Compliance
Annual Returns
Keep your entity records current with a clear process for annual-return submissions.
R349
once-off
- Annual return filing with CIPC
- Compliance status check
- Company status update
- Reminder for next year
Tell us what you need
An annual return is not a tax return
An annual return is a yearly filing that confirms your company still exists and that CIPC's record of it is current. SARS wants a tax return; CIPC wants an annual return; filing one does nothing for the other. Founders who assume their accountant "did the returns" are usually thinking of the SARS side.
When yours is due
Annual-return timing runs off your company's own registration anniversary, not off a national deadline and not off the tax year. Two companies registered three months apart have due dates three months apart. If you are not sure when yours falls, send us the registration number and we will check the record before you pay for anything.
The obligation starts at your first anniversary, so a company registered last month has nothing to file yet.
What we need from you
- Company name and registration number, in the 2023/123456/07 format
- The last year you filed, if you know it — "not sure" is a valid answer, and the field accepts a blank
That list is deliberately short. This filing works off CIPC's record rather than off documents you upload, so there is no certified-copy exercise here.
After you order
We check the company's current status on the CIPC record first, and that check is the genuinely useful part: it tells you whether you are one return behind or several, and whether anything else on the record needs attention before a return will go through. We then file, confirm the updated status, and set a reminder for next year so this stops being an annual scramble.
If the company is already deregistered
An annual return is not the tool for that. Restoring a company to the register is a separate application — see beneficial ownership and reinstatement — and reinstatement does not clear returns that are still outstanding.
Returns are not your only ongoing obligation
Keeping an entity clean usually means three things, filed with three different bodies:
- CIPC — annual returns, and a current beneficial ownership register
- SARS — income tax, plus VAT or payroll if they apply to you (tax registration)
- Compensation Fund — COIDA, if you employ anybody (COIDA registration)
Banks and buyers tend to ask for evidence of all three at once, usually at short notice.
Changes during the year
If your directors or shareholders changed, update the record with director changes or shareholder changes. The annual return does not pick those up — they are separate filings.