Excise Duties and Levies

Excise duties and levies are imposed mostly on high-volume daily consumable products (e.g. petroleum and alcohol and tobacco products) as well as certain non-essential or luxury items (e.g. electronic equipment and cosmetics).

The primary function of these duties and levies is to ensure a constant stream of revenue for the State, with a secondary function of discouraging consumption of certain harmful products; i.e. harmful to human health or to the environment.

In addition to duties and levies, we also have the Diesel Refund System for qualifying entities.

The revenue generated by these duties and levies amount to approximately ten per cent of the total revenue received by SARS.

Excise Duties are payable by manufacturers of the following products and are levied throughout the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), consisting of the Republic of South Africa, the Republic of Botswana, the Kingdom of Lesotho, the Republic of Namibia and the Kingdom of Swaziland:

Excise Levies are/may be levied separately and uniquely on different products by each individual SACU member state; in South Africa currently on the following products:

Relevant entities in the RSA must license with SARS Excise before they start to manufacture or otherwise deal in any of these products on which the applicable Excise Duty and / or Levy has not yet been paid.

These duties and levies are self-assessed by the client per periodic Excise return and, depending on the product, paid to SARS on either a monthly or quarterly basis.