Basic income tax

Enter your salary and this calculator works out your income tax, PAYE and take-home pay for the 2026 tax year (1 March 2025 – 28 February 2026) – and shows every step. It applies the official SARS individual tax table, subtracts the rebate for your age, and tells you exactly which bracket each slice of your income lands in. No signup, no guessing: you see the workings, not just a number.

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What the calculator does

You type in your annual (or monthly) salary and your age band. The calculator then:

1. Applies the 2026 SARS tax table to your taxable income, bracket by bracket.
2. Subtracts your rebate – the primary rebate everyone gets, plus the extra rebates if you're 65 or 75+.
3. Shows your annual tax, your monthly PAYE, and your take-home pay – with each bracket and the rebate laid out as separate lines, so the final figure is traceable.

That last part is the point. Plenty of tools spit out a number. This one shows why the number is what it is.

The 2026 tax brackets (and why they're marginal)

South Africa uses a progressive, marginal table. "Marginal" means each slice of your income is taxed at the rate for its bracket – not your whole income at your top rate. Your first rand fills the bottom bracket; only income above each boundary is taxed at the next rate up.

For the 2026 year of assessment the individual table is:

Taxable income	Tax
R1 – R237,100	18% of taxable income
R237,101 – R370,500	R42,678 + 26% of the amount above R237,100
R370,501 – R512,800	R77,362 + 31% of the amount above R370,500
R512,801 – R673,000	R121,475 + 36% of the amount above R512,800
R673,001 – R857,900	R179,147 + 39% of the amount above R673,000
R857,901 – R1,817,000	R251,258 + 41% of the amount above R857,900
R1,817,001 and above	R644,489 + 45% of the amount above R1,817,000

(These figures are unchanged from 2024 and 2025 – the brackets weren't adjusted for inflation, so "fiscal drag" quietly pushes more of your income into higher bands each year.)

Rebates and thresholds – what you don't pay tax on

After the table works out your gross tax, everyone subtracts a rebate. For 2026:

• Primary rebate (all ages): R17,235
• Secondary rebate (65–74): an extra R9,444
• Tertiary rebate (75+): a further R3,145

The rebate is why low earners pay nothing. The tax threshold is simply the income at which your gross tax equals your rebate. For 2026 that's R95,750 if you're under 65, R148,217 if you're 65–74, and R165,689 if you're 75 or older. Earn below your threshold and your income tax is zero – the calculator shows this directly.

PAYE vs. your final tax

The PAYE (employees' tax) your employer deducts each month is an estimate – roughly a twelfth of your expected annual tax. It's usually close, but it's settled for real when SARS assesses your return: your whole year's tax is calculated, the PAYE already paid is credited, and the gap is your refund or amount owing. A spike month – like a bonus – often over-withholds and comes back as a refund. (How is my bonus taxed?)

Worked example

Lerato is 40 and earns R420,000 a year. Here's how the calculator gets to her take-home pay.

Her R420,000 falls in the third bracket (R370,501 – R512,800), so:

• Gross tax = R77,362 + 31% × (R420,000 − R370,500)
• = R77,362 + 31% × R49,500
• = R77,362 + R15,345 = R92,707

Now the rebate. Lerato is under 65, so she gets the primary rebate only:

• Tax for the year = R92,707 − R17,235 = R75,472

That's an effective rate of 18.0% on R420,000 – well below her 31% top (marginal) bracket, because the lower slices were taxed at 18% and 26% first. Spread over the year:

• Monthly PAYE ≈ R75,472 ÷ 12 = R6,289
• Monthly take-home ≈ R35,000 − R6,289 = R28,711 (before medical-aid, retirement or UIF deductions)

Change any input and the calculator re-shows every line – so you can see, for instance, exactly how much of a raise survives the next bracket.