Free SARS Income Tax Calculator 2026/27 (South Africa)

South Africa uses a progressive tax system with seven brackets. The more you earn, the higher the rate applied to each additional rand above each threshold — but only to the portion of income within that bracket. Nobody pays their top bracket rate on their whole salary.

The tax your employer withholds from your salary each month is called PAYE (Pay As You Earn). It’s a running pre-payment of your annual income tax bill. At the end of the tax year (28/29 February), your total PAYE is reconciled against the actual tax you owe based on your annual income, deductions, and rebates. If too much was withheld, SARS refunds you; if too little, you pay in. For paying your tax balance, follow SARS payment guidance.

For general bank routing terminology, see our bank payment-code guide. Its account-scoped bank codes are not instructions for paying SARS.

Everyone gets a primary rebate (R17,820 for 2026/2027) subtracted from the tax calculation. Taxpayers 65 and older get an additional secondary rebate (R9,765); 75+ get a tertiary rebate on top (R3,249). These are rand-for-rand reductions in tax owed — not deductions from income.

For the tax year running 1 March 2026 – 28 February 2027. The “base amount” is the total tax owed when your income is exactly at the bottom of that bracket — used to avoid re-adding the brackets below it.

Rebates reduce the tax you owe after the brackets have been applied. The annual tax-free threshold is the income level at which your tax owed equals your rebate — below that you pay zero income tax.

A bonus or 13th cheque is part of your annual taxable income, rather than a separate flat-rate tax. Example: a R30,000 a month salary with a R30,000 bonus (under 65, no medical aid or retirement contribution) means R8,145 tax on the bonus, so R21,855 reaches you, an effective rate of 27.2% on the bonus (2026/2027). Use the bonus tax calculator to compare the tax with and without a once-off payment. Enter your regular monthly salary and the full gross bonus, together with the same age, medical aid and retirement contributions. Your employer’s withholding method and year-to-date earnings can affect the amount withheld on the actual bonus payslip.

A fixed travel allowance adds remuneration for PAYE purposes; a company car instead creates a fringe benefit. Example: a R400,000 company car with no maintenance plan has a R14,000 monthly fringe benefit, of which R11,200 is added to PAYE remuneration, costing a R40,000 a month earner R3,823 extra PAYE a month (2026/2027). Use the company car and travel allowance calculator for your vehicle and salary.SARS includes 80% of a fixed allowance for PAYE, or 20% when the employer is satisfied that at least 80% of use will be for business. These are withholding rules, not a final tax exemption. Keep a business logbook for assessment; ordinary travel between home and work is private travel. See the SARS travel allowance guidance.

Income outside your payslip can also increase the tax due on assessment. Example: R120,000 of rent less R40,000 of expenses is R80,000 net rental income; on top of R600,000 of other income (under 65) it adds R28,800 tax, leaving R51,200 after tax (2026/2027). The rental income tax calculator separates allowable expenses from rental receipts. Example: R100,000 of interest on top of R400,000 of other income (under 65) leaves R76,200 taxable after the R23,800 exemption, which means R23,622 tax and R76,378 kept (2026/2027). The interest tax calculator applies the age-based exemption before adding taxable interest to other income. Enter consistent annual totals in these tools and consider whether provisional tax applies; your salary PAYE alone may not cover tax on these additional sources.

These pre-tax deductions are subtracted from your gross income to arrive at your taxable income, before the brackets are applied:

• Retirement fund contributions (pension, provident, RA) — up to 27.5% of the greater of taxable income or remuneration, capped at R430,000/year for 2026/2027.
• Donations to Section 18A-approved public benefit organisations — up to 10% of taxable income. Requires a Section 18A receipt from the charity. Giving to family or friends instead? Use the donations tax calculator.
• Business or rental expenses — if you earn freelance, rental, or self-employed income, you can deduct expenses incurred in producing that income.
• Travel allowance costs — if you receive a travel allowance and maintain a logbook, actual business travel costs or the deemed rate table can reduce taxable income.

