Manage your Tax Compliance Status

What’s new?

• 1 June 2021 – Prior to requesting the TCS for emigration, you should have completed the Cease to be a Resident process. See Cease to be a Resident webpage for more details. 
• 1 March 2021 – The required supporting documents in respect of Emigration and FIA have been updated to reflect the recent changes in Foreign Exchange Control processes as well as the promulgation of the Taxation Laws Amendment Act, 2020.
• 5 February 2021 – You can now request your Tax Compliance Status here.

What is it?

Being tax compliant and ‘paying your fair share’ is not just good for you, but also contributes to the positive growth of our country’s economy which in turn benefits all South Africans.  

The TCS system is available for the following applications:

• Good standing
• Tender
• Foreign Investment Allowance
• Emigration

To apply for your TCS, you can access the TCS system by selecting the TAX STATUS menu option on eFiling.

What is it for? 

The new system will make it easier for taxpayers to request their Tax Compliance Status (TCS) via eFiling and receive a PIN that you can use to authorise and enable third parties to verify your status.

The TCS PIN must be used by authorised third parties (those that you share the PIN with) to verify your compliance status online via SARS eFiling. It is important to remember that a taxpayer’s compliance status is not static and changes according to his/her continued compliance with tax requirements.  

What do I need to do?

With this in mind, in order to be tax compliant you should make sure that:

• You do not have any outstanding tax returns
• You do not owe any money to SARS unless a payment arrangement or suspension of debt has been agreed to
• You are registered for all the tax products that you are liable for
• Your registered particulars are updated. For more information on how to update registered particulars click here.
• You have either merged (via the Merge tool on eFiling) or declared (on the ERC01 form available as part of the TCS process on eFiling), all your registered tax reference numbers. For more information on Merge, click here.

The new TCS system has at its heart the “My Compliance Profile (MCP)” functionality. The MCP affords taxpayers an online view of their current compliance against specific requirements, as determined by SARS. Taxpayers can visually identify any non-compliance and take the necessary action to remedy these. The introduction of the MCP empowers taxpayers with more information about their tax compliance and forms the basis for the overall compliance status issued when a  TCS application is submitted to SARS (for example for Tender or Good standing and others).

For more information on the tax compliance status processes follow the links below: 

• How to access “My Compliance Profile” (MCP) via SARS eFiling
• How to request your Tax Compliance Status
• How to verify Tax Compliance Status

Need help?

If you need help to obtain your Tax Compliance Status, watch our helpful tutorial video on the SARS YouTube channel by clicking on the image below.

To access this page in different languages click on the links below:

• IsiZulu
• Afrikaans
• Xitsonga