reasonable contact with the employer you expect to return to, stay able and available, and still certify weekly. The law ties this status to a return within 16 weeks, extended by one week for each week of verified full-time work for that employer.
• Union Attached: an active member of a union that regularly refers you to full-time work keeps contact with the union instead. Union members are asked about membership when they apply, and their answers may still put them under a work search.

The law also codes claimants in approved training separately, and it makes you meet the requirements of the status the Department assigns you, so go by your letter. The Department says never to assume you are attached; if you are unsure, call 208-332-8942.

For seasonal workers, the law and the Department's page differ, and the law is the rule: you can be Employer Attached while you expect to return within 16 weeks, plus the extra week for each week of verified full-time work. The Department's work search page is stricter, saying seasonal workers must look for work when more than 16 weeks will pass before their return, with no exceptions in Idaho. If your return is more than 16 weeks away, ask the Department which status you have before you stop searching.

As a Work Seeking claimant, you must register at IdahoWorks or with the labor department of the state you live in. Actions that count include applying or sending a resume to an employer, an interview (an application and an interview for the same job count as separate actions), a job fair, a mock interview, and a workshop you attend in full. Asking a business only whether it is hiring does not count, and neither does chasing self-employment or 1099 gig work. The Department checks actions with employers, so save emails and dated screenshots: a detail it cannot verify can bring a denial and an overpayment. The work search requirements page lists every acceptable action.

By law a missed search can be excused for an illness or disability of no more than 4 weeks that began after you filed, or for compelling personal circumstances that took up only a minor part of the week, as long as you did not refuse or miss suitable work paying more than half your weekly benefit amount.

The Department may also require you to speak with a workforce consultant, who helps with your resume and job search, and your benefits stop if you skip a required interview. If you are selected for a RESEA interview, you must attend it to qualify, and it counts as a work search action for that week. The job search page explains what that interview covers.

When you work part of a week or go back full time

Report every hour you work in the week you do it, even before you are paid and even if you expect no pay at all. Enter gross wages before taxes and deductions, and include tips, commission, cash jobs, National Guard or Reserve drill pay, and the value of room and board. If you do not know the exact amount yet, multiply your hourly rate by your hours, then call 208-332-8942 with the right figure once you have it. How those earnings change the week's payment is explained under working part time while you claim, and severance, vacation, and holiday pay have their own reporting rules under severance, vacation, and holiday pay.

When you start full-time work, stop filing certifications that week. You do not need to call. Never claim a week of full-time work, even one you have not been paid for yet: benefits collected while working full time, even only until the first paycheck, must be repaid with penalties and interest and can bring criminal charges.