Overpayment Waivers

Overpayment Waivers

If you received a non-fraud overpayment for federal pandemic benefit payments, you can apply for an overpayment waiver.

An overpayment waiver is a request to have your PUA, FPUC, PEUC, or LWA overpayment waived, meaning you do not have to pay the overpayment.  The Department of Labor may accept your request if you demonstrate that repaying the money would cause a financial hardship on you.

There are a few ways you can request an overpayment waiver.

  • Use the waiver request form in your online PUA or UC portal.

    If you have a PUA overpayment, you will need to log in to your PUA account to request a waiver. If you have a PEUC overpayment, you will need to log in to your UC portal to request a waiver.

Follow these instructions to find the overpayment waiver link in your UC or PUA portal. 

Login to your portal to and on your dashboard click “View Your Benefit Summary.”

Screenshot of the PUA benefit portal dashboard.

Scroll down to the “Overpayment Determinations” grid. Click on the “Request Waiver” link in the far right column in the grid.

Screenshot of the overpayment determinations grid.

This will take you to the overpayment waiver request form. The first page of the form looks like this: 

First page of the online waiver request form.

If you cannot find a link in your portal, that may mean you are not eligible for an overpayment waiver. 

There is no deadline for when you can request an overpayment waiver. But the sooner you send in a waiver, the better.

If your overpayment waiver is approved, the government will not be able to offset any benefits from future benefits payments AND they have to repay any past benefits that they took.

If your overpayment waiver is denied, you can appeal the denial.

Currently, there is no timeline on how long it will take the Department of Labor to approve or deny your overpayment waiver.  There is a huge backlog of overpayment waivers that still need to be decided on. 

You can ignore any notices that said you need to file your overpayment waiver with an appeal or else it will be denied. These were incorrectly issued according to the Department of Labor and Industry.  

The Service Center makes the decision to approve or deny an overpayment waiver.

Federal guidance states that the Department of Labor and Industry is required to stop collecting overpayments while a waiver request is pending, but unfortunately, the PUA and UC systems have not been able to do this.

If you need the Department to stop offsetting your benefits, you should email [email protected] and inform them that you have submitted a waiver and they need to stop offsetting your payments. 

No. Unfortunately, Extended Benefits was an extension program that Pennsylvania provided to UC claimants. It was not a federal pandemic benefit extension. You can only request an overpayment waiver for federal pandemic benefit extensions.