SARS rate per km 2027: the travel allowance table and calculator

By Ryan Pillay, The Running-Costs Guy · Updated 1 November 2026 · Running costs

Last checked: 1 November 2026, against SARS and the Government Gazette. These figures apply to the 2027 tax year, 1 March 2026 to 28 February 2027. The next table comes with the Budget in February 2027.

Short answer: SARS has two rates for business travel in your own car for the 2027 tax year.

• R4.95 a km is the simplified rate. If your employer pays you only for the business kilometres you actually drive, and pays you nothing else for the car apart from parking and tolls, up to R4.95 a km is tax free (Government Gazette 54228).
• Your own rate per km applies if you get a fixed monthly travel allowance. It comes from SARS's cost table below and depends on what your car cost and how far you drive in total. For a car that cost R300,000, driven 25,000 km a year, it works out to about R6.24 a km.

The calculator works out your rate and your claim. The table and the rules are underneath it, with a link to the official source for each.

The 2027 cost table

This is the official cost scale for the 2027 tax year, set by the Minister of Finance in Government Gazette 54228 on 27 February 2026. The "value" is what the car cost you, including VAT but excluding finance charges and interest.

Source: Government Gazette 54228, Notice 7182 and SARS's rate per kilometre schedule. Download it as a CSV file, free to reuse with a link back to this page.

The table stops at R920,000. A car that cost more is treated as if it cost R920,000, so the fixed cost is capped.

Rate per km at a glance

Your rate per km is the fixed cost divided by your total kilometres for the year, plus the fuel cost, plus the maintenance cost. That is the formula in paragraph 2 of the gazetted schedule. Because the fixed cost is spread over all your kilometres, the more you drive in total, the lower your rate per km.

This table assumes you pay all your own fuel and maintenance and use the car for business all year.

Our arithmetic on the gazetted table, rounded to the nearest cent.

Travel allowance calculator

The calculator needs JavaScript. If it doesn't load, use the formula above: fixed cost divided by your total km, plus fuel and maintenance cents per km, times your business km.

How it works. The calculator picks your band from the car's cost, scales the fixed cost down if you used the car for business for less than the full 365 days (as the schedule requires), adds fuel and maintenance only if you ticked that you paid them in full, and multiplies the rate by your business kilometres. The "taxable part" is your allowance less that claim, and it can't go below zero. It is an estimate for planning, not your assessment. It ignores the PAYE your employer already withheld and any other income or deductions.

Worked example

This is an illustration with stated assumptions, not a real person.

A sales rep's car cost R300,000 including VAT. She drives 30,000 km in the tax year, 12,000 km of it for business, logged in a logbook. She pays her own fuel and the car's motor plan has ended, so she pays maintenance too.

If her employer paid her R60,000 a year as a travel allowance, the claim covers all of it on these numbers. If her employer instead reimbursed her per business kilometre at the simplified rate, R4.95 times 12,000 km is R59,400 tax free.

The rules that trip people up

From SARS's rates per kilometre page and the gazetted schedule:

• Logbook or nothing. SARS uses your actual total kilometres and the business kilometres "substantiated by a log book". Record each business trip (date, kilometres, where to and why) and your odometer readings at the start and end of the tax year. SARS has a free travel e-logbook.
• Home to office is private. SARS treats travel between home and your regular place of work as private travel (SARS FAQ), so it counts in your total kilometres but not your business kilometres.
• Fuel card means no fuel cost. You only add fuel if you bore its full cost, and maintenance only if you bore its full cost. A car under a maintenance plan when you bought it gets no maintenance cost.
• Part year, part fixed cost. If you used the car for business for only part of the tax year, the fixed cost shrinks by the share of 365 days.
• PAYE on 80%. Your employer must include 80% of a travel allowance in your pay for PAYE, or 20% if it is satisfied that at least 80% of your use is business use. The real tax is settled on assessment, using the claim above.
• The R4.95 rate has a catch. It only applies if the allowance is based on actual business kilometres and you get no other allowance or reimbursement for the car, apart from parking or tolls.

Is a travel allowance worth it?

It depends almost entirely on your business kilometres. The fixed cost is spread over all your kilometres, but you only claim it on the business share. Someone with a R300,000 car who drives 25,000 km a year, of which 5,000 km is business, can claim only about R31,200 (R6.24 times 5,000 km). On a R60,000 allowance, roughly R28,800 stays taxable. If your job has little travel, a smaller allowance with a per-km reimbursement can leave more in your pocket. Ask your payroll department which options they allow.

To see what a car costs you to run before tax, read our Suzuki Swift running costs breakdown, which uses this same SARS table as a check on maintenance costs. If your licence disc has lapsed, here's what late renewal costs.

Sources

Checked on 1 November 2026.

• Government Gazette 54228, Notice 7182: Fixing of rate per kilometre in respect of motor vehicles, 27 February 2026 (definition of value, formula, cost scale, 495 cents simplified rate, effective from 1 March 2026)
• SARS, Rate per kilometre schedule, 2027 tax year (PAYE-GEN-01-G03-A01)
• SARS, Rates per kilometre (80% and 20% PAYE rule, fuel and maintenance conditions, pro rata fixed cost, logbook)
• SARS, Travel e-logbook and FAQ: travel between home and work
• SARS, Budget 2026 tax guide (travelling allowance table and R4.95 alternative)

Spotted a change? Tell us and we'll update the table.