SARS has released revised interest rate tables covering interest charged on outstanding taxes, duties and levies, interest payable on certain refunds and credit amounts, following the latest updates published on 20 July 2026.
The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has released updated interest rate tables on 20 July 2026. The revised tables set out the applicable interest rates on outstanding taxes, interest rates payable on certain tax refunds, and interest rates payable on credit amounts.
Interest rates charged in terms of the legislation administered by SARS are split into three main categories, namely:
- interest charged on outstanding taxes, duties and levies and those payable in respect of refunds of tax on successful appeals and certain delayed refunds
- interest payable on credit amounts (overpayment of provisional tax) in terms of section 89quat(4) of the Income Tax Act, 1962
- interest applicable to a loan denominated in the currency of the Republic, as described in paragraph (a) of the definition of ‘official rate of interest’ in section 1(1) of the Income Tax Act, 1962
For ease of reference, the tables of interest rates are given below in three separate documents, numbered according to the three main categories, i.e. the first group of interest rates can be found in Table 1.
| Table 1 | Interest rates on outstanding taxes and interest rates payable on certain refunds of tax
updated on 20 July 2026 |
| Table 2 | Interest rates payable on credit amounts updated on 20 July 2026 |
| Table 3 | Rates at which interest-free or low interest loans are subject to income tax updated on 1 June 2026 * The South African Reserve Bank changed the “repo rate” on 29 May 2026, effective 1 June 2026 |
Earlier, SARS published an updated version of its Interest Rates – Table 3, confirming that the official rate of interest for income tax purposes had increased from 7.75% to 8.00% with effect from 1 June 2026.
