What’s New at SARS

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.

Read the full media release.

18 June 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: The tariff amendments notices, scheduled for publication in the Government Gazette, relate to the following:

Up to and including 18 December 2026

• Imposition of provisional payment in the form of anti-dumping duty against the alleged dumping of tubes and pipes having circular cross-section, with an external diameter which exceeds 406,4 mm of iron or steel (excluding longitudinally submerged arc welded and longitudinally welded pipes), classifiable in tariff subheading 7305.19 originating in or imported from the Republic of Mozambique (ITAC Report 779)

With effect from 12 June 2026

• Amendment to Part 1 of Schedule No. 3 by the deletion of various items under rebate item 316.01 and 316.09 as well as the insertion of various items under rebate item 315.15, 316.01 and 316.09 in order to allow for a rebate provision on additional components for cooking and cooling appliances (Addendum to ITAC Report 692)

Publication details will be made available later.

17 June 2026 – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991

• VAT Reference Guide – Schools Exiting the VAT System

17 June 2026 – The Northern Cape mobile tax unit schedules for July to November 2026 are now available.

17 June 2026 – The Eastern Cape mobile tax unit schedules for July 2026 are now available.

17 June 2026 – The state provides state warehouses for the safekeeping of goods. These are managed by Customs. The purpose of this list of unentered goods is to notify the importer, exporter and any other person that has interest in the goods that the goods have been taken up into the State warehouse and if they remain unentered they will be disposed in accordance with the provisions of the Customs & Excise Act.

15 June 2026 – Income Tax Guides

• Guide on the Determination of Medical Tax Credits (Issue 18)
• Guide on Income Tax and the Individual (2025/26)

12 June 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: Publication details for tariff amendments notices, R7578, R7579, R7580, R7581, R7582, and R7583, as published in Government Gazette 54820 of 12 June 2026, are now available.

11 June 2026 – Achieving our Vision of a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity that is trusted and admired is of paramount importance. Pivotal to the delivery of our vision are our digital platforms and technology infrastructure. To provide clarity and certainty, make it easy for taxpayers and traders to comply with their obligations and building public trust and confidence, our technology assets must demonstrate the highest levels of availability, robustness and security.

In accordance with our Vision and Strategic Objectives, which include modernising our systems to provide Digital and Streamlined online services, we are hard at work ensuring that our digital platforms and technology infrastructure are available, robust and secure, by performing regular upgrades, enhancements and maintenance.

Considering the above, SARS Digital platform maintenance is scheduled for:

Friday, 12 June 2026 from 18h00 to 21h00,

Saturday, 13 June 2026 from 04h00 to 07h00,

Saturday, 13 June 2026 from 20h00 to 03h00, Sunday 14 June 2026,

Sunday, 14 June 2026 from 10h00 to 18h30.

During this time, you may experience intermittent service interruption on our eFiling, Tax and Customs Digital Platforms.

11 June 2026 – The facility codes used in Box 30 on the Goods Declaration have been updated to include the Scan Global Logistics SA (Pty) Ltd degrouping facility located at Oliver Reginald Tambo International Airport (ORTIA).

SC-CF-19-A02 – Facilities Code List – External Annexure

11 June 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: The tariff amendments notices, scheduled for publication in the Government Gazette, relate to the following amendments:

1. With effect from 12 June 2026

• Part 2 of Schedule No. 4, by the insertion of rebate item 460.15/7604.29/01.06 in order to create a rebate provision for the importation of profiles of aluminium-copper-magnesium-zinc alloys classifiable in tariff subheading 7604.29 (ITAC Report No. 747)
• Part 1 of Schedule No. 2, by the substitution of item 207.01/3907.6/03.05 in order to increase the rate of anti-dumping duty on polyethylene terephthalate originating in or imported from the Peoples Republic of China from 28,89% to 43,77% (ITAC Report No. 770)

2. Safeguard duty on flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, and flat-rolled products of other alloy steel classifiable under Chapter 72

