How long does SC unemployment last?

The 20-week limit has been South Carolina law since June 14, 2011, when an amendment cut the multiple in the benefit formula from 26 to 20, and it does not rise or fall with the state's unemployment rate. The count for your own claim is printed on the monetary determination DEW mails after you file.

How many weeks your South Carolina claim pays

DEW works out one dollar total for your benefit year, called the maximum benefit amount, and pays it out one weekly benefit amount at a time. South Carolina's benefits statute sets that total as the smaller of these figures, rounded down to a whole dollar:

• 20 times your weekly benefit amount
• one-third of all the wages in your base period

Your weekly benefit amount is the pay from your highest base-period quarter divided by 26, up to DEW's maximum. To qualify at all, your base-period wages must reach at least 1.5 times that highest quarter. One-third of that minimum is half the highest quarter, which is at least 13 weekly amounts. That is why a South Carolina claim that qualifies carries 13 to 20 full weeks of benefits before any penalty for how the job ended.

DEW's Claimant Handbook works one worker through the formula:

That worker is paid for 20 full weeks. When one-third of your wages is the smaller figure, your total covers fewer than 20 weekly amounts, and the handbook warns that your last payment may be less than your full weekly benefit amount.

The most any South Carolina claim can pay is 20 times DEW's maximum weekly benefit amount. That maximum was $326 from July 2007 until February 2025, when DEW raised it to $350. At that $350 maximum, a claim pays at most $7,000, which is 20 times $350, and one-third of your base-period wages can make the total less. DEW sets the maximum each year within the statute's limit, and every claim keeps the maximum in force on the day it was filed, so a new maximum changes the dollars on later claims and never the 20 weeks. The 20 is written into the statute itself and changes only if the law is amended. How DEW sets your weekly amount.

Where to see your own weeks

After you file, DEW mails a monetary determination. The handbook says it shows the benefits you may receive, how they were calculated, the number of weeks you are eligible for, and how to appeal or ask for a reconsideration. The statute requires that notice to state your benefit year, your weekly benefit amount, and the most you can be paid that year.

Check the employers listed on it. A base-period job left off the determination can lower both your weekly amount and your total, and there is a deadline to fix it: see checking or disputing your amount.

What can leave you with fewer weeks

• Wages bunched into one quarter. If most of your base-period pay came in a single quarter, one-third of your base-period wages can be the smaller figure, and then your total falls short of 20 weekly amounts.
• A discharge for misconduct. You cannot be paid for the next 20 weeks plus the waiting period, and DEW must cut your total by 20 weekly amounts. A South Carolina claim holds at most 20 weekly amounts, so taking 20 away leaves nothing to pay in that benefit year.
• A discharge for other cause. DEW sets a penalty of 5 to 19 weeks by how serious the cause was, and cuts your total by the same number of weekly amounts. That leaves at most 15 full weeks, and nothing at all when the penalty weeks equal or pass the weeks your claim holds.

Quitting without good cause, a discharge for illegal drug use, refusing suitable work, and retiring voluntarily work differently. Each one stops payment until you work again and earn at least 8 times your weekly benefit amount, while the calendar of your benefit year keeps running. DEW decides which rule applies to your separation, and the eligibility guide explains how.

Weeks of part-time work do not use up your claim faster. A week paid only in part draws just the dollars DEW pays, so the same total stretches over more calendar weeks, up to the end of your benefit year. See working part time while you claim for how DEW figures a part-paid week.

Your benefit year: 52 weeks to use your total

Filing opens a benefit year of 52 weeks. It starts on your claim's effective date, the Sunday of the week you file (or the filing day itself, if you file on a Sunday), and ends on the last Saturday of the benefit year, which the handbook calls the Benefit Year End.

DEW pays until the benefit year ends or your maximum benefit amount has been paid, whichever comes first. You are paid for each week you are unemployed and meet the eligibility rules, so a week you do not claim because you are working uses none of your total. What is left can be paid for later weeks of unemployment in the same benefit year. Money still unpaid when the benefit year ends is not carried into a new one.

When your South Carolina benefits run out

Once your maximum benefit amount has been paid, DEW has nothing more for you in that benefit year, and a new benefit year does not start on its own. You must wait until the current benefit year ends before you file a new initial claim.

To qualify for that new claim, the statute requires that after your earlier benefit year began, you did insured work and earned at least 8 times your previous weekly benefit amount from a single employer. Wages already counted in your first claim's base period cannot be used again. The handbook calls filing without the new wages double dipping.

DEW's own pages word the requirement differently:

The statute is the law itself, and the other rows are DEW's summaries of it. If your new wages came from an employer you worked for before, or were split among several employers, ask DEW at 1-866-831-1724 before you decide not to file.

Extended benefits in South Carolina

None is available now. As of the U.S. Department of Labor's trigger notice effective September 20, 2026, no extended benefit period is in effect in South Carolina, and the last one ended December 12, 2020.

If unemployment rises enough to start a period, state law pays extended benefits only to people who have used up their regular benefits and still meet the regular rules. The extra amount is the lesser of 50 percent of your regular total or 13 times your weekly benefit amount. A period lasts at least 13 weeks, and DEW must announce publicly when one starts and when it ends. Someone disqualified for quitting, a discharge for cause, or refusing suitable work cannot draw extended benefits until that disqualification has ended through later work, which can mean working in at least 4 separate weeks and earning at least 4 times the weekly benefit amount.