Staying eligible for Reemployment Assistance is not a one-time event — it's a weekly obligation, and the state audits it. Getting denied, or having a payment held up, doesn't end things either: Florida has a defined multi-stage appeals path, from an appeals referee through the Reemployment Assistance Appeals Commission and, beyond that, the courts.
Registering with Employ Florida
Beyond filing your claim, Florida law requires most claimants to complete online work registration and then report to a local one-stop career center as directed by the regional workforce board. Five groups are exempt by statute:
- People who don't live in Florida.
- Claimants on temporary layoff.
- Union members who customarily get work through a union hiring hall.
- Claimants on an approved short-time compensation plan.
- Anyone who can't complete the online registration because of illiteracy, a physical or mental impairment, a legal prohibition on using a computer, or a language impediment — for this group, filing the claim itself counts as the registration.
The department also offers a voluntary skills and career-aptitude assessment through the one-stop system; taking it is optional, but if you do, the results can feed a training-and-referral plan and are shared with the relevant local workforce board.
What counts as a weekly work search
The county-population split on the home page is the headline rule — 5 employer contacts a week in counties over 75,000 people, 3 in smaller counties (check the Florida Population Chart for your county). The specifics that actually get a work-search log rejected:
- Record, for every contact: the date, the name of the employer or agency, the method (phone, online, in person), a working phone number, website, physical address or email address for them, the type of work you sought, and the result.
- The same employer at the same location generally can't be counted twice in 3 consecutive weeks — unless that employer has told you, since your first contact, that they are actively hiring.
- An in-person visit to a CareerSource Florida center for a qualifying service — not just walking in — can substitute for that week's employer contacts. The center logs what it provided and can supply that record to the state.
- The department runs random reviews of submitted work-search information, so a log needs to hold up, not just exist.
Who is exempt from actively searching
Several categories of claimants are not required to meet the standard contact quota:
- Claimants approved by the department for training, under criteria set by rule.
- Claimants in training approved under the federal Trade Act of 1974 — this group also can't be disqualified for leaving work that wasn't "suitable" (defined as substantially equal or higher skill level, paying at least 80% of their prior average weekly wage) to enter that training.
- Anyone under a lawfully issued summons for jury duty during the claim week.
- Union hiring-hall members, who can satisfy the requirement by reporting to their union hall daily instead.
- Claimants on temporary layoff or an approved short-time compensation plan.
- Claimants the department's profiling system has flagged as likely to exhaust regular benefits — this group is routed into mandatory reemployment services (job-search assistance) instead of the standard contact count.
Requesting benefit payment, on schedule
Every two weeks you must log into Reconnect and request benefit payment for the weeks you were unemployed. You have a seven-day window from your scheduled report date. Miss it, and that week goes unpaid and your claim status flips to "Inactive," which means reopening it before anything further gets paid.
Two different determinations, two different appeal clocks
Florida distinguishes between a monetary determination (whether you qualify and for how much) and a nonmonetary determination (an eligibility issue — separation reason, availability, a work-search problem). Both give you 20 days from the mailing or delivery date, but they go different places: a monetary determination gets a written request for the department itself to reconsider it; a nonmonetary determination — and most denials people mean when they say "I got denied" — gets appealed straight to an appeals referee.
Filing the appeal
All appeal requests, monetary or nonmonetary, must be filed within 20 calendar days of the determination's mailing (or "distributed") date; if day 20 lands on a weekend or legal holiday, it rolls to the next business day. Three ways to file, from floridajobs.org's own instructions:
Online
Through the RA Help Center or Reconnect. Filing date = the date you submit it.
Complete a Notice of Appeal and send it to: Office of Appeals, P.O. Box 5250, Tallahassee, FL 32399. Filing date = postmark date.
Fax
Complete a Notice of Appeal and fax it to 850-617-6504. Filing date = the fax time-stamp.
An appeal that looks late can get an "order to show cause" — you then have 15 days to provide written evidence it was actually timely, or a good reason it wasn't, or it's dismissed. But there is a hard outer limit: no appeal of a determination can be filed more than 5 years after it was mailed or delivered, no matter the excuse.
The hearing
Hearings are conducted entirely by telephone. You'll receive a Notice of Hearing with the date, time, and how to reach the appeals office with questions or special needs (including an interpreter). If the scheduled time doesn't work, you can request a continuance — by mail, fax, through the RA Help Center, or on the record at the start of the hearing itself. You don't call in; the appeals referee calls everyone involved. During the hearing, the referee records it, explains the process, reviews the case file, swears in witnesses, helps parties question each other if needed, and decides what evidence to consider — Florida law allows hearsay evidence to support a finding if the other side had a fair chance to review it beforehand and the referee finds it trustworthy, which is a looser standard than a civil courtroom. The decision — affirm, modify, reverse, or dismiss — goes to everyone involved, in writing.
Beyond the referee: Commission review and the courts
If you disagree with the referee's decision, you (or the department, or an affected employer) can ask the Reemployment Assistance Appeals Commission to review it, again within 20 days of that decision. The Commission typically does not hold a new hearing — it decides based on the existing record, which is exactly why bringing all your evidence to the referee hearing matters. If the Commission declines to take up the case at all, the referee's decision simply becomes the Commission's decision for appeal purposes, and the clock for the next step runs from that denial notice instead.
Beyond the Commission, Florida law provides for judicial review: a further appeal to the District Court of Appeal for the district where you live, where your job separation happened, or where the Commission's order was issued. This is the actual end of the administrative process — something the home page's summary doesn't cover.
Whatever stage a dispute is at, keep requesting benefit payment every two weeks for weeks you're still claiming — Florida law requires it regardless of a pending appeal, and only weeks you actually requested payment for can be paid if you ultimately win.
If you were overpaid
An overpayment — money paid that a later determination says you weren't eligible for — has to be repaid, but the rules differ by cause:
- Fraud-based overpayment: the state must find fraud within 2 years of when it happened, adds a 15% penalty on top of the amount owed, and then has 7 years from that finding to recover it.
- Non-fraud overpayment: still owed back (or deducted from future benefits, at the department's discretion), but without the 15% penalty.
Common questions
What exactly counts as a valid work-search contact in Florida?
Do I have to keep searching for work if my claim is under appeal?
What's the difference between appealing a monetary and a nonmonetary determination?
What happens after the Reemployment Assistance Appeals Commission?
What happens if I was overpaid?
Sources
- FloridaJobs.org — Request Benefit Payment (work-search contact requirements, biweekly certification) — https://floridajobs.org/workforce-resources/reemployment-assistance/claimants/request-benefit-payment
- FloridaJobs.org — File an Appeal (filing methods, hearing process, Commission review) — https://floridajobs.org/workforce-resources/reemployment-assistance/claimants/file-an-appeal
- Section 443.091, Florida Statutes — work registration, work-search and exemption rules — https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/443.091
- Section 443.151, Florida Statutes — determinations, appeals procedure, Commission review, judicial review, overpayment recovery — https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/443.151
- FloridaJobs.org — Florida Population Chart (county population thresholds for the work-search contact requirement) — https://www.floridajobs.org/docs/default-source/reemployment-assistance-center/work-search/florida-population-chart.pdf