SARS PAYE Calculator: What You’ll Actually Take Home in South Africa

Ask most people what their salary is and they’ll give you the number on their offer letter. Ask what they actually take home after tax, UIF and whatever else comes off, and you get a shrug. That gap between gross and net pay catches a lot of people out, especially when negotiating a new job or trying to budget around a raise that turns out smaller than expected once PAYE takes its cut. Our SARS PAYE Calculator closes that gap. Put in your salary and age, and you’ll see your PAYE, your UIF, and what actually lands in your bank account, based on the current SARS tax tables.

Below we’ll walk through how PAYE is worked out, what the current brackets and rebates look like, and a few things that change the number more than people expect.

How PAYE Is Calculated

PAYE stands for Pay As You Earn, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: your employer deducts income tax from your salary every month and pays it over to SARS on your behalf, rather than you settling one big bill at the end of the tax year. The calculation itself happens in a few steps.

First, your monthly salary gets annualised, meaning multiplied by 12 to work out what you’d earn in a full tax year. Then that annual figure gets run through SARS’s tax brackets, which are progressive, so you only pay the higher rate on the portion of income that falls into that bracket, not your entire salary. After that, a rebate gets subtracted based on your age, which is what creates the tax-free threshold most people have heard of. Finally, if you belong to a medical aid, a monthly tax credit gets subtracted too. What’s left is your annual tax liability, and dividing that by 12 gives you the PAYE deducted from each month’s pay.

Current Tax Brackets (2026/2027 Tax Year)

South Africa’s tax year runs from 1 March to the end of February, and the brackets below apply for the 2026/2027 year, meaning salary earned from March 2026 onward.

• 18% on taxable income up to R245,100
• 26% on the portion from R245,101 to R383,100
• 31% on the portion from R383,101 to R530,200
• 36% on the portion from R530,201 to R695,800
• 39% on the portion from R695,801 to R887,000
• 41% on the portion from R887,001 to R1,878,600
• 45% on anything above R1,878,600

These were adjusted upward in the 2026 Budget to account for inflation, the first real bracket relief in a few years, which means someone whose salary went up purely in line with inflation shouldn’t end up pushed into a higher bracket than before.

Rebates and Tax-Free Thresholds

A rebate isn’t the same as a deduction. It doesn’t reduce your taxable income, it reduces the actual tax you owe, rand for rand, after the bracket calculation is done. There are three, based on age:

• Primary rebate (everyone, regardless of age): R17,820 a year
• Secondary rebate (65 to 74): an additional R9,765, bringing the total to R27,585
• Tertiary rebate (75 and older): a further R3,249 on top, totalling R30,834

These rebates are why nobody starts paying tax from the very first rand they earn. Once you work out what the rebate cancels out, you get the tax-free threshold: R99,000 a year for someone under 65, R153,250 for someone between 65 and 74, and R171,300 for someone 75 or older. Below those figures, your calculated tax liability is fully offset by the rebate and you pay nothing.

UIF: The Deduction Everyone Forgets About

Alongside PAYE, most employees also have UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund) deducted, which is 1% of your salary, matched by another 1% from your employer. It’s capped though, since UIF only applies up to a salary ceiling of R17,712 a month. That means the most anyone pays in UIF is R177.12 a month, no matter how much they earn above that ceiling. If your salary is below R17,712, you’ll pay the full 1%.

If you’re curious how UIF interacts with your specific salary and what it means if you’re ever between jobs, our SA UIF Contribution Calculator goes into more detail on that.

Retirement Contributions and Medical Aid Change the Numbers

The quick version of a PAYE calculation only needs your salary and age, but two other things can shift the result quite a bit if they apply to you.

Retirement fund contributions (pension, provident fund, or a retirement annuity) are deducted before tax is calculated, not after. You can deduct up to 27.5% of your remuneration, capped at R430,000 a year. This means someone contributing meaningfully to a retirement fund pays less PAYE than someone earning the same gross salary who doesn’t, because their taxable income is lower to begin with.

Medical aid works differently. Rather than reducing your taxable income, it gives you a flat monthly tax credit that’s subtracted directly from your tax bill: R376 for the main member, another R376 for the first dependant, and R254 for each dependant after that. So a family of four on the same medical aid gets a meaningfully bigger monthly credit than someone covering only themselves.

Our calculator’s detailed mode lets you plug both of these in, along with any other regular deductions, so you get a full payslip-style breakdown rather than just a rough estimate.

A Worked Example

Say you’re 34, earning R30,000 a month, no retirement contributions and no medical aid for this example. Annualised, that’s R360,000. Running it through the brackets gives an annual tax figure of just under R74,000, minus the R17,820 primary rebate, leaving roughly R56,000 in annual tax, or around R4,680 a month in PAYE. Add UIF at the capped R177.12, and take-home pay lands at roughly R25,140. Add a retirement contribution or medical aid dependants into the mix and that number shifts, sometimes by a few hundred rand, sometimes more, depending on how much you’re contributing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my PAYE different from what the calculator shows?

The most common reasons are a bonus or once-off payment taxed differently in that specific month, a travel allowance or other fringe benefit, medical aid or retirement contributions not accounted for, or your employer using a slightly different rounding method. If the gap is large and none of those explain it, it’s worth asking your payroll department to walk you through the calculation.

Do I pay PAYE if I earn below the tax threshold?

No. If your annual taxable income is below R99,000 (under 65), R153,250 (65 to 74), or R171,300 (75 and older), your rebate fully cancels out the calculated tax and you pay nothing.

Does contributing to a retirement annuity actually lower my tax?

Yes, up to the 27.5% of remuneration limit (capped at R430,000 a year). Because it reduces your taxable income before the brackets are applied, it lowers your PAYE every month you contribute, not just at tax return time.

Is this the same as what my payslip shows?

It should be close, assuming your only income is your basic salary and the inputs you give the calculator match your actual deductions. Payslips can include extra line items like bonuses, overtime, or fringe benefits that this calculator doesn’t attempt to model, since those depend on your specific employment structure.

Related Calculators

Your take-home pay usually feeds straight into other decisions, borrowing, budgeting, saving. A few tools on our Calculator hub that pair naturally with this one:

• SA UIF Contribution Calculator – a closer look at UIF deductions and how they work if you’re retrenched
• Loan Calculator – once you know your net income, work out what a loan repayment would actually mean for your budget
• Bond Repayment Calculator – check your net pay against a home loan instalment before you apply
• Investment Growth Calculator – see what consistently saving a slice of your take-home pay could grow into
• SA Two-Pot Retirement Calculator – useful if you’re weighing up a retirement fund withdrawal against your monthly cash flow
• VAT Calculator – handy if you’re freelancing or running a small business alongside a salaried job

You can browse the full Calculator hub for everything else we’ve built.

A Final Word

Nobody enjoys watching a third or more of their salary disappear before it even hits their account, but understanding exactly where it goes makes budgeting, negotiating a salary, and planning around a bonus or raise a lot easier. Run your numbers through the calculator above, try the detailed mode if you contribute to a retirement fund or medical aid, and keep it bookmarked for whenever your salary changes. And if something on your actual payslip doesn’t match what you’d expect, don’t just assume it’s wrong, ask payroll to explain the line items, sometimes there’s a legitimate reason you haven’t accounted for.

This calculator and article are for general informational purposes only and don’t constitute tax advice. Please consult SARS or a registered tax practitioner for guidance specific to your situation.