• Medical scheme fees tax credit (Section 6A) — R376/month for the main member and first dependant, R254/month for each additional dependant in 2026/2027.
• Additional medical expenses credit (Section 6B) — a percentage of qualifying out-of-pocket medical expenses above a threshold, different rates for under 65 vs 65+.
• Primary, secondary, tertiary rebates — automatic, based on your age.

Enter your gross pay for the period you are paid, whether that is per month, per year, per week, per fortnight or per hour, together with your age. The calculator converts it to an annual figure, applies the 2026/2027 SARS brackets progressively, subtracts your applicable rebates, and shows your monthly PAYE, UIF, take-home pay and effective tax rate. Optional inputs for retirement contributions and medical scheme members adjust the result using the official deduction cap and Section 6A credits.

The calculation runs entirely in your browser. Your income figures are never sent to any server. Switch the tax year dropdown on the calculator to see how the numbers would change against a prior SARS configuration — useful if you’re filing late or reconciling a previous year.

PAYE is an annual tax, so every pay period is first turned into a year of pay. Weekly pay is multiplied by 52 and divided by 12 to get the monthly figure, fortnightly pay by 26 and divided by 12, and hourly pay by your hours per week and 52, then divided by 12. Annual pay is monthly pay times 12. A weekly salary and a monthly salary that work out to the same annual pay therefore give the same result.

The UIF deduction is on by default: UIF is 1% of pay up to a monthly ceiling of R17,712, deducted by your employer. Choose No UIF if UIF does not apply to you, for example if you work for national or provincial government or work fewer than 24 hours a month for your employer, and the UIF line disappears and take-home rises by exactly that amount. Hourly pay under 24 hours a month starts with UIF off.

The payslip lists gross pay, PAYE and UIF down to net pay, and shows how PAYE is worked out: taxable income, tax before rebates, rebates and the medical credit. Every line is rounded to the nearest rand so the lines add up exactly to the net pay shown. Use Copy results for a text summary, Print payslip for a one-page printout, or Share link for a link that reopens the calculator with your inputs.

A share link keeps your inputs after the # in the address. Browsers never send that part to a server, so nothing reaches Mzansify, but anyone you give the link to can read the numbers in it.

Negotiating a job offer or checking a payslip often starts from the amount you want in the bank. Set “Calculate from” to Take-home pay and the calculator finds the gross pay that would leave you with it. It searches gross salaries rand by rand through the same PAYE and UIF calculation used the other way, so the answer always agrees with the normal mode. For example, R30,000 a month in hand needs a gross salary of R36,901 if you are under 65, which is R6,724 PAYE and R177 UIF.

Take-home here is gross pay less PAYE and UIF. Medical aid premiums, retirement contributions paid from your salary and other deductions also reduce what you receive, so add them back to your take-home before you enter it. This mode leaves retirement contributions out, so the gross it shows is the pay at which PAYE and UIF alone leave your take-home.

Want to see take-home pay without typing anything? The salary after tax table shows PAYE, UIF and net pay for a range of monthly salaries.

Not sure which calculator to trust? We compared nine free South African tools, including ours, ran the same two salaries through eight of them (seven competitors plus Mzansify), and wrote up what each one did, in Best free income tax calculators for South Africa (2026/27).

• Tax directives for lump-sum payments (retrenchment, retirement, death benefits).
• Foreign-income exemption under Section 10(1)(o)(ii) or double-tax-treaty relief.
• Capital gains tax — use the CGT calculator for that.
• Provisional-tax IRP6 submissions — see the provisional-tax calculator.

The full bracket, rebate and threshold tables for 2026/2027 and the previous tax year are on the SARS tax tables pages, and the salary after tax table shows take-home pay at common salaries.

• SARS — Rates of tax for individuals (2026/2027)
• SARS — Tax rebates
• SARS — Budget 2026 FAQ