South Africa corporate tax rate
The headline corporate income tax rate on the taxable income of resident companies, levied under the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 and fixed each year by the Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Act. Administered by SARS. South Africa taxes companies on a year-of-assessment basis aligned to the company's own financial year-end, so the applicable rate is identified by the date the year of assessment ENDS.
| Current value | 27 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2023-03-31 |
| Official source | SARS — Tax Rates: Companies, Trusts and Small Business Corporations (SBC), Companies table (page last updated 26 February 2026, carrying the note '25 February 2026 – No changes'): years of assessment 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 — 27%; identical 27% rows for 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026, 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 and 31 March 2023 to 31 March 2024 |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
CONFIRMED 27%, unchanged. The reduction from 28% to 27% was announced in Budget 2021 and enacted for years of assessment ENDING ON OR AFTER 31 MARCH 2023 (equivalently, years of assessment commencing on or after 1 April 2022). SARS's own table makes the boundary explicit: the 28% row runs '1 April 2022 – 30 March 2023' and the first 27% row is '31 March 2023 to 31 March 2024'. effective_from is therefore recorded as 2023-03-31, the first year-of-assessment END date to which 27% applies — a company with, say, a 30 June 2023 year-end is on 27%, while one with a 31 December 2022 year-end was still on 28%. Budget 2026, tabled 25 February 2026, made NO change (SARS annotated the page '25 February 2026 – No changes'), so 27% stands for years of assessment ending 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027. The 27% is a FLAT rate with no bracket structure for ordinary companies. Distinct regimes NOT covered by this figure: Small Business Corporations (s12E) pay a progressive scale starting at 0% on the first band and topping out at 27%; micro businesses on the turnover tax regime (Sixth Schedule) pay a turnover-based scale; personal service providers are taxed at a higher flat rate; trusts other than special trusts are at 45%; gold mining, long-term insurers' policyholder funds and oil-and-gas companies have separate formulas or rates. On top of the 27% a Dividends Tax of 20% is withheld on dividends paid to shareholders, so the combined economic burden on distributed profits is materially above 27%. Effective capital gains inclusion for companies is 80% of the net capital gain, giving an effective CGT rate of 21.6%. SARS's tax-rates pages fetch cleanly and are the canonical published source; the underlying statutory rate is fixed by s5 of the annual Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Act.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-04-01 | 28 | SARS — Tax Rates: Companies table, rows for years of assessm |
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/za/corporate-tax
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/za/corporate-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
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