ESD marked claim as paid but money not showing up on debit card - how long is normal?

This happens sometimes with ReliaCard. I've had payments that showed 'paid' take anywhere from a few hours to two business days to actually hit my card. The banking system can be slower than the ESD system at updating. If it says paid, you should definitely get it, but it might take until tomorrow morning when the next batch of ACH transfers processes.

mine took 3 days last week!! showed paid on tuesday morning but didnt hit my card til friday. called reliacard and they said they could see it pending in their system but couldn't do anything to speed it up. super annoying but it did come eventually

This is actually a common issue that's been happening more frequently in 2025. ESD's system marks claims as 'paid' when they're approved and queued for payment, but the actual transfer to ReliaCard involves multiple financial systems. What's likely happening is: 1) ESD has approved your payment 2) It's in the ACH transfer queue 3) The transfer needs to be processed by both ESD's bank and ReliaCard's bank Banking regulations allow up to 3 business days for ACH transfers, though most process more quickly. If your payment was marked paid on a Friday, you might not see it until Monday or Tuesday due to the weekend. If it's been less than 3 business days, I wouldn't worry yet. Also check that your ReliaCard is still active and hasn't expired - they expire every 3 years and sometimes people miss the replacement card in the mail.

The same thing has been happening with my payments for the past two months. It's driving me CRAZY!!! ESD never makes it clear and you can never reach a real person to explain these things. My theory is they're doing extra fraud checks which is slowing everything down, but heaven forbid they actually TELL US what's going on! 🤬

My wife had this problem last month and we panicked too. But it showed up the next morning around 5am. I think ReliaCard does some kind of overnight batch processing? So maybe check first thing tomorrow.

If you need to actually talk to ESD about this or any other claim issues, I had success using Claimyr to get through to an agent. Spent weeks trying to call on my own with no luck, but their system got me connected in about 20 minutes. Their website is claimyr.com and they have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ?si=26TzE_zGms-DODN3 The agent I spoke with explained that ReliaCard transfers can take 1-3 business days even when ESD shows 'paid' status, especially if there were any fraud flags that needed additional review. At least I got a clear answer instead of stressing about it.

One more thing to check - log into the ReliaCard website directly (not through ESD). Sometimes payments show up in your ReliaCard account history before they show as available balance. If you see a 'pending' transaction there, that's confirmation it's in process.

this whole system is just designed to torture us honestly. like why does it say PAID if it's not actually PAID??? just another example of how the unemployment system is broken. i've had the same thing happen like 5 times in the past year and each time it's a different waiting period. sometimes 12 hours, sometimes 3 days. makes no sense.

UPDATE: The money just posted to my ReliaCard this morning at 4:30am! So it took about 20 hours from when it showed as 'paid' on the ESD site. For anyone else having this issue, definitely check the ReliaCard website directly as someone suggested - the pending transaction showed up there before the money was available. Thanks everyone for the help and support!