Finance

SARS announces eFiling change for tax season 2025

Staff Writer

 ·17 Jul 2025

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has announced that it will implement a virtual waiting room system for the coming manual tax filing seasons to ensure smooth service.

Tax season got off to a rocky start earlier this month when taxpayers were left frustrated and fuming over technical glitches that hit SARS’ eFiling services.

Auto assessments started rolling out on 7 July 2025, which happened to also be the deadline for employers to submit their monthly tax filings.

As a result, SARS’ systems experienced larger-than-expected traffic volumes, causing the eFiling system to glitch out.

While service was restored the next day, tax practitioners reported intermittent outages, which forced SARS to extend filing deadlines so that businesses could avoid penalties.

With manual filing for Tax Season 2025 opening up from Monday, 21 July, SARS is looking to avoid the same overload, as it expects taxpayers to again flood eFiling and the MobiApp.

To counter this, and to make the tax filing experience as seamless as possible, SARS said that taxpayers should expect to hit a “virtual waiting room” if the platforms are getting overloaded.

“To manage the surge in traffic, we have set up a virtual waiting room to keep eFiling stable. If eFiling is experiencing unusually high traffic when you log in, you may be temporarily placed in a virtual queue,” it said.

Taxpayers in the queue will see a message on their screens letting them know they’re in line, along with an estimated wait time.

“As soon as it’s your turn, you’ll be automatically redirected to the login page – no need to refresh or rejoin the queue,” it said.

In addition to the notification and time estimates, users may be prompted to check a Captcha box indicating they are in fact human.

To continue ensuring its platforms are stable and available, SARS will also be upgrading its digital platforms throughout the tax season.

These platform upgrades take place periodically and typically fall outside business hours and run into the evenings.

While taxpayers are still able to access SARS’ services during these times, the group warned that users may experience intermittent service interruptions on the eFiling, tax and customs digital platforms.

Tax season 2025 dates