PAYE — income tax
PAYE is the employees’ tax your employer withholds each month. It follows the SARS annualising method: the marginal tax scale on your annual income, less the age-based rebate and the medical tax credit, spread across the year. The rates shown are those in force for 2026 per SARS; a recent change may not be reflected here yet, and they carry no final sign-off from us.
Your regular pay before PAYE and UIF
Monthly pension / provident / RA contribution — reduces taxable income
Take-home pay
Take-home pay: R25 141,88- Take-home payR25 141,8884%
- PAYE (income tax)R4 681,0016%
- Employee UIFR177,121%
- Gross pay
- R30 000,00
- PAYE (income tax)
- R4 681,00
- Employee UIF
- R177,12
- Age rebate
- − R1 485,00
- Employer UIF (on top)
- R177,12
- Employer SDL (on top)
- R300,00
- Total cost to employer
- R30 477,12
No medical scheme members entered, so no Medical Scheme Fees Tax Credit is applied.
Remuneration above the R17 712 monthly UIF ceiling is not subject to UIF — the employee UIF shown is capped at the ceiling.
Notes on this calculation (4)
Your employer also pays about R2 125,44 a year in matching UIF — that is an employer cost, on top of your pay, never deducted from take-home.
Your employer also pays about R3 600 a year in Skills Development Levy (SDL) — an employer-only levy, never deducted from your pay.
SDL is employer-only, and employers whose total annual payroll is at or below R500 000 are exempt from it.
COIDA (workmen’s compensation) is a separate, risk-based, employer-only cost — never a deduction from the employee’s pay.
How PAYE is worked out
PAYE — Pay-As-You-Earn, or employees’ tax — is the income tax your employer withholds from your pay and hands to SARS on your behalf. It follows the SARS annualising method rather than taxing each payslip in isolation. Your pay for the period is first annualised: monthly pay is multiplied by the number of pay periods in the tax year to give an annual equivalent. The marginal tax scale below is applied to that annual figure, your age-based rebate and any medical tax credit are subtracted, and the remaining tax is divided back across the pay periods to give the amount withheld this month.
Put simply, the order is fixed: tax on the scale, minus your rebate, minus your medical tax credit — and the result can never fall below zero. Because the annual assessment is the ground truth and SARS’s own deduction tables round in their own way, a real payslip may differ from this calculator by a few rand. This page uses the 2027 tax year (1 March 2026 to 28 February 2027), the year currently in force for payroll.
Under 65, income tax only begins once your annual income passes about R99 000 — below that the primary rebate of R17 820 wipes out the tax entirely. The scale is marginal, meaning each band’s rate applies only to the income that falls inside it, running from 18% on the first band up to 45% on the highest incomes.
The marginal tax scale
| Band of taxable income | Up to | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| First R245 100 | R245 100 | 18% |
| Next R138 000 | R383 100 | 26% |
| Next R147 100 | R530 200 | 31% |
| Next R165 600 | R695 800 | 36% |
| Next R191 200 | R887 000 | 39% |
| Next R991 600 | R1 878 600 | 41% |
| Above R1 878 600 | — | 45% |
Rates in force for 2026 per SARS; a recent change may not be reflected here yet, and they carry no final sign-off from us.
The age-based rebates
A rebate is subtracted from the tax on the scale, so it lowers the tax itself rather than your income. Everyone receives the primary rebate; a secondary rebate is added from age 65 and a tertiary rebate from age 75. They are cumulative — a taxpayer of 75 or older receives all three — which is why the oldest band pays the least tax on the same income.
| Rebate | Applies | Amount / year |
|---|---|---|
| Primary — every taxpayer | Applies at any age | R17 820 |
| Secondary — added at 65 to 74 | On top of the primary | R9 765 |
| Tertiary — added at 75 and older | On top of primary + secondary | R3 249 |
The tax thresholds by age
Because the rebates rise with age, so does the income at which PAYE begins — the tax threshold. Below the threshold for your age band, the rebate cancels the tax and no PAYE is due. Toggling the age band in the calculator moves both the rebate and the threshold, and you can watch the take-home change.
| Age band | Tax-free income / year |
|---|---|
| Under 65 | R99 000 |
| 65 to 74 | R153 250 |
| 75 and older | R171 300 |
Rates in force for 2026 per SARS; a recent change may not be reflected here yet, and they carry no final sign-off from us.
The full content of this page is still being written.