Two Weeks to 31 August. Here’s What Provisional Tax Actually Needs From You
August 2026
If you run a business, freelance, consult, rent out property or earn money outside a single salary, 31 August is your date. It is the first provisional tax deadline of the 2027 tax year, and it falls on a Monday.
Two weeks out is the right time to start. Not the Friday before.
What provisional tax actually is
It is not a separate tax. It is a payment system.
SARS wants tax on your income as you earn it, not in one lump sum eighteen months later. So you pay in installments through the year. The August payment is the first one, based on your estimated taxable income for the full year, halved, less any tax already withheld or credited.
That is it. The complexity is not in the concept. It is in the estimate.
Do you need to submit?
You are almost certainly a provisional taxpayer if you:
- Run a business as a sole proprietor
- Freelance or consult, whether full time or on the side
- Earn rental income
- Earn interest, dividends or other investment income above the SARS threshold
- Operate through a company or a trust, both of which are provisional taxpayers by default
One that catches people out: if you are registered as a provisional taxpayer and earned nothing this period, you still submit. A nil IRP6 is a submission. Silence is not.
How to build an estimate SARS will accept
Start with your basic amount. This is your last assessed taxable income, and SARS pre-populates it on your IRP6. Your estimate generally cannot go below it without SARS approving a lower figure, so treat it as your floor and your sanity check.
Then bring in reality. What have you actually invoiced from March to August? What is realistically landing before the end of February? Are you up on last year or down?
Deduct properly, not hopefully. Real, supportable business expenses only. If you cannot back it up, leave it out.
Subtract what you have already paid. Any PAYE withheld on your behalf, plus applicable credits, comes off the calculation.
Keep your workings. If SARS queries the estimate, you want the spreadsheet, not the memory.
The mistakes that cost money every single year
- Leaving it to the 31st. eFiling is busy, payments need to clear, and a payment that reflects on 1 September is a late payment.
- Guessing low to protect cash flow. A short payment attracts a 10% penalty plus interest. It is one of the most expensive ways to buy yourself a month.
- Skipping the nil return. Registered means required. Every period.
- Confusing turnover with taxable income. They are not the same number and the difference is usually large.
- Missing the banking cut-off. Submit early in the week, pay early in the week.
A realistic two week plan
This week: pull your March to August numbers. Invoices out, income in, expenses supported by paperwork.
Next week: draft the estimate, compare it to your basic amount, and have someone sensible check it before you commit.
Before Monday 31 August: submit the IRP6 on eFiling and make the payment with enough time to clear.
If you would rather not do this alone
We do this all day. If you are unsure whether provisional tax applies to you, if last year’s estimate went sideways, or if you simply want a second pair of eyes on the number before you submit, get in touch with the nhb.business team.
Two weeks is enough time to get it right. It is not enough time to leave it.
Speak to the nhb.business team before 31 August.