Provisional Tax Deadlines 2026: A Guide for South African SMEs

Provisional tax catches more South African business owners out than any other SARS obligation, not because it is complicated, but because it runs on its own calendar, separate from your annual income tax return. Miss a payment, or estimate too low, and SARS applies penalties and interest automatically. This guide covers the provisional tax deadlines for 2026, who must pay, how the estimate works, and the mistakes we correct most often.

Who is a provisional taxpayer in South Africa?

Provisional tax is not a separate tax. It is a way of paying your normal income tax in advance, in instalments, rather than in one lump sum after assessment. You are a provisional taxpayer if you are:

• Any company or close corporation, all companies are provisional taxpayers by default.
• An individual who earns income other than a salary, rental income, trading or freelance income, or directors' fees not subject to PAYE, above the SARS threshold.
• A director of a private company who draws income that is not fully taxed through PAYE.
• A trust with taxable income.

Provisional tax deadlines 2026: the three payment dates

Provisional tax runs on your financial year, not the calendar year. The dates below assume the most common South African year-end, 28 February. If your company has a different year-end, shift each date accordingly.

How the provisional tax estimate actually works

Each IRP6 return asks you to estimate your taxable income for the full year, calculate the tax on it, and pay the relevant portion. This is where most of the risk sits, because SARS does not just check whether you paid, it checks whether your estimate was reasonable.

The 'basic amount' rule

For the first period, SARS will accept an estimate equal to your last assessed taxable income (the 'basic amount'), adjusted upward by 8% per year if that assessment is more than a year old. Estimating below the basic amount without good reason invites a query.

The second-period accuracy test

For the second period, the estimate must be close to your actual taxable income. If your taxable income is above R1 million, the estimate must be at least 80% of the actual figure; below R1 million, it must be at least 90% of actual or equal to the basic amount. Fall short and SARS may impose an under-estimation penalty of up to 20% of the shortfall in tax.

Five provisional tax mistakes SMEs make every year

1. 1Rolling forward last year's number without adjusting for growth, a fast-growing business fails the 80/90% test almost automatically.
2. 2Forgetting that a company and its director are separate provisional taxpayers. The company files, and so does the director if their income is not fully under PAYE.
3. 3Treating the third payment as optional in practice. It is voluntary, but interest on a shortfall runs from the effective date, usually months before you file the annual return.
4. 4Estimating from unreconciled books. If the bank, debtors and creditors are not reconciled, the year-to-date profit you are extrapolating from is wrong.
5. 5Filing a nil IRP6 in a loss year without documentation. Loss years still need a return, and the loss should be supportable if SARS asks.

A simple provisional tax process that works

• Close the books monthly. Accurate year-to-date figures make the estimate a calculation, not a guess.
• Diarise all three dates for every taxpayer in the group, each company, each director, each trust.
• Re-forecast in month five and month eleven. Take actual profit to date, add a realistic forecast for the remaining months, and compute the tax.
• Pay through eFiling with the correct payment reference so the amount is allocated to the right period.
• Keep the working paper. If SARS queries an estimate, a documented forecast is your defence.

Provisional tax is only stressful when the numbers behind it are stale. With a monthly close, the IRP6 is a ten-minute exercise.

Rishen Narsing, CA(SA)

Related reading: the annual ITR14 company tax return that your provisional payments are credited against, how outstanding returns affect your SARS tax compliance status, and the separate CIPC annual return that runs on its own calendar.

How Synergy handles provisional tax for clients

Our Compliance & Reporting service keeps your books reconciled every month, so provisional estimates are grounded in real numbers. We diarise every deadline for every entity, prepare and submit the IRP6, and tell you exactly what to pay and when. It is included in our Growth and Scale packages.