The EMP201: declaring and paying PAYE, UIF and SDL every month

Once you employ someone, SARS expects a declaration and a payment from you every month, by the 7th. It is the most frequent deadline a small employer has, and the one most often filed from a guess.

The EMP201 is the monthly employer declaration. On it you tell SARS how much employees' tax you deducted from your staff in the previous month, how much UIF was contributed and how much Skills Development Levy you owe. You pay all of it in one payment. It is due within seven days after the end of the month, which in practice means by the 7th.

Unlike the VAT201 it is not a calculation SARS expects you to do on the form. Every figure on it comes out of your payroll. If the payroll is right the EMP201 takes five minutes. If the payroll lives in a spreadsheet that somebody rebuilds each month, the EMP201 is where the errors become a debt.

Do you need to file one?

You need to register as an employer, and from then on file an EMP201 every month, once you pay remuneration to anyone who is liable for income tax. In the 2026/27 tax year a person under 65 starts paying income tax at R99,000 a year, about R8,250 a month, so in practice a full-time employee on almost any wage brings you in. Registration is due within 21 business days of becoming an employer, and it covers PAYE, UIF and SDL in one application on eFiling.

A Pty Ltd that pays its directors a salary is an employer, even when the directors are the only people it pays. Directors' remuneration goes through PAYE like anyone else's.
A sole proprietor's own drawings are not a salary. You are taxed on the business's profit on your own return, not through PAYE, so there is nothing to declare on an EMP201 for yourself. Your employees are another matter.
An employer who only pays people below the tax threshold does not deduct PAYE, but still registers with the Department of Employment and Labour for UIF and pays it there instead. Domestic employers are the common case.

The three amounts on the form

	Who bears it	How it is worked out
PAYE (employees' tax)	The employee. You deduct it from their pay and hold it for SARS.	From the SARS tax tables, on the employee's pay annualised over the year, less the rebates and any medical credit.
UIF	Both. 1% deducted from the employee, 1% added by you.	2% in total of remuneration, capped at R17,712 a month. The most anyone pays is R177.12 each, R354.24 together.
SDL (Skills Development Levy)	You alone. It is never deducted from the employee.	1% of total remuneration. Exempt if your payroll is not expected to exceed R500,000 over the next twelve months.

Two of those are taxes you collect and one is a cost you carry, and the distinction matters for your books. PAYE and the employee's UIF were never your money: they came out of the salary. The employer's UIF and the SDL are an expense of the business on top of the salary, which is why a R20,000 salary costs you more than R20,000.

If you claim the Employment Tax Incentive for qualifying young employees, it appears on the EMP201 too, as a reduction of the PAYE you pay over. It can only reduce PAYE, never UIF or SDL, and it never produces a refund. Whether an employee qualifies turns on age, pay, hours and how long you have employed them, so check the current rules with SARS before you claim.

A worked example

One employee under 65, paid R20,000 a month, with no medical aid or retirement fund contributions, in the 2026/27 tax year. The business pays more than R500,000 a year in salaries in total, so it is liable for SDL.

	Calculation	Amount
PAYE	R240,000 a year × 18%, less the R17,820 primary rebate, ÷ 12	R2,115.00
UIF, employee	1% of R17,712, because R20,000 is above the ceiling	R177.12
UIF, employer	1% of R17,712	R177.12
SDL	1% of R20,000. No ceiling	R200.00
On the EMP201		R2,669.24

The employee receives R17,707.88: the salary less their PAYE and their half of the UIF. The business is out of pocket R20,377.12: the salary plus its own UIF and the SDL. The difference between what left the business and what reached the employee, R2,669.24, is exactly what goes to SARS on the 7th.

When it is due, and when the 7th moves

The declaration and the payment are due within seven days after the end of the month in which you paid the salaries. A March payroll is declared and paid by 7 April.

If the 7th falls on a weekend or a public holiday, the deadline moves earlier, to the last business day before it. Not later. When 7 March 2026 fell on a Saturday, the deadline was Friday 6 March.
The month is the month you paid, not the month the work was done. A December salary paid on 24 December is on December's EMP201, due early January, which is the deadline most often missed in the year.
Weekly and fortnightly payrolls still file once a month. Every run paid in the month is added together onto one EMP201.
While you are registered as an employer, keep submitting every month. In a month you paid nobody, submit with zero amounts: SARS's own completion guide says to enter 0 for a nil declaration. If you have stopped employing people for good, tell SARS within 21 business days rather than simply going quiet.

Submitting and paying, step by step

Finalise the month's payroll first. Every pay run paid in the month, approved and locked, so the figures cannot move after you declare them.
Add up PAYE, UIF and SDL across the month. Payroll software does this for you. If you are adding it up by hand, take UIF as both halves together and leave SDL out entirely if you are exempt.
Request the EMP201 on eFiling (or e@syFile Employer) for the right period. SARS no longer accepts a printed, faxed, emailed or hand-completed form.
Capture the three amounts, and the ETI if you claim it. Check that the total on the form matches what your payroll says is owed before you submit.
Submit, then pay using the PRN. Each EMP201 carries a 19-digit payment reference number. Pay the exact amount from eFiling or by EFT quoting that PRN, because SARS allocates your money to PAYE, UIF and SDL according to the declaration it belongs to.

