The 7th of each month is your deadline to submit and pay your EMP201 to SARS. A public holiday the day before does not move it. If the 7th falls on a weekday, that date is firm.
If you are an employer in South Africa, this is one of the few deadlines that does not bend. Missing it by a day costs you a 10% penalty on whatever you owe, plus interest from the due date. For a business with a R50,000 monthly PAYE liability, that is R5,000 gone for a filing that takes under an hour.
The EMP201 is the monthly employer declaration you submit to SARS to report what you have deducted from your employees' salaries. It covers three items.
PAYE (Pay As You Earn) is the income tax withheld from each salary. UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund) is a 2% contribution split equally between employer and employee. SDL (Skills Development Levy) is a 1% levy paid by employers whose total annual payroll exceeds R500,000.
You declare and pay these amounts together on the EMP201 every month following the payroll period.
SARS is specific about this. A public holiday immediately before the 7th does not give you extra time.
If the 7th falls on a weekday, it is your deadline. If the 7th falls on a weekend or public holiday, the deadline moves to the last business day before the 7th.
So if the 6th is a public holiday and the 7th is a Tuesday, you submit on Tuesday. The holiday changes nothing.
SARS adds a 10% penalty to the late amount automatically. There is no grace period and no warning. Interest compounds daily from the due date until the payment clears.
If this is your first offence, or if there was a genuine system failure, you can apply for penalty remission through SARS. Approval is not guaranteed. The remission application process is detailed at sars.gov.za.
The EMP201 deadline should not feel like a crisis. A few changes eliminate most of the stress.
Automate your payroll. Modern payroll software calculates PAYE, UIF, and SDL without manual spreadsheets and generates the EMP201 accurately.
Set internal cut-off dates. Aim to finalise payroll by the 25th and schedule your SARS payment for the 1st. That gives you a week of buffer before the deadline.
Pay via SARS eFiling's credit push. Standard EFTs between different banks can take 48 hours to clear. The eFiling credit push clears immediately.
Submit the EMP201 anyway. Filing on time prevents a separate non-submission penalty. Then contact SARS to arrange a payment plan. The 10% late payment penalty will likely still apply to the outstanding balance.
Yes. If you are registered for PAYE, you must submit a nil return. Not submitting signals non-compliance and triggers administrative penalties even when you owe nothing.
Sometimes. SARS evaluates remission requests case by case. First offences with clear reasons are more likely to succeed than a pattern of late payments.
Up to 48 hours between different banks. If you are paying close to the deadline, use the SARS eFiling credit push facility, which clears immediately.
A 10% penalty is an avoidable expense. More than that, a clean compliance record keeps your tax clearance certificate valid, which you need for tenders, banking, and funding.
For a broader look at how PAYE fits into your monthly obligations, read our guide on closing the books and locking your financial period.
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