Voluntary unemployment insurance contributions

Learn how to make voluntary employer contributions to the Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA).

Some employers can pay additional contributions to DUA to lower their experience rating and reduce required contributions in the next year.

Eligible employers

Only some employers in Massachusetts can make voluntary contributions. Employers must:

• Be eligible for an experience rating (be registered with DUA for more than 3 years)
• Be up to date on all quarterly employment and wage detail reports
• Be up to date on all quarterly contributions, interest, surcharges, and penalties

Some employers can’t make voluntary contributions, including:

• New employers that don't have an experience rating yet
• Employers at the lowest schedule rate for the current year
• Employers with late quarterly wage reports or payments
• Government employers
• Suspended or closed accounts
• Employers with no wages for all 3 annual wages subject to computation periods on their rate notice

If you have outstanding reports or payments, you can file and make payments and then pay voluntary contributions. In most cases, this needs to be done within 30 days of the date on your rate notice.

How to pay voluntary contributions

If you are eligible to make voluntary contributions:

• Log in to Unemployment Services for Employers
• From the Employer information panel, select View more employer details
• On the Voluntary contributions panel, select Make a voluntary contribution
• Review the available rates and voluntary contribution amounts to achieve those rates
• Make a payment with ACH debit (ACH credit and paper check are not available for voluntary contributions)

Please note that these options are only available when the voluntary contribution period is open.