IRP5: What the Employee Tax Certificate Shows, When Your Employer Must Issue It, and Where to Find It on eFiling (2026 Guide)

What the IRP5 is, and why nobody can download one

The IRP5 is the employees’ tax certificate the Fourth Schedule to the Income Tax Act requires of every employer. SARS’s description: it “discloses the total employment remuneration earned for the year of assessment and the total amount of employees’ tax deducted or withheld.” One certificate per employee per employer per tax year, covering 1 March to the end of February or the shorter period the person actually worked.

The search for “IRP5 form download” goes nowhere because the certificate does not exist as a blank. It is produced by the employer’s payroll software or SARS’s free e@syFile Employer, with a unique certificate number, and every line on it is a source code SARS defines: 3601 for normal salary, 3605 for an annual bonus, 3810 for a medical scheme contribution, 4102 for the PAYE withheld, 4141 for UIF, and so on. An employee cannot create one, and an employer cannot hand-write one.

If you were paid but no employees’ tax was withheld, because you earned under the threshold or the income was exempt, you get an IT3(a) instead. It is the same document with a reason code in place of a PAYE figure. Both go to SARS, both pre-fill your return.

When your employer must give it to you

The Fourth Schedule sets three clocks, and SARS’s guide to employees’ tax certificates repeats them. An employee still employed at the end of February gets the certificate within 60 days of the tax year end. An employee who resigned, retired or died during the year gets it within 14 days of leaving. An employer who stops being an employer altogether must issue all certificates within 14 days.

There is a catch in the 60-day rule that explains why IRP5s arrive in May rather than March. Paragraph 14(5) says the certificate “shall not be delivered until the EMP501 reconciliation was submitted to SARS.” The employer reconciles its twelve monthly EMP201 returns against the certificates in the annual EMP501 window, 1 April to 31 May, and the certificates go to SARS as part of that submission. An employer that waits for SARS to accept the reconciliation before handing them out puts a compliant employer’s IRP5 in your hands in April or May.

Where it goes: your ITR12 and auto-assessment

SARS pre-fills the individual income tax return, the ITR12, from third-party data, and the IRP5 is the largest piece of it. For the 2026 filing season, covering the tax year that ended on 28 February 2026, SARS issued auto-assessments from 1 to 12 July 2026 to taxpayers whose employer and other third-party data was complete, then opened filing for everyone else from 13 July to 23 October 2026, with provisional taxpayers given until 22 January 2027.

An auto-assessment is built from the IRP5 as SARS received it. If your employer filed a certificate with the wrong figures, or filed none, the assessment is wrong or incomplete, and the fix is not on your side. SARS runs an Employment Taxes Validation over every certificate; one that fails the directive check is rejected and “will not pre-populate on the employee’s income tax return (ITR12)”. Others are accepted and pre-populated with a letter to the employer. Either way, only the employer can correct a certificate, by revising it and resubmitting the EMP501.

SARS’s own tax season pages for 2026 flag one change that matters here: more of the return is pre-filled than before, and less is captured by hand. That makes the accuracy of what the employer files matter more, not less, because there is less opportunity for the taxpayer to notice and override a wrong figure.

If you do not have one

Ask the employer, in writing, and give them the 14-day or 60-day rule. Most missing IRP5s are late EMP501s: the certificate cannot lawfully be issued until the reconciliation is in, and an employer behind on the reconciliation is behind on the certificates. Check eFiling before you escalate; if the certificate is pre-populated on your ITR12, you have what you need to file.

If the employer will not or cannot produce it, SARS’s FAQ is direct: “you must visit the nearest SARS branch or call the Contact Centre for advice.” Payslips do not replace the certificate on the return. Where the employer is insolvent, untraceable, deceased or was never registered for PAYE, SARS will take payslips, bank statements, the employer’s contact details and physical address as evidence and assess the income from those. A former employer who deducted PAYE from you and never paid it to SARS is SARS’s problem to pursue, not yours; the tax was withheld from your pay and you are entitled to the credit.

