What's new
From the 2026 year of assessment, Deel Local Payroll generates
employee tax certificate numbers using a new reindexing system. Each employee
now gets a unique number per pay frequency, starting at “00000000001”, ensuring
no two certificates can ever be duplicated.
Previously, the last 10 digits of each certificate number
came from the employee’s Tax ID stored in Deel Local Payroll. As Tax IDs grow beyond 10
digits, the risk of duplicate certificate numbers grows with them. Reindexing
removes that risk entirely, so every submission to SARS stays clean, unique,
and audit-ready.
What this means for you
Nothing on your end. There’s no setup, no migration, and no
admin to take care of. Certificates printed for the February 2025 submission
period aren’t affected, so historical records stay exactly as they are.
How the new certificate number is built
Per the SARS PAYE Business Requirement Specifications (BRS),
every tax certificate number is 30 alphanumeric characters. Here’s how it
breaks down:
• First
10 characters: Employer PAYE reference number (or income tax number if
used)
• Next
4 characters: Transaction year
• Next
2 characters: Month of the reconciliation period. Use “08” or “02” for a
final certificate, and “02” for February.
• Remaining
characters: A unique combination of alphanumeric characters that completes
the 30-character length, left-padded with zeroes after the period
Example:
“9999999999202602A1770000000001”
“9999999999202602A1770000000002”
Reading left to right, that’s the Company Tax Reference
Number, the year and period of assessment, the tax certificate number prefix,
the resubmission prefix, and the reindexed certificate number.
For more details, please refer
to release note #67234, titled Tax Certificate Enhancement – Year of
Assessment 2026.
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