What Disqualifies You From Unemployment in Kansas?

In Kansas, you can be disqualified from unemployment for quitting without good cause, being fired for misconduct, refusing suitable work, taking part in a labor dispute, committing fraud, failing the weekly work-search and availability rules, or receiving certain overlapping income like workers’ compensation or another state’s unemployment. Because Kansas caps regular benefits at 16 weeks and pays between $159 and $637 a week for claims filed from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, every week lost to a disqualification is costly.¹ Each reason below carries its own requalification threshold, and some follow you into future claims.

Quitting Without Good Cause

If you chose to leave your job, Kansas disqualifies you unless the reason was tied to the work itself or your employer’s actions. The legal test asks whether a reasonable person with ordinary common sense would have felt compelled to quit in the same situation.² Wanting better pay, changing careers, or leaving for full-time school will not meet that standard.

Kansas law does recognize specific reasons that keep a resignation from disqualifying you:

Leaving on the advice of a licensed healthcare provider because of illness or injury, if you notified your employer promptly and later found no comparable work available on your return.
Relocating with a spouse who is an active member of the armed forces and was transferred somewhere that makes continuing your job unreasonable.
Genuinely hazardous working conditions.
Leaving a temporary assignment to return to your regular employer.
Circumstances involving domestic violence, which the statute addresses with specific protections.

These exceptions rest on documentation — military orders, medical records, or police reports show that you had to leave rather than chose to. Not returning after an approved personal or medical leave counts as a voluntary resignation.²

A disqualification for quitting lasts until you find new insured employment and earn at least three times your weekly benefit amount.² At the current $637 maximum, that is $1,911 in new wages before benefits can start again.

Being Fired for Misconduct

Kansas draws a line between poor performance and misconduct. Losing your job because you lacked the skills or made honest mistakes generally will not disqualify you. Misconduct means violating a workplace duty or rule you knew about (or should have known about), where the rule was lawful, reasonably related to the job, and fairly enforced.² Repeated tardiness, leaving early without permission, or ignoring a safety rule after warnings are typical examples.

Like a quit, a misconduct disqualification lasts until you earn at least three times your weekly benefit amount in new insured work.²

Gross Misconduct

Gross misconduct is a harsher category covering theft, fraud, intentional property damage, intentionally injuring someone, or any conduct amounting to a felony.² There is no minimum dollar threshold; intentionally damaging company property of any value qualifies.

The consequences are heavier. You must earn at least eight times your weekly benefit amount in new insured work before benefits resume — $5,096 at the current $637 maximum. Wage credits from the employer that fired you for gross misconduct are also permanently canceled, so those wages cannot be used to establish any future unemployment claim.²

Refusing Suitable Work

Turning down a job offer, or failing to apply when directed to by the Kansas Department of Labor, triggers a disqualification that lasts until you earn at least three times your weekly benefit amount in new insured work.² Whether a job is “suitable” depends on:

Health and safety risks the work would pose.
Your prior training and experience.
Wages compared to what others earn for similar work in your area.
Commute distance compared to local norms.
How long you have been unemployed, which broadens the definition of suitable work over time.

You cannot be forced to take a job vacant because of a strike or lockout, one that requires you to join or leave a union, or one that pays and treats workers substantially worse than the going rate locally.² You also cannot be penalized for refusing work that would force you to drop approved job training.

Failing the Weekly Eligibility Rules

Even once your claim is approved, you must remain able, available, and actively looking for work every week you claim a payment. Being physically or mentally unable to work, lacking childcare during standard business hours, or having no reliable transportation can each cause a denial for that week.³ A week on vacation or in the hospital also blocks payment, because you would not be available to take a job.⁴

Kansas requires three work-search activities each week, and at least two of them must be an actual job application or resume submission to an employer. The third can be another application, a job fair, a visit to a workforce center, or reviewing job postings.⁵ If the Kansas Department of Labor directs you to attend reemployment services, skipping them can suspend your payments.