• Up to and including 11 June 2027
  • Part 3 of Schedule No. 2, by the insertion of various items under item 260.03, in order to implement safeguard duty of 52,34% on flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, and flat-rolled products of other alloy steel classifiable under Chapter 72 (ITAC Report No. 768)
• With effect from 12 June 2027 up to and including 11 June 2028
  • Part 3 of Schedule No. 2, by the substitution of various items under item 260.03, in order to implement safeguard duty of 37,34% on of flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, and flat-rolled products of other alloy steel classifiable under Chapter 72 (ITAC Report No. 768)
• With effect from 12 June 2028 up to and including 11 June 2029
  • Part 3 of Schedule No. 2, by the substitution of various items under item 260.03, in order to implement safeguard duty of 22,34% on flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, and flat-rolled products of other alloy steel classifiable under Chapter 72 (ITAC Report No. 768)

3. With retrospective effect from 1 September 2025 up to and including 31 December 2025

• Schedule No. 1, by the substitution of General Note N in order to amend the re-allocation of TRQ’s on cheese and cereal based preparations pertaining to the SACUM-UK

Publication details will be made available later.

10 June 2026 – The PAYE Employer Reconciliation BRS (2026 Release) Version 25 3 0 has been updated.

The validation rules for source codes 3040, 3067, 3698 and 4150 were amended.

9 June 2026 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) working with the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) secured the seizure of 30 bricks of cocaine at the Port of Durban.

Today’s interception on the KwaZulu-Natal coast follows closely on the heels of another major seizure just three days earlier, where about 90 kg of cocaine concealed in excavators from Brazil was intercepted at the same port. These operations point to intensified efforts by organised crime syndicates to move narcotics through South Africa’s trade gateways, matched by a coordinated and firm response from law enforcement.

Read the full media release.

8 June 2026 – Income Tax Act, 1962: Average Exchange Rates

• Table A – A list of the average exchange rates of selected currencies for a year of assessment as from December 2003
• Table B – A list of the monthly average exchange rates to assist a person whose year of assessment is shorter or longer than 12 months

8 June 2026 – The state provides state warehouses for the safekeeping of goods. These are managed by Customs. The purpose of this list of unentered goods is to notify the importer, exporter and any other person that has interest in the goods that the goods have been taken up into the State warehouse and if they remain unentered they will be disposed in accordance with the provisions of the Customs & Excise Act.

6 June 2026 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has intercepted consignments suspected to contain illicit drugs during a targeted Customs and Excise operation at the Port of Durban in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Read the full media release.

5 June 2026 – Due to ongoing maintenance, the services on the SARS Online Query System (SQOS) will be intermittently available on Saturday, 6 June 2026, from 14:00 to 18:00.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

5 June 2026 – Achieving our Vision of a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity that is trusted and admired is of paramount importance. Pivotal to the delivery of our vision are our digital platforms and technology infrastructure. To provide clarity and certainty, make it easy for taxpayers and traders to comply with their obligations and building public trust and confidence, our technology assets must demonstrate the highest levels of availability, robustness and security.

In accordance with our Vision and Strategic Objectives, which include modernising our systems to provide Digital and Streamlined online services, we are hard at work ensuring that our digital platforms and technology infrastructure are available, robust and secure, by performing regular upgrades, enhancements and maintenance.

Considering the above, SARS Digital platform maintenance is scheduled for:

Saturday, 06 June 2026 from 20h00 to 01h00, Sunday 07 June 2026,

Sunday, 07 June 2026 from 09h00 to 13h00.

During this time, you may experience intermittent service interruption on our eFiling, Tax and Customs Digital Platforms.

Responses (CUSRES messages) to transactions submitted during this time will be delayed.

Stakeholders are therefore urged to submit all Goods Declarations (bills of entry) and Road Manifest, especially those deemed priority, by Saturday, 06 June 2026 @ 19h00.

4 June 2026 – National Legislation

• 2026 Draft Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill

Published on 25 February 2026 following the Budget Speech, the due date for comment is now announced to be 26 June 2026.

4 June 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: The rules amendments notice issued under sections 39, 101A and 120, and scheduled for publication in the Government Gazette, relates to the amendment to invoice data and customs worksheet data.

Publication details will be made available later.