Writing off small tools and devices under R7 000

When SARS lets a South African courier or transporter write off small items costing under R7 000 in full, the exceptions, and how to keep tracking them.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 5 min read · For Logistics businesses in South Africa

A courier business buys a steady stream of small kit: handheld scanners for drivers, label printers for the depot, torque wrenches and trolley jacks for the workshop, two-way radios, a pallet jack for the loading bay. None of it costs much on its own, but over a year it adds up, and each item lasts more than a year.

At tax time the question comes up every year: can these items simply be deducted in full in the year they were bought, or must each one be spread over several years like a truck? South Africa has a specific practice for small items, set out in a SARS Interpretation Note, and it has conditions that are easy to miss.

What SARS treats as a small item

SARS Interpretation Note 47 deals with the wear-and-tear or depreciation allowance. It states that "small" items which function in their own right, do not form part of a set and cost less than R7 000 per item may be written off in full in the year they are acquired and brought into use. The note itself, with SARS's examples and its schedule of write-off periods, is on SARS's site as Interpretation Note 47 on the wear-and-tear allowance.

Three tests sit in that sentence:

1. It works on its own. A handheld scanner that a driver uses by itself is one thing. A component that is only useful as part of a larger machine is another.
2. It is not part of a set. Items bought and used together as a set are looked at together, not one by one, so splitting a set into pieces under the limit does not make each piece "small".
3. It costs less than R7 000 per item. The test is per item, not per invoice.

Bought and brought into use, with one exception

Two more conditions are easy to overlook.

The write-off is for the year the item is acquired and brought into use. Scanners bought in the last week of the financial year but left in their boxes until the following year were not brought into use in the year of purchase.

The note also states that the rule does not apply to assets acquired by lessors for letting. If part of your business hires out equipment, such as pallet jacks or trolleys rented to customers, items bought for that purpose do not qualify for the full write-off, even if each one costs less than the limit.

Short-lived kit that is not "small"

Plenty of a courier's equipment costs more than the limit or fails one of the tests. For those items, Interpretation Note 47's schedule of acceptable write-off periods is the reference point. Among others, the schedule lists:

SARS's note states that the schedule applies to assets used for trade, including leasing, brought into use on or after 24 March 2020. It also states that a request to use a shorter period must be fully motivated to the SARS branch office before the return claiming the allowance is submitted. In other words, a business cannot simply decide its scanners wear out faster and claim on that basis without first making the case to SARS.

These periods come from SARS's note at the time of writing. Check the note, or ask your tax practitioner, before relying on them for a particular return.

Your books and your tax return can differ

The small-items rule is about tax. Your own accounts follow your accounting policy, which is a separate decision.

Many businesses set a capitalisation threshold for their books: items below a chosen amount are expensed when bought, items above it go into the fixed-asset register and are depreciated over their useful life. That threshold is your accountant's and your choice, and it need not match SARS's limit. Where the two differ, the tax computation adjusts the accounting profit, and your accountant prepares that computation.

A worked example in words. The business buys a batch of handheld scanners, each costing less than the limit and each used by one driver on its own. In the accounts, the business's policy treats scanners as equipment and depreciates them over their useful life. For tax, the business claims the full cost in the year they went into use, as the small-items rule allows. The tax computation then adds back the book depreciation in later years, because the tax deduction has already been taken.

Keep records until the item is gone

Interpretation Note 47 states that records of qualifying assets, including the original cost and the allowances claimed, must be kept until the assets are disposed of, not merely until they are fully written off.

For small items written off in one year, this is the part most businesses forget. The scanner has been fully deducted, so it disappears from everyone's attention, yet it is still in use. Keep a simple list of each item: what it is, when it was bought, what it cost, who uses it, and when it was scrapped, sold or lost. Keep the supplier invoices with it.

Tracking small kit in Achekam

Achekam's fixed-asset register lets a business add assets at cost, depreciate them monthly by straight line or reducing balance with a journal each month, and dispose of them with the profit or loss on disposal posted. It is not part of the Business Essentials plan.

The register works out depreciation for your accounts. It does not work out tax wear-and-tear, so the small-items write-off and the schedule periods are applied by your accountant in the tax computation, outside the register.

Where an item is expensed under your capitalisation policy but you still want it on a list, keep that list and its invoices in Achekam's Document Centre, a folder-based store where files can be uploaded, tagged, searched and archived, with a new version of a file keeping the earlier ones. Any correction to the books goes through a manual journal: Achekam refuses one that does not balance or is dated in a closed month, and a posted journal is corrected only by reversing it.

Before the next purchase

Agree your capitalisation threshold with your accountant, start a list of small items with their cost and user, and file each invoice the day the item goes into use. For the vehicles themselves, see wear-and-tear on trucks and depreciating a fleet.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.