The rules that apply to you, not to everyone
Most compliance advice is written for a company in general. It is almost never written for a spaza shop, a salon with chair renters, a freelancer invoicing three clients, or someone who was retrenched last week. Each page here starts from who you are and lists only the duties that actually land on you, what each one costs, and which office to deal with. Free, no signup.
Choose your kind of business
Freelancers
Provisional tax twice a year, invoicing without VAT, what you may deduct, and when a Pty Ltd starts to make sense.
Open the guide →Spaza shops
The municipal trading permit, the health certificate for selling food, and the point where SARS starts to matter.
Open the guide →Salons and barbershops
The municipal licence, the health basics, and whether the people renting your chairs count as staff.
Open the guide →Restaurants and food
Certificate of acceptability, the business licence, when to start the liquor licence, and the staff duties that follow.
Open the guide →Airbnb and guest house hosts
Municipal zoning, what the body corporate can stop you doing, declaring the income, and the R2.3 million mark where VAT arrives.
Open the guide →Uber and Bolt drivers
The operating licence, the professional driving permit, business use cover, and declaring what you actually earn.
Open the guide →Taxi, bus, courier and truck operators
The operating licence, the professional driving permit, cross-border permits and the staff duties, with the real fees.
Open the guide →Crèches and ECD centres
Registration through Bronze, Silver and Gold, child protection clearances, municipal clearances and the subsidy.
Open the guide →Exporters and shippers
Every trade document explained with examples: bills of lading, certificates of origin, conformity certificates, safety data sheets and dangerous goods declarations.
Open the guide →Estate agents and rental agents
The Fidelity Fund Certificate, the trust account and audit, FIC, BEE and tax clearance, the disclosure form and why an unregistered agent earns no commission.
Open the guide →Electricians, solar installers and plumbers
Contractor and registered person registrations, the certificate of compliance, SSEG registration for every solar system, PIRB and the plumbing certificate.
Open the guide →Tour operators, guides and guest houses
Tourist guide registration, the NPTR operating licence, star grading and the 90 percent discount, and the zoning, food and liquor rules for accommodation.
Open the guide →NPOs and nonprofits
NPC or NPO registration, what Social Development expects each year, PBO status at SARS, and the governance basics.
Open the guide →Body corporates and trustees
Sectional title in plain words: compulsory CSOS registration, audited financials, AGMs and conduct rules.
Open the guide →Domestic employers
Five duties if you employ someone at home: minimum wage, UIF, COIDA, a written contract and payslips.
Open the guide →Just been retrenched
Check your severance package, claim UIF properly, know the CCMA basics, and plan the next 90 days calmly.
Open the guide →Just registered a company
The things a brand new company actually has to do, in the order they matter, with the real costs next to each.
Open the guide →None of these is me
The full library of how to guides, arranged by the thing you are trying to get done rather than by who you are.
All guides →Not sure which one you are?
Two free tools narrow it down in a couple of minutes. The compliance health check asks a handful of questions about your business and hands back the specific registrations you are missing. The licence finder works the other way around: tell it what you sell or do and where, and it lists the permits and licences that trade needs. Both run in your browser and nothing you type is sent to us.
When you would rather it was just done
Every page here tells you how to do the thing yourself, for free, because most of it is genuinely doable. Where you would rather hand it over, the same work is a fixed price service: COIDA registration, PAYE and UIF registration for a new employer, a CIPC annual return, a tax clearance PIN. The price is quoted before you pay, the scope is in writing, and everything lands in your client portal. Prices are on the services page with nothing hidden underneath them.
These pages are general information about South African rules, not legal, tax or labour advice. Fees and thresholds are the relevant authority's own and change from time to time; where a figure matters to a decision, check it against the official source on the day.
Rather never think about any of this again?
Every filing a company owes in a year, done and diarised for R1 490. Annual return, beneficial ownership, the financial supplement and the checklist, with a reminder before every date.
See the retainer