SARS return deadline is Friday, with penalties up to R16,000 a month

South African taxpayers who file as individuals and are not provisional taxpayers must submit their 2026 income tax returns by Friday 23 October, SARS says.

The tax authority opened the broader filing period on 13 July 2026, after an auto-assessment window from 1 to 12 July. In a media release on 18 June, SARS said it expected to issue about 6 million auto-assessments. Anyone who did not receive a notification by 12 July was not auto-assessed and has to file a personal income tax return (ITR12) on eFiling or the SARS MobiApp, according to SARS’s filing season page.

Provisional taxpayers, who earn income beyond a salary, such as business, freelance, investment or rental income, have longer. They and trusts can file until 22 January 2027. Employers face a separate interim declaration window that runs from 21 September to 31 October 2026.

SARS says the administrative penalty for failing to submit a return is a fixed amount based on the taxpayer’s taxable income. It “can range from R250 up to R16 000 a month for each month that the non-compliance continues”, the SARS penalty FAQ says. A personalised penalty notice is available on the taxpayer’s eFiling profile.

The fixed-amount table sits on a SARS page about penalties for financial institutions that fail to report account data, and SARS says it matches section 211(1) of the Tax Administration Act. It sets R250 a month for an assessed loss or taxable income of up to R250,000 in the preceding year. The amount then doubles or more at each band. It is R500 for up to R500,000, R1,000 for up to R1 million and R2,000 for up to R5 million. It reaches R4,000 for up to R10 million and R8,000 for up to R50 million. Above R50 million, it is R16,000.

SARS advises taxpayers not to wait until the last day and to gather supporting documents before they log in. It also warns of email and SMS scams during filing season, and tells taxpayers to use only its official eFiling and MobiApp channels.

SARS’s FAQ tells taxpayers with outstanding returns to submit them as soon as possible, because the penalty recurs monthly until they are compliant.

The filing season comes just before the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, which Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana will deliver on 21 October, as our earlier report covers. SARS’s own record of its dealings with suppliers is also on the site, in our story on its sole-source IT contracts.

The next date is Friday 23 October, when the filing period for non-provisional individuals closes.