Small Business Compliance Calendar: SARS, CIPC & UIF Deadlines (South Africa)

Sole proprietors (unincorporated businesses, taxed as individuals), trusts carrying on a trade, and Pty Ltd private companies registered with CIPC. Close corporations and non-profit companies follow similar but not identical rules and aren't modelled here.

A trust registers with the Master of the High Court, not CIPC, so there's no CIPC Annual Return or Beneficial Ownership Declaration item. Like a sole proprietor, a trust can't choose its own financial year-end for tax purposes, it's fixed to the last day of February. Its income tax return is an ITR12T, filed on the same date as individual provisional taxpayers, currently 22 January, so it gets the same "confirm annually" treatment as that item. Trustees also have a separate, ongoing duty to keep the trust's own Beneficial Ownership register up to date with the Master whenever trustees, beneficiaries or the trust deed change, since that's event-driven rather than a fixed annual date, it's shown as a one-time note rather than a deadline in the list.

No. SARS's calendar and tools like TaxTim's tax deadline tracker list every date for every kind of taxpayer, which is useful, but it means checking which of those dates actually apply to you. This tool only shows a generic tax calendar's SARS income tax and provisional tax dates as part of the picture, it also covers CIPC's Annual Return and Beneficial Ownership Declaration, VAT, PAYE/UIF/SDL, COIDA and B-BBEE, personalised to your specific business, so nothing you don't need shows up.

CIPC Annual Return and Beneficial Ownership Declaration (companies), the ITR14 company income tax return, provisional tax (IRP6) payments, VAT returns, monthly EMP201 (PAYE, UIF and SDL), the EMP501 interim and annual reconciliations, COIDA Return of Earnings, and B-BBEE sworn affidavit renewal. It only shows the deadlines that apply to what you've ticked, not a generic list of everything a business could possibly owe.

Most of these rules (CIPC's 30 business days, the ITR14's 12-month window, the provisional tax formula, VAT and EMP201/EMP501 due dates) come from stable law and regulation that doesn't move from year to year, so this calendar computes their exact date for you. A couple of items, the individual income tax filing season for sole proprietors and the COIDA Return of Earnings window, are announced fresh by SARS or the Compensation Fund each year and can shift. Those are flagged "confirm annually" rather than shown with false precision.

It moves to the preceding business day, which this calendar calculates directly (including Easter's Good Friday and Family Day, and the rule that a public holiday falling on a Sunday makes the following Monday a public holiday too). It can't account for ad-hoc declared public holidays, such as an election day, since those aren't known in advance.

Yes. Since 1 July 2024, CIPC will not accept an Annual Return without a Beneficial Ownership Declaration filed alongside it, both are due within the same 30 business days of your registration anniversary. Filing fees are tiered by annual turnover, check CIPC's own fee table for the exact rand amount.

The general rule is that the voluntary provisional tax top-up is due six months after your financial year-end. A February year-end is the one exception: SARS gives it seven months, until 30 September, not six. Since almost every sole proprietor and many companies use a February year-end, this exception is the common case, not an edge case, and the calculator applies it automatically.

EMP201 is your monthly declaration and payment of PAYE, UIF and (if you're liable) SDL, due the 7th of the following month. EMP501 is a reconciliation, not a payment, filed twice a year: an interim reconciliation covering March to August, and an annual one covering the full tax year, checking that what you declared monthly matches what you actually paid and what your IRP5 certificates say.

Yes. A sworn affidavit, available to Exempted Micro Enterprises and qualifying black-owned Qualifying Small Enterprises, is valid for 12 months from the date a Commissioner of Oaths signs it, not a fixed calendar date. Enter your last signing date and the calculator works out your renewal date directly, it can't know this date any other way.

Close corporations and non-profit companies, VAT Categories D (six-monthly, mostly farming) and E (annual, mostly property-letting), sector-specific B-BBEE codes, bargaining council or sectoral determinations, and any deadline tied to a specific SARS assessment or audit. It also assumes eFiling submission throughout, manual paper deadlines can differ.

No, it's a planning aid built from SARS, CIPC, Department of Employment and Labour and dtic's own published rules, to help you see what's coming up and add it to your calendar. It doesn't replace advice from a registered tax practitioner or company secretary, especially for anything announced fresh each year or specific to your sector.