Free guide

Two very different things get called a SARS customs audit

One happens while your container is still sitting at the port and gives you a single working day to answer. The other arrives long after the goods were delivered and sold, and reaches back across years of declarations. Knowing which one you are in changes everything you do next.

  • One working day, not the thirty most importers have in their heads, to answer a query on a declaration.
  • Two years is how far back an audit normally reaches, and the single line in the Act that removes that limit completely.
  • Why SARS wants the actual shipping invoice behind every freight deduction you claim.
  • What happens to the value you declared when you cannot prove the freight you took off it.

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What is inside

Both scenarios, separated properly, with the deadlines that apply to each

Most guidance on this subject blurs the two together, which is how importers end up applying the wrong timeline to the wrong situation. This one opens with a comparison table so you can tell within ten seconds which of them you are dealing with, then takes each one on its own terms.

01

Which one are you in

A side by side table covering what SARS calls each one, where your goods are, what set it off, how much time you get and what it costs when it goes wrong.

02

The stopped consignment

Why the MRN matters more than your invoice number, the one working day rule and where it comes from, and the full set of documents SARS lists for an import declaration.

03

The post clearance audit

The two year limit on underpaid duty, the proviso that removes it, what SARS may do on your premises, and the deadlines that follow a notice of intent.

04

The freight and the invoice

Why South Africa values on FOB, what that means for a CIF price, and what SARS does to your declared value when the actual freight cannot be verified.

Every quotation in this guide carries its source, its revision number and its effective date. A great deal of the customs content circulating online is out of date, some of it badly. Form numbers that were retired years ago still turn up in guidance published this year. Everything here was read directly from SARS policy documents and from the Customs and Excise Act, so you can check any line of it yourself rather than taking our word for it. Where we could not verify something, the guide says so plainly instead of filling the gap.

Built by TSI Central Station, one accountable operator for import, export and domestic freight across South Africa, in business since 2006 and working at Durban, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Gqeberha and East London. This guide is general guidance and it is not legal advice. If you are already under audit, take advice from an attorney rather than acting on a guide.

+27 (0)11 868-2444  ·  olivia@centralstation.co.za