You have about two weeks
The first provisional tax payment for the 2027 tax year is due on 31 August. That is a Monday this year, so there is no weekend grace, no shuffling to the next business day. It lands, and it lands hard.
If you have been quietly hoping this one does not apply to you, now is the moment to check. Two weeks is enough time to sort it properly. One weekend is not.
Wait, what even is provisional tax?
If you are salaried, your employer deducts PAYE every month and SARS already has its cut before your payslip lands. Provisional tax exists for everyone else.
Freelance, run a side business, rent out a property, drive for an app, trade crypto? Nobody is deducting tax on your behalf as you go. So SARS asks you to estimate it yourself and pay in advance, twice a year, instead of one big surprise bill after year end.
Not a punishment. Not optional once it applies to you. Just a different system for a different kind of income.
Why 31 August specifically
The tax year for individuals runs from 1 March to the end of February. Provisional taxpayers pay in two installments.
The first is due at the six-month mark, by 31 August. The second is due at year end, by the last business day of February. There is also an optional third top up payment later, for anyone who wants to true up their numbers and avoid interest on an underestimate.
So 31 August is not a random date. It is the halfway point of the 2027 tax year, and SARS wants roughly half of your estimated annual tax bill by then.
How the first payment actually works
- Estimate your total taxable income for the full 2027 tax year, 1 March 2026 to 28 February 2027, even though you are only halfway through it.
- Work out the tax on that estimate using the individual tax tables, minus any rebates you qualify for.
- Pay roughly half of that total by 31 August, using the IRP6 return on SARS eFiling.
- If you also earn a salary with PAYE already deducted, that PAYE gets subtracted from what you still owe.
The estimate is the part people get nervous about, and fairly so. Guess conservatively using last year’s assessment as a base and you are usually fine. Guess too low against a genuine jump in income and SARS can add underestimation penalties once your final return is assessed.
What your next two weeks should look like
This week. Pull your invoices, rental income and trading statements for 1 March to now. Find last year’s assessment. If you are not registered as a provisional taxpayer and you should be, start that today, because registration is the slowest moving part.
Next week. Do the estimate, complete the IRP6 on eFiling and check what the payment actually comes to. No surprises on a Sunday night.
By Friday 28 August. Have the money moving. An EFT can take a few days to reflect against your SARS account, and a payment that clears on 1 September is a late payment, even if you pushed it on the 30th. Treat Friday as your real deadline and Monday as your buffer.
What happens if you miss it
Nothing dramatic happens on 1 September, which is exactly why it is easy to let slide. But interest starts accruing on the outstanding amount from the day after the deadline, and an unsubmitted return adds its own layer of admin penalties on top. The longer it sits, the more expensive doing nothing becomes.
And it compounds. People who let August slip tend to let February slip too, and then the whole year is a cleanup job.
Who this actually applies to
- Freelancers and consultants invoicing clients directly
- Sole proprietors and small business owners
- Landlords earning rental income
- Anyone with meaningful investment, crypto or trading income
- Side hustlers whose extra income has grown past pocket money territory
If more than one of those sounds like you and you have never registered as a provisional taxpayer, sort it out before SARS flags it for you.
The hello.tax version
You tell us what you earn. We work out a sensible estimate, file your IRP6 and make sure the number heading to SARS is one you can actually defend later.
No spreadsheets. No guesswork. No scrambling on 30 August.
Two weeks. Let’s go.
Get in contact with us today to get your first provisional payment sorted. The earlier we have your numbers, the less rushed the estimate, and a rushed estimate is the one that costs you later.