SARS has published its long-awaited VAT modernisation consultation paper, setting out a five-corner e-invoicing model designed to pre-fill VAT returns and eventually auto-assess VAT liability. The detail that will catch most businesses off guard is the timeline.

On the roadmap SARS has published, no vendor is required to do anything until the 2030s. Commissioner Johnstone Makhubu frames it as part of a future where tax simply happens. Comments close on 16 October 2026.

The paper sets out five phases: preparation across 2026/2027, solution development in 2027/2028, quality assurance testing for six months in 2028/2029, a voluntary pilot in 2029/2030, then phased implementation from 2030 running about 36 months. That puts full rollout near 2033.

Under the model, a supplier issues a structured machine-readable invoice, an accredited access point validates and clears it, routes it to the buyer's access point, and both report to a fifth corner acting for SARS. A PDF or a scan does not qualify.

Candidate standards are EN16931 CIUS, the UN/CEFACT Cross-Industry Invoice and Peppol PINT BIS. Three things stay open: who runs the Network Authority, what it costs, and what "near real-time" legally means. Through 2026, e-invoicing vendors and advisory firms have repeatedly put full operational capability at 2028.

TechCentral's Duncan McLeod flags the gap between the published roadmap and the 2028 urgency vendors have been selling, and notes the paper is worth reading before signing a software contract. TechFinancials carried the SARS release positioning the model as reduced compliance effort alongside stronger oversight. Vatcalc is one of the specialist firms that has been targeting full operational capability in 2028.

Two things are true at once here, and the temptation is to pick one. Nobody is forcing you onto structured e-invoicing this decade, so a contract priced on 2028 panic deserves a hard look. But rebuilding finance around continuous validation instead of month-end reconciliation is a multi-year project, and every invoice has to be correct at the moment it is issued rather than fixed in a reconciliation later.

The genuinely unresolved item is cost. SARS says only that it will discuss tiered subscription models with software providers and consider subsidised options. If you are an SMME, that sentence is the whole story, and 16 October is when you get to argue about it.

You might also like our piece on how Fintura's Sage partnership closes the compliance-to-billing loop, what the 2026 draft tax bills change for founders, and why the proposed cross-border crypto ban is another consultation worth commenting on.

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