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December Payroll and the 13th Cheque: The Rules Employers Actually Need
⚡ Quick answer A 13th cheque is not a legal entitlement — it exists only where the contract, a collective agreement or established practice creates it. Where paid, it is taxed as ordinary remuneration. December payroll itself needs an early run date, holiday pay rules applied, and the EMP201 prepared for 7 January. December is the payroll month with everything stacked against it: early bank cut-offs, public holidays, leave everywhere, and the 13th cheque question that arrives right on cue. Handled in November, it is routine; handled on 20 December, it is the month that ruins someone’s festive season — usually the employer’s. Here are the rules that matter and…
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Tax Season 2026: What It Means When You Are the Employer
⚡ Quick answer Tax season for employers is not the July individual filing rush — it is the employer-side machinery that makes that rush possible: the EMP501 reconciliations, IRP5 certificates, clean payroll data, and the provisional tax dates for the business itself. Get the employer side right and your employees’ tax season runs itself. Every July, ‘tax season‘ dominates the headlines — and every July, employers field the same confused questions from staff. But the employer’s real tax season runs on a different calendar: the EMP501 windows in autumn and spring, the certificates that must exist before employees can file, and the provisional tax dates for the business itself. Here…
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New Employer? Your First 30 Days, Step by Step
⚡ Quick answer A new employer’s first 30 days have a fixed order: register with SARS for PAYE within 21 days of becoming an employer, register for UIF on both the SARS and Labour sides, register with the Compensation Fund within 7 days, sign the contract before day one, and run the first payroll with the EMP201 by the 7th of the following month. Becoming a new employer triggers a set of statutory clocks that do not wait for you to find your feet. Some run for 21 days, one for only 7 — and they start the moment your first employee does. The good news: thirty days is enough…
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Year-End Payroll Checklist: Close the Year Without the January Hangover
⚡ Quick answer Year-end payroll is five jobs: fix the December pay date early, calculate 13th cheques correctly, reconcile leave balances, prepare the 7 January EMP201 before the shutdown, and clean the employee records that feed next year’s EMP501. Do them in November and December stops being an emergency. The difference between a smooth December and a brutal January is a checklist worked in November. Year-end payroll concentrates everything that can go wrong — early pay runs, bonus calculations, leave carry-overs, a January filing deadline — into the month with the fewest working days. Here is the checklist that closes the year cleanly, in the order that works. Year-End Payroll…
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Public Holidays 2026: The Payroll Rules SA Employers Get Wrong
⚡ Quick answer South Africa has 12 public holidays in 2026. The BCEA pay rules: an employee who does not work the holiday gets their ordinary day’s wage; one who works gets double pay or paid time off by agreement. When a holiday falls on a Sunday, the Monday is a holiday — that happens once in 2026, on Women’s Day. Every year, the same questions land on the employer’s desk: do we pay for the holiday, do we pay double, what happens when it falls on a Sunday? The public holidays rules in the BCEA are short and clear — the confusion comes from applying them halfway. Here is…
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National Minimum Wage 2026: What Changes on 1 March
⚡ Quick answer The national minimum wage increased to R30.23 per hour from 1 March 2026 — roughly R5,895 per month for a 45-hour week. It covers nearly every worker, including domestic and farm workers. Update payslips, wage schedules and UIF/COIDA declarations from the first March shift. Every 1 March, the wage floor moves — and from 1 March 2026 the national minimum wage stands at R30.23 per ordinary hour. For employers the change is never just an hourly figure: it flows into payslips, contracts, UIF declarations, COIDA earnings estimates, and the affordability maths for every junior role. Here is what the new rate means in rands, who it reaches,…
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Employer Deadlines: January to March 2026
⚡ Quick answer The first quarter’s employer deadlines: EMP201 and UIF declarations by the 7th every month, EE online reporting closes 15 January, provisional tax ends February, the 2025/26 tax year closes 28 February, and the new national minimum wage starts 1 March. Miss none of them — each carries its own penalty. Q1 is the quiet quarter that punishes complacency. The employer deadlines between January and March include the only two dates most small employers have never heard of — the 15 January EE window and the 1 March wage change — alongside the monthly rhythm that never stops. Here is the quarter, month by month, with what each…
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CV Retention Rules: How Long May You Keep Job Applications?
⚡ Quick answer CV retention under POPIA comes down to purpose: keep an unsuccessful applicant’s CV only as long as the recruitment purpose justifies — typically three to twelve months with consent for a talent pool — keep hired employees’ records for the statutory employment periods, and securely destroy everything past its purpose. Every hiring round leaves a trail of CVs — in the inbox, in a shared drive, in a physical folder from the interviews. Under POPIA, CV retention is not an administrative afterthought: a CV is personal information, and keeping it ‘just in case’ is exactly what the Act’s purpose-limitation principle prohibits. The rules are simple once separated…
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Can You Dismiss for a First Offence? The Gross Misconduct Rules
⚡ Quick answer You can dismiss for a first offence in South Africa only when the misconduct is gross enough to destroy the trust relationship: theft, fraud, dishonesty, assault, gross insubordination, serious safety violations, working under the influence. Ordinary misconduct — lateness, minor policy breaches — requires progressive discipline first. And even for gross misconduct, the hearing can never be skipped: notice of charges, a chance to explain, an impartial decision. Guilt is never a substitute for process. Every employer eventually faces the first offence that feels dismissal-worthy — and the law’s answer is ‘maybe, for a short list, through a process’. Dismiss for the wrong first offence and the…
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The COIDA 7-Day Rule: The Shortest Deadline in Employer Law
⚡ Quick answer The COIDA registration deadline is 7 days from your first employee’s start date — the shortest registration deadline in South African employer law. Section 80 of COIDA requires every employer, including households, to register with the Compensation Fund within that window. In practice: start the registration when the offer is accepted, not after the start date. Late registration is fixable (back-assessments plus penalties), but an injury in the gap is the scenario to avoid — the Fund can recover the entire claim cost from an unregistered employer. Every employer registration has a deadline, but only one is measured in single digits: the COIDA registration deadline of 7…
