How to Submit Outstanding Tax Returns in South Africa

To catch up on years of outstanding tax returns, file every missing ITR12, oldest first, even for a year in which you earned nothing or owed no tax. Filing the returns is what stops the monthly administrative penalty from growing. Once all outstanding returns are in, you can ask SARS to remit the penalties already charged.

One thing to know before you start: eFiling will not let you submit returns older than five years in most cases, so the oldest years often have to be handled through SARS directly rather than online.

What SARS charges while a return sits unfiled

When an income tax return is late or never filed, SARS charges a fixed administrative non-compliance penalty under sections 210 and 211 of the Tax Administration Act. It is a set monthly amount based on your taxable income, running from R250 up to R16,000 a month for each month the non-compliance continues, and it recurs up to a maximum of 35 months.

This penalty applies to a natural person who failed to submit an income tax return for years of assessment from 2007 onwards and has one or more returns outstanding, a rule effective from 1 December 2022. The charge attaches to the missing return rather than to any tax you owe. A year in which you owed nothing, or were due a refund, can still build up thousands of rand in penalties for as long as the return stays outstanding.

File the returns, oldest first

The remedy SARS gives is straightforward: it is advisable to submit the outstanding return to stop further admin penalties. Filing a year's return stops the penalty accruing on that year.

Work through the missing years one at a time, starting with the oldest. For each year, rebuild the figures from the records you have, such as your IRP5 or IT3 certificates, medical scheme certificate and any other income documents. If a year genuinely had no income, you still file that return as a nil return so the year is closed off. You cannot skip a year just because it produces no tax.

The five-year eFiling block

Since the 2024 Filing Season, the eFiling and MobiApp platforms do not allow taxpayers to request, save, or submit returns older than five years. This applies to both original returns and requests for corrections.

There is a key exception. The block does not apply to taxpayers with outstanding returns on whom the administrative penalty has not yet been imposed. So if you have a genuinely unfiled year and no penalty has been raised for it, you may still be able to submit that older return on eFiling. Where the platform will not accept the return, you have to submit it through SARS directly, for example by booking a SARS appointment on the SARS website.

A worked example

Thabo is under 65. SARS issued him a notice to file for the 2026 year of assessment (1 March 2025 to 28 February 2026), but he ignored it for a year. His only income that year was R84,000.

The first question is whether he owed any tax. R84,000 falls in the first bracket, taxed at 18% for the 2026 year of assessment.

• Tax before rebates: R84,000 x 18% = R15,120
• Less the primary rebate for 2026: R15,120 - R17,235 = below zero, so R0

His income was also under the R95,750 tax threshold for people under 65 for the 2026 year of assessment, so he owed no income tax at all.

The admin penalty applied anyway, because the return was outstanding. Taking the minimum band of R250 a month for illustration, twelve months outstanding works out to:

• R250 x 12 = R3,000

Left unfiled to the 35-month maximum, the same minimum band would reach R250 x 35 = R8,750, and a higher taxable income would sit on a higher monthly band. Thabo owed the state nothing in tax, yet stood to lose thousands purely for the missing paperwork. Filing the nil return stops any further penalty, after which he can ask SARS to remit what was already charged.

You can estimate whether each catch-up year leaves you owing or due money using the TaxRationale tax refund calculator, and if you are unsure whether a given year needed a return at all, see the guide on whether you need to submit a tax return.

Clearing the penalties

Once every outstanding return is submitted, you can dispute the penalties with a Request for Remission (the RFR form). Get the outstanding returns in first, since that is what stops further penalties from building, then set out the circumstances that prevented you from complying on time. The request goes in through eFiling or at the SARS branch nearest you, and SARS can allow, partially allow or disallow it. If it is disallowed or only partly allowed, you can object to that decision.

For how the different charges fit together, see SARS penalties and interest explained, and if a filing deadline has just passed, what happens when you miss the tax deadline covers the immediate steps.