Tax Clearance for Tenders in South Africa: The TCS PIN, What the CSD Checks, and How Long It Takes (2026)

The certificate is gone; the PIN replaced it

For years a tender pack asked for a Tax Clearance Certificate, a stamped SARS letter valid for a year. SARS replaced it with the Tax Compliance Status system, and the paper certificate no longer exists. What you get now is a PIN: a code that lets anyone you give it to look up your company's compliance status on eFiling, live, at the moment they check.

That last part matters more than the name change. The old certificate said you were compliant on the day it was stamped. The PIN says whether you are compliant today. A company that was clean when it requested the PIN and then missed a VAT return will show as non-compliant to the procurement officer who checks it three weeks later, on the same PIN.

Tender documents, the CSD registration screens and bank forms still say "tax clearance certificate". Read it as "TCS PIN". If a form insists on a printed document, eFiling lets you print a Tax Compliance Status letter that carries the PIN.

The old name is going nowhere. Stellenbosch Municipality still attaches a 2021 form headed "Application for a Tax Clearance Certificate" to its bid packs, and National Treasury bid documents from 2016 tell bidders to fetch form TCC 001 from a SARS branch, a form SARS no longer issues. Nobody rewrites a tender template that works, so the paperwork will keep asking for a certificate for years after the last one was printed.

What SARS checks before it issues the PIN

SARS issues a compliant status when three things are true, and refuses it when any one of them is not:

• No outstanding returns. Every return the company is registered for has been filed: the ITR14 for each year since incorporation, both IRP6 provisional returns a year, and the VAT201, EMP201 and EMP501 where the company is registered for VAT or PAYE. A dormant company that never filed its nil returns is non-compliant.
• No outstanding debt. Nothing owed to SARS, unless a payment arrangement or a suspension of payment has been agreed.
• Registered for every tax type it should be. A company paying salaries without a PAYE number, or trading above R2.3 million without a VAT number, fails this check even with every return filed.

In Govchain's filings the first of the three is where almost every refusal comes from. A company registered in 2022 that has never filed an ITR14 owes SARS three returns before it can hold a PIN, and each of those returns carries an administrative penalty of R250 to R16,000 a month while it stays outstanding. The ITR14 vs IRP6 guide covers what each return is and what the penalty costs.

How long it takes, from Govchain's own filings

Govchain obtained 267 TCS PINs for client companies between 1 January and 6 September 2026. In every quarter the median time from the request on eFiling to the PIN was under a day. SARS is not the delay.

The median time from the customer's order to the PIN was 2 days in the first quarter of 2026, 20 days in the second and 3 days in the third. The gap between those figures and "under a day" is the work of getting the company compliant first: appointing a registered representative so anyone can act on eFiling at all, activating the tax types, and filing the returns SARS is waiting for. A company that arrives with its returns filed and a working eFiling profile gets its PIN the same day. A company that arrives with three years of unfiled returns gets it when the returns are in.

So the honest answer to "how long does tax clearance take" is: a day, plus however long the company's backlog takes to clear. Plan a tender around the backlog, not the PIN.

The 12 months, and what a verifier actually sees

When you request the PIN you choose how long it stays active, from one month to twelve; twelve is the default. A shorter period does not make the company any more compliant, it only means the PIN stops working sooner. Set it to twelve and note the expiry date.

Anyone holding the PIN and your tax reference number can verify it on eFiling. The result is your status at that moment, not at issue. If you fall behind during a contract, the client's next check shows it, and the fix is to file whatever is outstanding; the PIN itself does not need to be reissued.

What tenders and the CSD do with it

The Central Supplier Database pulls a supplier's compliance status from SARS once you enter the tax reference number and PIN, and a CSD report shows the status a buyer will see. Departments and municipalities read that record before they award, so a non-compliant status is not a paperwork problem, it is a disqualification. Private-sector buyers, banks and funders ask for the PIN and verify it on eFiling themselves.

The "Tender" type of TCS that older guides describe was withdrawn. SARS says the Good Standing application "fulfils the same purpose", and it is the only type a tender needs. The other type still offered, Approval for International Transfer, is for moving money abroad and has nothing to do with procurement.

A company registered last month with no returns due yet is compliant by definition; its only obstacle is eFiling access. Govchain registers companies and can appoint the registered representative in the same order, so the PIN can be requested as soon as the tax number issues.

If SARS shows non-compliant

My Compliance Profile on eFiling lists the reason next to each tax type: an outstanding return, a debt, or a missing registration. Fix the reason and the status updates once SARS processes the return or payment, usually a day or two for a return and after the money clears for a debt. If the profile is wrong, say a return SARS lists as missing was filed, the same screen has a challenge option that opens a case.

A company that cannot get a PIN because a debt is under dispute can apply to SARS for a manual letter of compliance; the SARS page on managing compliance status gives the address. That route is slow and meant for exceptional cases. It is not a way around an unfiled return.

Requesting the PIN on eFiling

If the company is compliant and you have eFiling access, the request takes a few minutes.

1. 1

   Open My Compliance Profile

   Log in to eFiling, choose the company, and open Tax Status, then My Compliance Profile. Each tax type shows green or red. Anything red has to be fixed before a request will succeed.
2. 2

   Choose Tax Compliance Status Request

   Select Good Standing as the type; Tender no longer exists as an option. Give the purpose and the period, up to 12 months.
3. 3

   Submit and collect the PIN

   SARS issues the PIN immediately for a compliant company and sends it by SMS or email. It also sits under Tax Compliance Status on eFiling, where you can print the status letter a tender pack may ask for.
4. 4

   Share the PIN with the tax reference number

   A verifier needs both. Give them to the buyer, the CSD or the bank. Never publish them.

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. Manage your Tax Compliance Status, SARS, updated 19 August 2026. The three compliance conditions and the withdrawal of the Tender type.
2. Guide to the Tax Compliance Status functionality on eFiling, SARS. The 1 to 12 month PIN period and live verification.
3. How to request your Tax Compliance Status, SARS. The request steps.
4. Admin Penalty, SARS. The R250 to R16,000 a month penalty on outstanding returns, for up to 35 months.
5. Tax Compliance Status (TCS), BizPortal. TCS for tenders and CSD registration.
6. Govchain tax clearance filings, Our own records: 267 PINs obtained between 1 January and 6 September 2026. The medians above are ours and are not audited.