18 August 2025 – The PRN is required when a payment is made to SARS by EFT or at a bank. The PRN enables a taxpayer to designate exactly what is being paid/settled, i.e. the specific period and/or tax type and enables SARS to automatically allocate a payment to the correct tax type and period. A PRN must be 19-digits long.
The PRN for Income Tax starts with your tax reference number then a ‘T’ and eight zeros, e.g. 1234567899T00000000. Top Tip: You don’t need to use a SARS bank account number to make payment, you can simply select from a standard drop-down of pre-loaded beneficiary IDs provided by the bank on your Internet banking. If you are making payment at a bank branch, the teller should select the SARS preloaded beneficiary. For Personal Income Tax, the SARS preloaded beneficiary to use is ‘SARS-ITA’.
Where to find your PRN:
On eFiling:
- If you owe money to SARS, the Payment Advice on eFiling is pre-populated with a unique Payment Reference Number (PRN). Please refer to your Statement of Account
- A Payment Advice Notice (PAN) is a remittance advice used when making payments to SARS. A PAN can be generated via SARS eFiling under the “General Unpaid” or “Payment Advice Notice” functions. If paying for multiple tax types (e.g., VAT and PAYE), separate PANs must be generated
By using SARS SOQS:
- SARS has implemented a new feature on the Send an Online Query System (SOQS) where taxpayers can request their Payment Reference Number (PRN) in order to help with payments to SARS.
- See What is my Payment Reference Number on the Send an Online Query System (SOQS) webpage.
These are the tax types that will be covered by the PRN feature on SOQS:
- Income Tax
- Provisional Tax
- VAT (limited to period PRNs)
- PAYE/SDL/UIF (limited to period PRNs)
- Dividends Tax
See the updated SARS Online Query System (SOQS) Guide here.
