Provisional tax payment dates and the top-up

When the first, second and voluntary third provisional tax payments fall due in South Africa, how weekends move them, and what a late final return does.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 5 min read · For Running a business businesses in South Africa

Provisional tax is income tax paid in advance, in instalments, while the year is still running. The arithmetic is not the hard part. The hard part is remembering that the money is due on dates that have nothing to do with your VAT cycle or your payroll, and that SARS counts the date the money arrives, not the date you pressed pay.

This article sets out when each payment falls due for a South African business, how the dates shift when your year does not end in February, and what goes wrong when the final return is late. Whether you are a provisional taxpayer at all is a separate question, answered in who has to pay provisional tax.

The first payment, six months in

SARS says the first provisional tax payment is due within six months of the start of the year of assessment. For a business whose year starts in March, that means 31 August.

The year of assessment follows your own financial year, so the six months run from the day your year begins. A company with a July start reaches the six-month mark at the end of December, not in August.

This first payment rests on an estimate made half-way through the year, often before anyone has a clear view of the second half. That is why it pays to estimate from real figures rather than from last year's return.

The second payment, at year end

SARS says the second payment is due by the last business day of the year of assessment. For a March-to-February year, that is the last business day of February.

Notice the wording. The first payment is tied to a date, but the second is tied to a business day. SARS adds that if a due date is not a business day, payment is due on the last business day before it. So when the end of your year falls on a weekend or public holiday, your deadline moves earlier, never later.

By the second payment you should know most of the year's results. This is the estimate that matters most, because it is the one closest to the final figure.

The voluntary third payment

SARS calls the third payment voluntary. It is a top-up you may make after year end, once the books are closed and the real taxable income is known, to bring what you have paid closer to what you owe before SARS assesses you.

SARS gives two timings:

So the same company with a year ending in June would look at the end of December for its top-up. Check SARS's page for the exact date that applies to you before relying on a calculation.

What a late final return costs

The payments are only half of the system. The other half is the return that goes with them, and SARS attaches a sharp consequence to it: a provisional taxpayer who does not submit the final provisional tax return within four months after the end of the year of assessment is deemed to have estimated nil taxable income.

A nil estimate is not a harmless placeholder. It means that, for SARS's purposes, you told it you expected no taxable income, whatever you actually paid. Treat the four-month mark as its own deadline in your diary, separate from the payment dates.

Paying so it counts as on time

SARS's payment rules say it only recognises a payment once it is received into the SARS bank account, and a payment received after the due date is a late payment. Taxpayers must therefore pay before their bank's cut-off time.

In practice:

1. Note each payment date and step back from it to allow for your bank's processing.
2. Pay on a business day before the due date, not on the evening of it.
3. Keep the payment confirmation with the return, so you can show when the money left.

The rules about payment references, channels and timing are covered in more detail in when a SARS payment counts as on time. SARS explains the whole provisional tax system, including both compulsory payments and the optional third, on its provisional tax page, which is the place to confirm dates before each payment.

Using your books for the estimate

Each payment rests on an estimate of the year's taxable income, and the most reliable starting point is your own ledger rather than a guess.

Management accounts. Achekam's management accounts show an income statement for a chosen period beside the period before, and a balance sheet at period end, both added up from your own journals. You can export them as PDF or CSV for whoever works out the tax. One detail matters here: the year-to-date preset starts on 1 January, not on your own year start. A business with a March year should pick its own dates for the period rather than using that preset, or the figures will mix two tax years.

Budgets. Achekam lets you set a budget per account and period and compare it with the actual figures in your ledger. For the first payment, actual results for the first half plus your budget for the second half give a reasoned estimate. For the second payment, the budget covers only what is left of the year.

The diary is yours to keep. The obligations list on Achekam's Tax Dashboard shows sample data, and obligations added there are not saved. Do not rely on it to remind you of provisional tax dates. Keep the payment dates, the four-month return deadline and the third-payment option in a calendar outside Achekam that someone actually checks.

Putting the year on one page

Write your own year's dates down now: the six-month payment, the year-end payment, the third-payment date that applies to you, and the four-month return deadline. Then decide who runs the management accounts a few weeks before each one. A provisional tax payment that is based on your real books and paid a day early is rarely the one that causes trouble.

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