Registering with SARS and the UIF as a new employer
When a new South African employer must register for PAYE, UIF and SDL, which forms SARS uses, and when the UI Commissioner registers you instead.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Running a business businesses in South Africa
The day you take on your first employee, your business picks up a set of obligations it did not have the day before. Tax has to be deducted from pay, contributions have to go to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, and none of that can happen properly until you are registered for it.
Many small businesses discover the registration step only when the first payslip is due. By then the clock has already been running. This article explains when a new South African employer must register, which forms SARS uses, how UIF registration fits alongside PAYE and the skills levy, and the less common case where you register with the UI Commissioner instead of SARS.
The clock starts when you become an employer
SARS says an employer must register with SARS within 21 business days after becoming an employer. There is one exception in that rule: it does not apply where none of the employees are liable for normal tax.
Read that exception carefully before relying on it. It is about whether any employee is liable for normal tax, not about how small the business is. A business with one well-paid employee is inside the rule. And as the next sections show, staying outside SARS's PAYE register does not mean staying outside the UIF.
Count business days, not calendar days, and count from the date the person started working for you, not from the first payday.
eFiling, the EMP101e and the EMP102e
SARS says employers register for payroll taxes either on eFiling or by completing the EMP101e form. A branch that registers separately uses the EMP102e form.
Which route suits you depends mostly on whether you already use eFiling for the business's other taxes. If you do, registering there keeps everything under one profile. If you do not, completing the EMP101e form is the other route, though it is worth asking whether the business should be on eFiling anyway.
The EMP102e matters only if part of your business, such as a second store or a regional office, will be registered as its own branch. Decide that before you register the main business, so the structure on SARS's side matches the way you intend to run payroll.
SARS's page on registering for employees' tax sets out the time limit, the exception and both registration routes, and is the place to confirm the current process before you start.
Registering for UIF alongside PAYE and SDL
SARS says an employer that needs to register with SARS for PAYE and/or SDL also needs to register to pay UIF contributions. In other words, the payroll taxes SARS collects travel together: if one applies, UIF comes with it.
The Department of Employment and Labour puts the UIF side more broadly. Its basic guide to the UIF says every employer that pays remuneration, whether in cash or in kind, must register with the UIF as soon as it starts operating as an employer. The same guide says employers must declare changes such as new appointments, changes in pay and terminations, and notes that employers paying their contributions through SARS must still register with the UIF and declare their employees.
The government's UIF services page adds a working-hours test: you are required by law to register with the UIF and contribute if you employ people for more than 24 hours per month.
So there are two separate relationships to set up:
| Body | What you register for | What you keep doing afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| SARS | PAYE, SDL where it applies, and UIF contributions paid through SARS | Monthly declarations and payments |
| The UIF | The employer and its employees | Declaring new appointments, pay changes and terminations |
Whether you must register for the skills levy at all depends on your payroll, and SARS's pages are not consistent on the point for smaller employers. That question has its own article: when an employer must pay the skills levy.
When you register with the UI Commissioner instead
Some employers never register with SARS for payroll at all, yet still have UIF obligations. SARS describes that group exactly: an employer that does not need to register with SARS for employees' tax, has not voluntarily registered with SARS, and is not liable for SDL must register with the UI Commissioner's office to pay UIF contributions.
Picture a very small business whose only worker earns too little for any tax to be deducted, but works more than the monthly hours that bring the UIF rules into play. That employer pays UIF through the Commissioner's office rather than through SARS. If all three conditions do not apply to you, you are back in the SARS route.
Setting up the employer in Achekam
Registration with SARS and the UIF is something your business does with them directly. What Achekam does is run the payroll that follows.
In Achekam, a business sets itself up as an employer and runs payroll under South African, Nigerian or Kenyan rules, chosen when the employer is created. Choose South Africa for a business registered here, and use the reference numbers SARS gives you once registration is complete.
Before the first pay run, there is one more step. South African PAYE, UIF and SDL come from a tax table stored as data, and a run is refused until a named person confirms that year's table. For payroll paid on or after 1 March 2026, the business must start its own 2027 tax table, which it can begin from the 2026 figures, and confirm it against the SARS tables before running payroll. No 2026/27 South African table ships with Achekam. The full walk-through is in confirming the 2026/27 tax table before payday, and a hospitality business setting up its first payroll will find the order of steps in setting up a first payroll.
A first-employee checklist
- Note the date the first employee started and count 21 business days forward.
- Check whether any employee is liable for normal tax.
- Register on eFiling or with the EMP101e; use the EMP102e for any separately registered branch.
- Register with the UIF and declare each employee.
- If none of SARS's registrations apply, register with the UI Commissioner's office.
- Create the employer in Achekam under South African rules and confirm the year's tax table.
Do the registrations before the first payday, not after it. The first payslip is far easier to get right when the numbers it needs already exist.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
