South Africa Invoice Requirements: What SARS Actually Requires

The first question: are you a VAT vendor?

Under the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991, whether you may issue a "tax invoice" at all depends on whether you are registered for VAT (a "vendor"). If you are not VAT-registered, you must issue an ordinary invoice, with no VAT amount and no reference to VAT anywhere on the document. If you are a VAT vendor, every taxable supply you make requires either a full or an abridged tax invoice, depending on the value.

VAT vendor registration: what changed for 2026

SARS increased both VAT registration thresholds with effect from 1 April 2026, the first change since the thresholds were originally set. Compulsory registration now applies once your taxable supplies exceed R2.3 million in any rolling 12-month period (up from R1 million); once you cross that line, you must apply to register within 21 business days. Voluntary registration is now available once taxable supplies exceed R120,000 (up from R50,000), for businesses that want to register early — typically because most of their customers are VAT vendors who can reclaim the VAT charged, or because the business has significant VAT on its own costs it wants to recover.

If your business was already VAT-registered under the old R1 million compulsory threshold but now sits below the new R2.3 million line, deregistering is optional, not automatic, and can trigger a deemed output tax charge on assets still on hand — weigh the compliance saving against that cost before deregistering.

Full tax invoice: required for supplies over R5,000

A full tax invoice is required for any taxable supply where the VAT-inclusive value exceeds R5,000. It must show:

• The words "tax invoice" in a prominent place
• The supplier's full name, address, and VAT registration number
• A unique, sequential invoice number
• The date of issue
• The recipient's full name and address, and their VAT number if they are a registered vendor
• A description of the goods or services supplied
• The quantity or volume of goods, or the nature and extent of services
• The unit price of each item, excluding VAT
• The VAT rate applied to each line
• The total VAT amount
• The total consideration, including VAT

Abridged tax invoice: allowed between R50 and R5,000

For taxable supplies with a VAT-inclusive value between R50 and R5,000, an abridged tax invoice is enough. It requires fewer fields:

• The words "tax invoice" in a prominent place
• The supplier's name, address, and VAT registration number
• The date of issue
• A description of the goods or services
• The VAT-inclusive price
• Either the VAT rate and amount, or a statement that the price includes VAT at the applicable rate

An abridged tax invoice does not need an invoice number, the recipient's details, or itemised unit prices — a till slip from a VAT-registered retailer is a common example. For supplies of R50 or less, no tax invoice is required at all, though the VAT still has to be accounted for in your records.

Time of supply and the 21-day rule

SARS requires a tax invoice to be issued within 21 days of the time of supply. The time of supply (also called the tax point) is the earliest of: the date goods are delivered or services performed, the date a tax invoice is issued, or the date payment is received. Because issuing an invoice or receiving payment early can itself trigger the time of supply, the order in which these events happen determines which VAT period the sale falls into — and therefore which VAT return it must be declared on.

Record keeping

VAT vendors must retain tax invoices, debit notes, credit notes, and supporting records for at least five years from the end of the relevant tax period. Electronic records are acceptable provided they remain legible and can be produced on request. Tidybill stores every invoice permanently and lets you export your full history at any time, which supports both SARS compliance and provisional tax calculations.

Common mistakes that invalidate a tax invoice

The errors SARS most commonly flags in audits: omitting the supplier's VAT number; omitting the recipient's VAT number on a full tax invoice issued to another vendor; labelling a document "invoice" or "receipt" instead of "tax invoice" when VAT is charged; reusing or skipping invoice numbers; and failing to separate the VAT amount from the net amount on a full tax invoice. Any one of these can mean the recipient is unable to claim the input tax, even though VAT was clearly charged.

For the invoice-vs-tax-invoice distinction in more depth, see tax invoices vs invoices in South Africa. For freelancer-specific guidance, see freelance invoicing in SA. To sanity-check a VAT figure, use the SA VAT calculator, and to work out overdue interest on a client account, try the late payment interest calculator.