Tax for Uber and Bolt Drivers in South Africa

If you drive your own car for Uber or Bolt, SARS treats you as carrying on a business rather than holding a job. You declare what the platform statements record, deduct the real cost of running the car, and pay tax on the profit through provisional tax rather than PAYE. Nothing is withheld along the way, so the shortfall falls due at assessment.

Step 1: You are a provisional taxpayer from the start

Paragraph 1 of the Fourth Schedule to the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 defines a provisional taxpayer to include any natural person who derives income other than remuneration or an allowance or advance as mentioned in section 8(1). Fare income paid to an owner-driver is business income, not remuneration, so a driver is caught by that definition from the first month of driving.

The exclusion drivers ask about is not open to them. SARS puts it as two conditions that must both hold: the person derives no income from carrying on a business, and taxable income does not exceed the tax threshold, which for the 2026 year of assessment (1 March 2025 to 28 February 2026) is R95,750 for a person under 65. A driver fails the first condition at any level of earnings, so R95,750 is not the point at which you register.

The rest of the SARS list covers other cases: a second natural-person limb, where taxable income from interest, dividends, fixed-property rental and remuneration from an employer not registered for employees' tax is not more than R30,000, and categories for approved public benefit organisations, body corporates and deceased estates. None reaches an owner-driver, so you register on eFiling and file IRP6 returns from the start. The article on who counts as a provisional taxpayer sets out the definition in full.

Step 2: Work from the platform statements, not the bank deposit

Gross income is the total amount, in cash or otherwise, received by or accrued to you in the year of assessment, excluding receipts of a capital nature. Expenditure comes off under the general deduction formula, section 11(a) read with section 23(g): actually incurred, in the production of income, not of a capital nature, and laid out for the purposes of trade. A platform service fee on the fares you earn is expenditure of that kind.

The deposit in your bank account is the fare total less that fee, so the deduction is already built into it. Set the fee out against the fare total, or work from the net amount paid over, but do not treat the net figure as income and then deduct the fee again. Keep the driver-app earnings statements for the whole year, since they are what reconciles fares, fees and deposits.

Step 3: Deduct the costs of actually earning the fares

Expenditure is deductible to the extent it relates to the business, including the items drivers forget: car washes, mobile data used for the app, and airport or municipal permits.

Generally deductible	Not deductible
Fuel and oil for business kilometres	Fuel for private trips and family use
Servicing, tyres, repairs	Traffic fines
Insurance, licence, tracker, data	The capital portion of a car instalment
Platform service fee	Your own drawings from the business

Private use comes out of every one of those figures. Keep a logbook of business against total kilometres and claim only the business share; without that split nothing supports the return.

Step 4: Claim wear and tear on the car itself

The purchase price of the car is capital, so you cannot deduct it in the year you buy it. You claim a wear-and-tear allowance under section 11(e) of the Income Tax Act instead, spread over the vehicle's write-off period. Interpretation Note 47 lets you elect the straight-line method (equal instalments) or the diminishing-value method (calculated on the remaining income tax value each year), and no SARS approval is needed to adopt or change a method.

The Annexure to Interpretation Note 47 lists the write-off period for passenger cars as five years. Two adjustments apply to an owner-driver: the allowance is apportioned where the car is used for both private and business purposes, since the deduction is allowed only to the extent of trade use, and a car with a genuinely shorter remaining useful life is written off over that shorter estimated life, as the note's own second-hand example does.

Test the numbers on the wear-and-tear allowance calculator before they go on a return.

Step 5: Work out the profit and the tax

Take a driver under 65 for the 2026 year of assessment, with no other income. The platform statements show fares of R320,000 for the year, of which the platform kept R80,000 in service fees. Business-portion fuel of R60,000 and other running costs of R20,000. The car cost R250,000 and the logbook shows 80% business use.

Wear and tear, straight line over the five-year passenger car period:

R250,000 / 5 = R50,000 a year

R50,000 x 80% business use = R40,000

Deductions for the year:

R80,000 + R60,000 + R20,000 + R40,000 = R200,000

Net profit, which is the taxable income here:

R320,000 - R200,000 = R120,000

R120,000 falls in the first bracket of the 2026 table, R1 to R237,100 at 18%:

R120,000 x 18% = R21,600

Less the primary rebate of R17,235:

R21,600 - R17,235 = R4,365 for the year

The threshold works off the same arithmetic: R95,750 x 18% = R17,235, exactly the primary rebate, which is why nothing is payable below that level.

Step 6: Pay the two IRP6 amounts, then file the ITR12

Paragraph 21 of the Fourth Schedule, which governs payment of provisional tax by provisional taxpayers other than companies, sets both payment periods. The first payment is due within six months of the start of the year of assessment, so by 31 August, and covers roughly half the estimated annual liability: on the figures above, R4,365 / 2 = R2,182.50. The second is due by the last business day of February, based on your estimate for the full year less what you have already paid. An optional third top-up under paragraph 23A after year end stops interest running on any shortfall.

The ITR12 for the 2026 year of assessment then reconciles everything, and provisional taxpayers have until 22 January 2027 to file it. If you also draw a salary, the guide to freelancer and side-income tax covers how the two streams combine, and the article on how to calculate provisional tax works through an IRP6 estimate.