South Africa doubles the VAT-free traveller and crew allowances in Schedule 1 item 407

What changed in detail

Government Notice R. 7811, published in Government Gazette No. 55190 on 14 August 2026, amends paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 to the Value-Added Tax Act, 1991 (Act No. 89 of 1991). The Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, acts under section 74(3)(a) of that Act, and the notice is made as a consequence of the amendment of rebate items 407.00, 407.02/00.00/01.00 and 407.02/00.00/02.00 in Part 1 of Schedule No. 4 to the Customs and Excise Act, 1964.

The schedule to the notice makes three substitutions. In the notice’s own convention, words in bold type in square brackets are omissions from the existing enactment and underlined words are insertions:

• Note 5 to item 407.00 — a crew member of a ship or aircraft, including the master or pilot, is entitled to the item 407.02/00.00/01.00 exemption on new or used goods of a total value not exceeding [R700] R1 400 per person, and to the item 407.02/00.00/02.00 exemption on goods not exceeding [R2 000] R4 000 per person.
• Item 407.02/00.00/01.00 — new or used goods of a total value not exceeding [R5 000] R10 000 per person.
• Item 407.02/00.00/02.00 — additional goods, new or used, of a total value not exceeding [R20 000] R40 000 per person.

Every figure is doubled.

What it means

This is a customs-counter change that happens to live in the VAT Act, and that is why it is easy to miss. The operative numbers moved in Schedule No. 4 to the Customs and Excise Act; Schedule 1 to the VAT Act was amended to keep the two in step. Reading either in isolation gives half an answer.

For most businesses there is nothing to do — the allowances apply to individual travellers, not to commercial imports. Where it bites is anything that hard-codes the old figures: duty-free retail messaging, traveller-facing guidance, and internal reference tables that still say R5 000. The doubling is uniform across all four figures, so the check is mechanical rather than interpretive.