If you return to full-time work or your gross earnings in a week equal or exceed your weekly benefit amount, stop filing weekly certifications.⁴ Report any partial earnings honestly; misreporting moves you into fraud territory.

Labor Disputes

If your unemployment is caused by a strike, lockout, or other labor dispute at your workplace, Kansas disqualifies you for as long as the dispute continues. That applies even if the employer keeps operating with replacement workers; what matters is whether the stoppage of your work traces back to the dispute.²

You escape this disqualification only if you were not participating in, financing, or directly interested in the dispute, and you did not belong to a group of workers involved in it. Refusing to cross a picket line counts as participating, even if you had no role in starting the dispute.²

Fraud

Filing a false claim carries the harshest consequences in the system. Misreporting your earnings, lying about why you lost your job, hiding information that affects eligibility, claiming benefits while incarcerated, or using someone else’s identity all fall under fraud.²

When fraud is confirmed, you must repay every dollar you were not entitled to, plus a penalty of 25 percent of the overpayment. The disqualification lasts one year after you finish repaying in full for a first offense, or five years for any repeat offense.² Criminal prosecution is possible for larger cases or identity theft.

Honest mistakes, such as a miscalculated number or a misunderstanding about what to report, can usually be corrected. Fraud penalties apply when the misrepresentation was knowing and intentional. Kansas cross-checks the information you provide each week against employer-reported wage records, so discrepancies tend to surface.

Income That Offsets or Blocks Benefits

Some income makes you ineligible for specific weeks, whatever the reason you lost your job.

Weeks in which you receive workers’ compensation for a temporary total or permanent total disability are not payable. The two programs assume opposite things — workers’ compensation treats you as unable to work, unemployment insurance requires that you can.⁶

Back pay awards and settlements from a former employer are assigned to the specific weeks they would have covered, and you cannot collect unemployment for any week a back pay award already compensates.⁶

You are also disqualified for any week you are receiving or seeking unemployment benefits from another state or a federal program, unless that other claim is ultimately denied.⁶

Social Security retirement is different. Kansas eliminated its Social Security offset in 2003, so collecting Social Security does not reduce your unemployment payment.

Not Qualifying in the First Place

Before any of the reasons above matter, your work history has to be enough to open a claim. Kansas requires wages in at least two calendar quarters of your base period, with total base-period wages equal to at least 30 times your weekly benefit amount.¹ The base period is generally the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before you filed. Your weekly benefit amount is 4.25 percent of your highest-quarter wages. If your work history is too short, too recent, or too low-paid to meet the 30-times threshold, the claim is denied at the door regardless of why you lost your job.

Appealing a Disqualification

If Kansas denies your claim, you have 16 calendar days from the date the decision is mailed to appeal. If the decision was delivered another way, such as electronically, the 16 days run from the date of delivery.⁷ Missing that window can end your case, though a referee or the Board of Review may extend it if the delay was outside your control.

Your appeal goes to a referee for a hearing. You can present evidence, bring witnesses, cross-examine the employer’s witnesses, and be represented by an attorney or someone else. The hearing is relatively informal and the referee is expected to help unrepresented claimants through it, but testimony is under oath and the decision must rest on substantial evidence.⁷ If you lose at that level, you can appeal to the Board of Review, which examines the hearing record and may affirm, modify, or reverse. Pay stubs, written warnings, correspondence with your employer, and medical records prepared in advance give you the best chance of reversing a disqualification.

1
State of Kansas Department of Labor. Unemployment FAQs
2
Justia Law. Kansas Code 44-706 – Disqualification for Benefits, Exceptions
3
Justia Law. Kansas Code 44-705 – Eligible Worker
4
State of Kansas Department of Labor. Eligibility
5
Kansas Commerce. Weekly Work Search Logs
6
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 44-706 – Disqualification for Benefits, Exceptions
7
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 44-709