The SARS Registrations a New Company Needs (and When Each One Actually Applies)

Registering a company at CIPC is only the first of several places a new business has to register. SARS runs its own separate system, and unlike CIPC's one-time incorporation event, most SARS registrations are triggered by what the company actually starts doing — which means the honest answer to "what do I need to register for" is "it depends what you're about to do", not a fixed checklist everyone ticks on day one.

Income tax: automatic, no application needed

When CIPC registers a company, it automatically triggers the creation of a corporate income tax number with SARS — you do not file a separate application for this one. What you do need to do is make sure the company is properly activated on SARS eFiling, with a public officer nominated (a natural person who is legally responsible for the company's tax compliance) and the company's details correctly reflected. This is the registration nobody has to think about and everybody has to actually confirm actually went through — check eFiling rather than assuming.

Provisional tax: applies whether or not you register for it

A company is automatically a provisional taxpayer from the day it exists — there is no separate provisional tax registration to apply for or forget. What there is instead is the ongoing obligation: two provisional payments a year (roughly at the mid-point and end of the financial year) plus the annual company income tax return, the ITR14, within twelve months of financial year end. A company that never traded still owes a nil ITR14 — silence is not compliance, a filed nil return is.

PAYE and UIF: the moment you employ anyone

The instant a company pays a salary to even one employee, two registrations become compulsory:

• PAYE (Pay-As-You-Earn) — the mechanism by which the company deducts employees' income tax from their pay and remits it to SARS monthly, via the EMP201 return.
• UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund) — contributions for the employer and employee, collected alongside PAYE.

Both are triggered by the fact of employing someone, not by a turnover figure or a choice — the day you put someone on payroll is the day both registrations are due, and both come with recurring monthly obligations from that point on, plus the twice-yearly EMP501 reconciliation.

VAT: the one with a real threshold decision

VAT is the registration most new business owners actually have a choice about, and the thresholds changed materially for the 2026/27 year:

• Compulsory registration is required once the value of taxable supplies made in any consecutive 12-month period has exceeded, or is likely to exceed, R2.3 million — raised from R1 million, effective 1 April 2026. Once you cross this line, registration is not optional; SARS requires it within 21 business days of the threshold being reached.
• Voluntary registration is available once taxable supplies have exceeded R120,000 in the past 12 months — raised from R50,000, also effective 1 April 2026 — even though you are nowhere near the compulsory threshold. Some specific categories of business can register voluntarily even earlier, provided they can show minimum monthly taxable supplies of R4,200.

The sharp jump in both thresholds — more than doubling the compulsory line and voluntary line alike — is a genuinely significant change: a great many small businesses that would have been compulsorily VAT-registered under the old R1 million threshold are now comfortably below R2.3 million and no longer required to register at all.

Whether to register voluntarily before you have to is a real business decision, not a formality: registering lets you claim input VAT on what the business buys, but it also means charging VAT on what you sell (making you 15% more expensive to VAT-registered customers who can claim it back, and 15% more expensive in a way that simply costs consumers who cannot) and adds a return to file. A business selling mainly to other VAT-registered companies often benefits from registering early; one selling mainly to individual consumers often does not. This is worth a specific conversation with your accountant rather than a default either way. See our full breakdown of when your business must register for VAT for the worked example, the compliance workload, and what happens if you register late.

Skills Development Levy: once payroll grows

The Skills Development Levy (SDL) becomes payable once a company's total annual payroll exceeds R500,000 — a threshold aimed squarely at excluding the smallest employers from an obligation meant for businesses substantial enough to meaningfully fund it. A company just starting to hire is very unlikely to be near this threshold on day one; it becomes relevant as the team grows.

Putting it together: what a new company actually needs, in order

1. Income tax number — automatic at CIPC registration; confirm it on eFiling and nominate a public officer.
2. Nothing else, if the company has no employees and is below the VAT thresholds — just the ongoing provisional tax and ITR14 obligations that exist regardless.
3. PAYE and UIF — the day you hire your first employee, not before.
4. VAT — compulsory the moment taxable supplies cross R2.3 million in a rolling 12 months; a genuine choice above R120,000; a specific niche option above R4,200 a month for qualifying categories.
5. SDL — once annual payroll passes R500,000.

A brand-new one-person consultancy with no staff and modest revenue often needs nothing beyond the automatic income tax number and its provisional/annual filings for the first year or two — everything else arrives as the business genuinely grows into needing it. This is also why the compliance calendar we built shows the dates that apply to every company regardless of size (annual return, provisional tax, ITR14) separately from the ones that depend on what you're doing — because the second category is not something a generic calendar can predict for you.

Where to get this exactly right for your situation

These thresholds and rules are correct as published by SARS, but whether and when each one applies to your specific company depends on facts only you and your accountant know — projected turnover, hiring plans, who your customers are. Get your accountant involved before you cross any of these thresholds, not after; VAT and PAYE registration triggered retroactively, with penalties for the gap, is a considerably worse conversation than registering a few weeks early.

Sources: SARS's published guidance on VAT registration thresholds (compulsory R2.3 million, voluntary R120,000, both effective 1 April 2026, up from R1 million and R50,000 respectively; the R4,200 monthly minimum for specific voluntary categories; the 21-business-day compulsory registration window) and SARS's Turnover Tax threshold guidance confirming the same R2.3 million figure per the 2026 Budget Speech. PAYE, UIF and SDL registration triggers per SARS's standard employer registration requirements (SDL threshold: R500,000 annual payroll). This is general information, not tax advice — confirm your company's specific registration position with SARS or a registered tax practitioner.

What the higher VAT threshold changes for an existing small business

If your company registered for VAT under the old R1 million compulsory threshold and your turnover sits between R1 million and R2.3 million, you are no longer compulsorily required to be registered — but that does not mean deregistering is automatically the right move. Staying registered lets you keep claiming input VAT on business purchases; deregistering removes that but also removes a return to file and the price disadvantage of charging VAT to customers who cannot claim it back. Whether to stay registered voluntarily (you now qualify well above the new R120,000 voluntary line) or deregister is worth a specific conversation with your accountant based on who your customers actually are — this is not a decision to make by default in either direction.

Frequently asked

Do I need to register for VAT before I start trading, just in case? No — registering ahead of actually crossing a threshold, with no genuine business case for doing so, mainly adds a monthly or bi-monthly return to file for no benefit. Register when the numbers say so, or when there is a real commercial reason (claiming input VAT on a large upfront purchase, for instance) to do it earlier.

What happens if I cross the VAT threshold and don’t register in time? SARS can register you retroactively from the date you should have registered, and penalties and interest apply to VAT that should have been charged and remitted in the meantime — which is considerably more expensive and more disruptive than registering on time. Track your rolling 12-month taxable supplies rather than discovering the threshold after the fact.

Is a sole proprietor’s VAT registration different from a company’s? The thresholds and mechanics are the same regardless of whether you trade as a sole proprietor or through a registered company — VAT looks at the value of taxable supplies made by the person or entity, not at the legal structure behind it.

Do I need a separate SARS registration for each of PAYE, UIF and SDL, or is it one process? They are administered together in practice — registering as an employer with SARS typically sets up PAYE, UIF and (once payroll crosses the SDL threshold) SDL under one employer reference number, rather than three entirely separate applications.

Where do provisional tax and the ITR14 fit if I also register for VAT? They are entirely separate obligations that run in parallel — VAT is a transaction-based tax collected on what the company sells, while provisional tax and the ITR14 are based on the company’s actual profit for the year. A VAT-registered company still owes provisional tax and an annual ITR14 exactly as it would without VAT registration.