SARS write-off periods for trucks and delivery vehicles

The write-off periods SARS accepts for trucks, delivery vehicles and forklifts, and how tax wear-and-tear differs from book depreciation.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Logistics businesses in South Africa

A South African transport business can own a fleet worth more than everything else on its balance sheet put together. How quickly that fleet is written off for tax changes how much income tax the business pays in the years after each purchase, so the question of "over how many years" is not academic.

It is also a question with two different answers. The books depreciate a truck over the life the business expects to get from it. SARS allows a wear-and-tear deduction over periods it sets out in its own guidance. The two are calculated separately, kept separately and reconciled at year end. This article covers the SARS side for trucks, delivery vehicles and forklifts, and then explains how the two fit together.

The periods SARS accepts

SARS Interpretation Note 47 (Issue 5, dated 9 February 2021) lists the straight-line write-off periods that SARS accepts for the section 11(e) wear-and-tear allowance. For a transport business, the relevant lines at the time of writing include:

The same schedule covers the office and depot as well: personal computers over 3 years, cellular telephones over 2 years, furniture and fittings over 6 years and cash registers over 5 years.

SARS states that the schedule applies to assets used for trade, including leasing, that were brought into use on or after 24 March 2020. If the business believes a shorter period is justified, perhaps because its trucks run unusually high distances on poor roads, the note says a request must be fully motivated to the SARS branch office before the return claiming the allowance is submitted. Claiming first and explaining later is not the route the note describes.

Second-hand vehicles

Many small transporters buy their trucks used. Interpretation Note 47 says a second-hand asset must be written off over its expected useful life, taking its condition into account. SARS gives an example that fits a transport yard exactly: a four-year-old delivery vehicle in good condition, expected to last three more years, is written off over three years, not in full on acquisition.

So the age of a used truck does not, on its own, mean it has run out its schedule period. What matters is how long it will realistically keep earning, and the business should keep the evidence for that view, such as the inspection report and the dealer's description of its condition.

Part years, private use and trucks on finance

Apportioning the allowance

The note states that the allowance must be apportioned where an asset is used for both private and business purposes, or is not used for trade throughout the year of assessment, for example because it was acquired or disposed of during the year. A bakkie the owner drives at weekends, or a truck bought three months before year end, does not earn a full year's allowance.

Instalment credit agreements

SARS states that section 11(e) allows the allowance on qualifying assets used for trade that are owned by the taxpayer, or acquired as purchaser under an instalment credit agreement. A truck bought on a typical vehicle finance agreement can therefore qualify even though the bank holds it as security until the last instalment.

Keep the records until the truck is gone

Interpretation Note 47 states that records of qualifying assets, including the original cost and the accumulated allowances claimed, must be kept until the assets are disposed of, not merely until they are fully written off. A heavy-duty truck written off for tax after three years may stay on the road for many more; its records must stay on file as long as it does. When it is finally sold, those records are what the tax practitioner needs to deal with the sale in the tax return.

Book depreciation is a separate calculation

The tax write-off periods are what SARS accepts for the allowance. They are not a rule about how the business must depreciate its trucks in its financial statements. A heavy-duty truck the business expects to run for many years may be depreciated over that longer life in the books while being written off over 3 years for tax.

In Achekam, the book side sits in the fixed-asset register. A business adds each vehicle at cost, depreciates it monthly by straight line or reducing balance with a journal posted each month, and disposes of it with the profit or loss posted. The register does not work out tax wear-and-tear. That calculation is your tax practitioner's, worked from the register, the purchase documents and the SARS periods, and the difference between the two is dealt with in the tax computation.

If the year-end review shows that a book entry needs correcting, a manual journal does it: Achekam refuses an unbalanced journal or one dated in a closed month, and a posted journal is changed only by reversing it, so the correction and the original both stay in the record.

For choosing a book method and useful life, see depreciating a transport fleet. For the purchase itself, from requisition to register, see buying a new truck.

What to hand your tax practitioner each year

1. The register, showing each vehicle's cost, date brought into use and any disposal.
2. Purchase invoices, and finance agreements for vehicles bought on instalment credit.
3. For second-hand vehicles, the evidence behind their expected remaining life.
4. Any private use, and how it was measured.
5. The tax allowances claimed on each vehicle in earlier years.

Read the note

SARS's Interpretation Note 47 on the wear-and-tear or depreciation allowance sets out the full schedule and the rules on second-hand and apportioned assets. Check the current issue before relying on the periods above, and give your tax practitioner the five items listed before the return is prepared.

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