18 June 2026 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is making this year’s Filing Season easy and simple to navigate. Through this statement, SARS offers clarity and certainty to taxpayers helping them understand how the process is structured, specifying turnaround times for refunds, verification, and submission.
“While today’s launch marks the continuation of the Filing Season communication campaign, Filing Season does not open to everyone at the same time”, said Dr Johnstone Makhubu, SARS Commissioner. SARS will begin with an Auto Assessment period from 1 July to 12 July 2026. Auto Assessment is a world class innovation that is unprecedented globally for tax-administrations. SARS has yet again broken new ground. This process is used for taxpayers with less complex tax matters, whose information is fully provided by employers and other third-party data providers.
Auto Assessment will be followed by the broader filing period from 13 July to 23 October 2026 for provisional and non-provisional taxpayers who must submit returns. Provisional taxpayers and trusts have until 22 January 2027 to file their returns.
The phased approach manages taxpayer flows, reduces unnecessary pressure on service channels, and provides certainty about when each taxpayer should act. Taxpayers are urged not to come to SARS’s Service Centres for filing during the Auto Assessment period. This year, SARS expects to issue approximately 6 million Auto Assessments during this period.
At today’s launch, Commissioner Makhubu reflected on the experience of ordinary taxpayers. He noted that filing often begins with questions and, at times, anxiety about what information SARS holds, if a refund is due, whether verification may occur, and which documents a taxpayer should submit.