What a late or wrong EMP201 costs

Paying late attracts a penalty of 10% of the amount not paid on time, plus interest for every month it stays outstanding. On the worked example above, a single late month costs R266.92 in penalty before any interest, on a payroll of one person. On a payroll of ten it is roughly R2,670 for every month you are late.

An under-declaration costs the same way, only later. If you declared too little PAYE in March and correct it in September, the correction is a payment made late, and the 10% applies to the shortfall from March's due date. Errors are cheapest the month they happen, which is the argument for checking the EMP201 against the payroll before you submit it, not when the reconciliation forces you to.

The EMP501: where twelve EMP201s meet the IRP5s

Twice a year SARS asks every employer to reconcile. The EMP501 sets what you declared on each month's EMP201, and what you paid, against the IRP5 or IT3(a) tax certificate of every employee for the same period. The interim reconciliation covers March to August and is submitted in September and October. The annual one covers the full tax year to the end of February and is submitted in April and May.

All three sets of figures have to agree: the declarations, the payments and the certificates. When they do not, the difference is either an EMP201 that was wrong or a certificate that is, and the employees' tax returns are filed on the certificates. A late EMP501 attracts its own penalty of 1% of your annual PAYE for every month it is outstanding, up to 10%.

The way to make the EMP501 a formality is to make the EMP201 come from the same place as the certificates. If both are built from the same finalised payroll, they cannot drift apart, because there is only one set of figures to disagree with.

What it looks like in the books

Each payroll creates three liabilities, one per amount on the EMP201, and the payment on the 7th clears them. Using the worked example:

Entry	Debit	Credit
Salaries expense	R20,000.00
Employer UIF and SDL expense	R377.12
PAYE payable		R2,115.00
UIF payable (both halves)		R354.24
SDL payable		R200.00
Bank (net pay to the employee)		R17,707.88

When the EMP201 is paid, the three payable accounts are debited and the bank is credited with R2,669.24, which leaves all three at zero. That is the check worth doing every month: after the 7th, PAYE, UIF and SDL payable should be nil. A balance left on any of them is either money you still owe SARS or a payment allocated to the wrong place, and both are cheaper to find in October than in the EMP501.

Where OxyAccounting fits

OxyAccounting runs South African payroll, weekly, fortnightly or monthly, and works out PAYE, UIF and SDL on every payslip from the current SARS tables. When a pay run is finalised it is posted to the ledger in one balanced journal, with the three payable accounts above. Payroll > EMP201 Report adds up every finalised run paid in each month, shows the PAYE, any ETI claimed, UIF, SDL and the total, and gives the due date. The EMP501 screen is built from the same runs as the certificates, so the reconciliation starts from figures that already agree.

It does not submit anything to SARS. You capture the figures on eFiling and pay with your PRN, as above. The manual page on running payroll covers it screen by screen. Payroll is in the single R149/month plan, alongside invoicing, VAT201 and the ledger underneath, and the 14-day free trial needs no card.

Frequently asked questions

Within seven days after the end of the month in which the salaries were paid, so by the 7th of the following month. If the 7th falls on a weekend or public holiday, it is due on the last business day before it, not after. The declaration and the payment are due on the same day. Confirm current dates on the SARS website.

The employees' tax (PAYE) you deducted in the month, the UIF contributions (the employee's 1% and your 1%), the Skills Development Levy if you are liable for it and any Employment Tax Incentive you are claiming, which reduces the PAYE. Every figure comes from your payroll for the month.

While you are registered as an employer, submit an EMP201 for a month in which you paid nobody, with every amount entered as 0, which is how SARS's completion guide says to capture a nil declaration. If you have stopped employing staff permanently, notify SARS within 21 business days that you are no longer an employer rather than simply stopping the declarations.

UIF is 1% from the employee and 1% from the employer on remuneration up to R17,712 a month, a ceiling that has applied since June 2021. Above it, contributions stop rising, so the most either party pays is R177.12 a month. Confirm the current ceiling with SARS or the Department of Employment and Labour.

Employers whose total payroll is expected to exceed R500,000 over the next twelve months pay the Skills Development Levy at 1% of total remuneration. It is an employer cost and is never deducted from an employee's pay. Employers below the threshold are exempt and do not register for it.

The payment reference number, a 19-digit number SARS generates for each EMP201 period. Quote it on the payment so SARS can match the money to the right declaration and allocate it across PAYE, UIF and SDL. A payment under the wrong PRN lands on the wrong period.

A penalty of 10% of the amount not paid on time, plus interest for each month it remains outstanding. An amount under-declared and corrected later counts as paid late from the original due date. Confirm current penalty and interest rules with SARS.

The EMP201 is the monthly declaration and payment of PAYE, UIF and SDL. The EMP501 is the twice-yearly reconciliation that sets the EMP201s and payments for six or twelve months against every employee's IRP5 or IT3(a) certificate. The interim EMP501 covers March to August and the annual one covers the full tax year to the end of February.

No. It calculates PAYE, UIF and SDL on every payslip, adds every finalised pay run in the month into an EMP201 report with the due date, and posts the liabilities to the ledger. You capture the figures on SARS eFiling and pay using the PRN.