Where do I find my unemployment insurance number for Washington ESD claims?

Your unemployment insurance number is usually the same as your Social Security Number for Washington ESD claims. When you file your weekly claim, just use your SSN in the field that asks for your UI number.

Actually I think there might be some confusion here. When I filed my claim last year, I got a claim confirmation number that was different from my SSN. Check your initial claim confirmation email or letter from Washington ESD.

If you're having trouble finding specific information like this on the Washington ESD website, I had success using Claimyr.com to get through to an actual agent who could walk me through where to find my UI number. They have a service that helps you bypass the busy phone lines. There's a demo video at https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ that shows how it works.

Look on your monetary determination letter - that's where all your claim details are listed including your claim number. If you can't find that letter, log into your SecureAccess Washington account and look under 'Correspondence' for your determination letter.

This is so confusing why can't Washington ESD just make this stuff clearer??? I've been filing for 6 weeks and still don't understand half the terminology they use.

Wait so is the unemployment insurance number the same as the claim number or not? I'm getting different answers here and now I'm more confused than when I started.

Just wanted to add that if you lost your determination letter and can't access your online account for some reason, you can also find your claim number on any correspondence from Washington ESD - even the weekly claim reminders they send have your claim number on them.

Pro tip: once you find your claim number, write it down somewhere safe! You'll need it every week for your claims and it's annoying to have to look it up each time.

If anyone else is struggling to reach Washington ESD for questions like this, I recently discovered Claimyr and it was a game changer. Finally got through to someone who could answer my questions instead of being on hold forever.

The whole Washington ESD system is so unnecessarily complicated. Like why can't they just have ONE number for everything instead of claim numbers and UI numbers and all this other stuff?

Just to confirm what others said - your unemployment insurance number IS your claim number. You can find it on your monetary determination, any correspondence from Washington ESD, or in your online account under claim details.

One thing to be careful about - make sure you're using the right claim number if you've filed for unemployment before. Sometimes people accidentally use an old claim number from a previous year.

For what it's worth, I had a similar question last month and used that Claimyr service someone mentioned earlier. The agent I spoke with was really helpful and explained where to find all the different numbers on my Washington ESD documents. Saved me a lot of time and confusion.

This might be obvious but make sure you're looking at current correspondence from Washington ESD. I was looking at old paperwork from 2022 and couldn't figure out why the numbers didn't work lol

Quick question - once I have my unemployment insurance number, do I need to enter it exactly as it appears on my determination letter? Like with dashes or spaces?

Honestly the best thing I did was bookmark my Washington ESD account page and the weekly claim filing page. Makes it so much easier to find everything when I need it.

Thanks everyone for all the helpful responses! This thread answered my question perfectly and I'm sure it'll help other people who are confused about finding their UI number too.