CYBERTAX

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South African personal income tax, made less painful. Everything stays in your browser.

What this tool does NOT cover — read if any apply to you

Your result will be wrong if you have income or deductions this tool doesn't model. It does not handle:

  • More than one employer — add every IRP5's income and PAYE together into the single Employment fields.
  • Travel allowance / company car (IRP5 codes 3701/3702/3802) and the logbook deduction.
  • Home-office expenses, retirement lump sums or withdrawals, and severance.
  • Foreign employment income (the s10(1)(o)(ii) R1.25m exemption), trust or partnership income.
  • Medical disability (the higher 33.3% additional credit).

If any apply, treat the number here as incomplete and use SARS's own eFiling calculator or a practitioner.

Result

Full calculation

CyberTax gives estimates to help you plan and file — SARS's assessment is the final word. Not professional tax advice.

How this works Add each rental property, capture its income and expenses, and CyberTax sorts every expense into the exact ITR12 field it belongs to. The Your ITR12 numbers box at the bottom of each property is what you type into eFiling.
⚠ Use the date you actually RECEIVED or PAID the money SARS taxes rental on the earlier of received or accrued. For income, enter the date the money was received, not the month it relates to. Rent your agent collected on 28 Feb "for March" is received in the year it was paid to the agent — so it belongs in that tax year, not the next one. Dating it by the wrong month is the single most common rental-tax mistake.
Late-paid rent: if a tenant pays late, rent that fell due in an earlier year is still taxed in that earlier year (accrual is then the earlier event) — use the due date, not the late-payment date, when the two fall in different tax years.
Expenses are deducted in the year they were incurred (the invoice / liability date), which for ordinary running costs is usually when you paid. Amounts prepaid for goods or services that span the year-end may have to be spread (s23H). Leaving a date blank makes an entry count in every year.

Ring-fencing check Section 20A — "suspect trade" rules

What is ring-fencing?

Above the income threshold, SARS may ring-fence a rental loss: it can then only offset future profit from the same property, not your salary. Ordinary arm's-length residential letting (broadly, at least 80% let to non-relatives) is only caught if you've made losses in 3 of the last 5 years. But a holiday home used privately, a property let to a relative, or one empty more than half the year — anything not meeting that 80%-to-non-relatives, half-year test — is a "suspect trade" that can be ring-fenced from the very first loss year.

The income threshold is the gate: only once your taxable income (before the loss) reaches that level can ring-fencing apply. If you're above it, a further test — losses in 3 of the last 5 years — can lock the loss in, but you can object by showing the rental is run commercially with a reasonable prospect of profit. Below the threshold, none of this applies and your loss offsets your other income.

Each property is a separate trade — a ring-fenced loss on one property can't offset profit on another.

Provisional tax check

What is provisional tax?

It's your total non-salary taxable income — interest, foreign dividends and rental profit combined — that counts toward the R30,000 threshold, not the rental alone. Above it you must register as a provisional taxpayer and submit two extra returns a year (August and February) with estimated payments. A rental loss reduces the total, but if your interest and dividends still exceed R30,000 you may need to register regardless.

Document checklist keep everything for 5 years — upload only if SARS asks

Filing your rental income on eFiling, step by step

Your own numbers from the Properties tab are shown in green where they slot into the form.

    Deductible vs not deductible — quick reference

    Deductible

    • Bond interest (not capital repayments)
    • Body corporate levies (incl. reserve fund & CSOS)
    • Municipal rates & taxes
    • Repairs & maintenance (restoring, not upgrading)
    • Building / homeowner's insurance
    • Agent's monthly commission & tenant placement fees
    • Advertising for tenants
    • Wear & tear on furniture/appliances (under R7,000: full write-off; over: spread over useful life)

    Not deductible

    • Bond capital repayments
    • Transfer duty, conveyancing / attorney fees
    • Bond initiation fees
    • Improvements (upgrades beyond original condition) — add these to your CGT base cost instead
    • Private / personal expenses
    Vacant but hunting for a tenant? Expenses during vacancy are still claimable if you were actively seeking a tenant. Keep proof: agency mandates, listings, WhatsApp threads with agents. SARS uses discretion — documentation wins.