The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is a national agency of the South African government created in April 2005 to administer South Africa's social security system, including by distributing social grants, on behalf of the Department of Social Development (DSD). It is under the oversight, but not the operational control, of DSD and the Ministry of Social Development. Established in terms of the Social Assistance Act of 2004 and South African Social Security Agency Act of 2004, SASSA is a public entity in terms of Schedule 3A of the Public Finance Management Act. As of 2022 its chief executive officer was Busisiwe Memela-Khambula.

SASSA was founded in 2005 to centralise the provision of social security assistance, formerly a primarily provincial function, in order to reduce corruption and improve service delivery. It was closely modelled on its Australian counterpart, Centrelink. Its key functions relate to the administration and payment of social grants, which support a large proportion of the South African population: in 2022, 46% of South Africans received a social grant. SASSA's functions including processing applications for social security assistance, verifying and approving applications, disbursing and paying the grants to eligible beneficiaries, and preventing and detecting fraud. SASSA employs biometric technology, including fingerprint and facial recognition, to verify the identity of beneficiaries. This helps ensure that the grants reach the intended recipients and reduce the risk of identity theft and fraud.

The social assistance disbursed by SASSA takes the form of various grants; most of them are means-tested and paid in cash on a monthly basis. These are the Child Support Grant, the Care Dependency Grant, the Foster Child Grant, the Disability Grant, the Grant-in-Aid, the Older Person's Grant (an old-age pension), and the War Veteran's Grant. A special case is the three-month Social Relief of Distress Grant, which provides immediate temporary assistance in the form of vouchers, food parcels, or cash. The temporary Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant was introduced in May 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic; in October 2022, Enoch Godongwana, the Minister of Finance, announced that it would be extended to remain in place until March 2024.

In 2015, of the R155.3 billion given in social welfare, R53.5 billion went to pensioners, R47.8 billion to Child Support Grants, R20.2 billion to Disability Grants, and R8.5 billion for other grants, with the remainder spent on management and administration.

SASSA announced that all grants would be increased from 1 April 2023. The Older Persons Grant will be increased to R2080 (for recipients between 60 and 74) and R2100 (for recipients over 75 years old).

Recipients of the Disability Grant and the Care Dependency Grant will be increased to R2080, while the Child Support Grant will be increased to R500 (with the top-up increasing to R250).

The Foster Child grant will increase to R1120, with the War Veteran grant increasing to R2100 and lastly, the Grant-In-Aid increasing to R500.

Further SASSA Grants Payment has been increased from 1 October 2023.