For the employer: producing the certificates

An employer with staff has three ways to produce IRP5s and IT3(a)s: payroll software that exports the SARS certificate file, e@syFile Employer, which is SARS’s own free software and generates the certificates from the payroll figures you capture, or eFiling directly for 50 certificates or fewer. In each case the certificates are validated, bundled with the EMP501 for the annual window, and the EMP501 total per employee has to match the twelve EMP201s.

The reconciliation is where a year of small payroll errors becomes visible. A salary paid in February and declared on the March EMP201 puts pay in one tax year and tax in the next. A UIF deduction taken on the full salary rather than capped at the ceiling overstates code 4141. An employee whose ID number was captured with a typo will fail validation and get no pre-populated return. The penalty for filing the EMP501 late is 1% of the year’s PAYE per month, up to 10%, and it applies even when every monthly payment was on time.

Employers with five or fewer staff who run payroll in a spreadsheet tend to meet the IRP5 for the first time in April, when an employee asks for it. That is late to discover the year’s figures do not reconcile. Payroll software, or a payroll service, produces the certificate as a by-product of the year’s payslips instead of as a reconstruction.

Step-by-step: finding your IRP5 on eFiling

For an employee who wants to see or download the certificate the employer filed. Employers producing certificates follow the EMP501 process in the SARS guide linked below.

1. 1

   Log in to eFiling or the SARS MobiApp

   Go to sarsefiling.co.za and log in with your username and password. If you have never registered, you need your tax reference number and ID; SARS issues a number to anyone whose employer has filed an IRP5 for them, so you almost certainly have one even if you have never filed.
2. 2

   Open the Income Tax return for the year

   Select Returns, then Returns Issued, then Personal Income Tax (ITR12). Choose the tax year that ended on the most recent 28 or 29 February and open the return. Outside filing season the return for the new year may not be issued yet; the previous year’s will be.
3. 3

   Check the employer certificate section

   The first pages of the return wizard ask how many IRP5/IT3(a) certificates you received. The certificates SARS has on file appear pre-populated, one per employer, with the certificate number, employer PAYE reference, source codes and amounts. Compare the income and PAYE figures with your last payslip of the year.
4. 4

   Missing or wrong? Go back to the employer

   If a certificate is absent or a figure is wrong, do not overwrite it. Ask the employer to correct and resubmit through their EMP501. If the employer is gone, SARS’s FAQ says to call the Contact Centre or book a branch appointment with your payslips and bank statements.
5. 5

   Save a copy

   eFiling shows the certificate data on the return; the certificate document itself comes from the employer. Ask for the PDF and keep it with the year’s payslips, because SARS can ask for supporting documents for five years.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from one of these documents. Check them before quoting a number; the regulators change them without telling anyone who linked the old one.

1. Guide for Completion and Submission of Employees’ Tax Certificates 2026, SARS, 26 September 2025: the 60-day and 14-day issuing rules, paragraph 14(5), and that certificates accompany the EMP501
2. Pay As You Earn, SARS, updated 31 August 2026: what the IRP5/IT3(a) discloses, the 14-day rule on ceasing employment, the 2027 annual EMP501 window of 1 April to 31 May, and the 1% a month EMP501 penalty
3. Filing Season, Personal Income Tax, SARS, updated 19 August 2026: auto-assessments 1 to 12 July 2026, filing 13 July to 23 October 2026, provisional taxpayers to 22 January 2027, and more pre-filled data
4. FAQ: What if my employer didn’t give me an IRP5 or IT3(a)?, SARS, updated 22 July 2024: visit a branch or call the Contact Centre, and the documents accepted where the employer is insolvent, untraceable, deceased or unregistered
5. Employment Taxes Validation (ETV), SARS, updated 6 June 2025: which validation failures stop a certificate pre-populating the ITR12
6. Guide for Codes Applicable to Employees’ Tax Certificates 2026, SARS: the source codes on the certificate, including 3601, 3605, 3810, 4102 and 4141