Are study fees tax deductible in South Africa?

If you pay for your own studies as an employee, the fees are not tax deductible. SARS treats your own tuition as a private expense, and section 23(m) of the Income Tax Act separately blocks employees from claiming general business deductions against a salary. Study fees only become deductible when you already carry on a trade or business and the training maintains or enhances the skills of that existing trade. Even then, an ordinary employee is still shut out by section 23(m).

There is no personal "education deduction", rebate, or per-course allowance on a South African return. The question is narrower than most people expect: are the fees a private cost, or a cost of an existing business you run?

The default: your own fees are private

Ordinary tuition, whether for a degree, a diploma, a short course, or an MBA, is a private or domestic expense in your hands. It is not spent in the production of income the way a business cost is, so it fails the section 11(a) test, and section 23(a) confirms that private and domestic expenses are not deductible.

This is the same reasoning SARS applies to school fees for your children: there is no deduction, rebate, or allowance for them, no matter how necessary they feel. Your own studies sit in the same category by default.

Two features push self-education further into the non-deductible zone:

• If the course is meant to get you into a new field you are not yet working in, the spending is not incurred in producing income from an existing trade. It is often capital in nature too, because you are building a new earning capacity rather than maintaining an existing one.
• If you are a salaried employee, section 23(m) restricts what you may deduct against remuneration to a listed set that does not include general section 11(a) expenses. So even a course closely tied to your current job does not produce a deduction against your salary.

When study fees do qualify

There is a genuine route, but it runs through a trade you already carry on, not through employment.

If you are self-employed, a sole proprietor, or a genuine independent contractor running a business, and you pay for training that maintains or sharpens the skills of that existing business, the fees can be deducted under section 11(a). The training must relate to the trade you are already in, and it must not be capital or private in nature. A practising bookkeeper doing a refresher on a new accounting standard is maintaining an existing trade. Someone with no practice paying for a first qualification to enter the field is not.

Because this route depends on carrying on a trade, a salaried employee cannot use it, since section 23(m) blocks the section 11(a) claim regardless of how job-related the course is.

A worked example

Compare an employee and a business owner, each paying R25,000 for a course in the 2026 year of assessment.

The employee earns a R400,000 salary and studies part time to improve at her job. Her fees are a private expense, and section 23(m) blocks any deduction against the salary. Taxable income stays R400,000, and the R25,000 comes entirely out of after-tax money.

The business owner earns R400,000 of profit from a consultancy he already runs, and pays R25,000 for training that keeps his existing skills current. He deducts it under section 11(a), so his taxable income falls to R375,000. At R400,000 his marginal rate is 31%, because he sits in the R370,501 to R512,800 band, so the deduction saves him R25,000 at 31%, which is R7,750. The course effectively costs him R17,250.

The tax-effective ways to fund study

Because a personal deduction is usually off the table, the practical planning happens through an employer:

• An employer bursary or scholarship can be exempt in your hands under section 10(1)(q), within the limits and conditions SARS sets, which differ for a bursary to the employee and one to a relative of the employee.
• A study loan from your employer to fund your own studies can carry no fringe benefit value, which is another way study costs are funded without adding to your tax.

Both of these are employer routes, and both are separate from you claiming a deduction on your own return.

Where this leaves you

For an employee, treat your own study fees as a personal cost with no tax relief, and look to an employer bursary if you want the tax benefit. For a business owner, keep the invoices for any training that maintains your existing trade, because those fees do come off your income. Our guide to tax for freelancers and side income sets out the deductions available when you earn business income, and the income tax calculator shows what a deduction is worth at your bracket. See also the bursary and scholarship exemption and why school fees are not deductible.

SARS sources:

• https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Ops/Guides/Legal-Pub-Guide-Gen01-Taxation-in-South-Africa.pdf
• https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Legal/Notes/LAPD-IntR-IN-2012-66-Scolarships-Bursaries.pdf
• https://www.sars.gov.za/tax-rates/income-tax/rates-of-tax-for-individuals/