CIPC charges R125 to register a private company, or R175 if you reserve a name first, and its published service standard for an electronic registration is one working day. Those are CIPC's own figures. A provider who hides them, or presents its own fee as the government charge, is telling you something about how it will behave later. You can do this yourself, on BizPortal or CIPC e-services.
What that R175 buys is narrower than most founders assume: a registration certificate and a standard Memorandum of Incorporation. The rest is what breaks later, when a bank, a client or a tender asks for a document nobody prepared.
The statutory fees, and what they cover
CIPC's published company fees include:
- Name reservation (CoR9.1): R50 electronic, R75 manual
- Name reservation extension (CoR9.2): R30 electronic, for a further 60 business days
- Incorporation with a standard MOI (forms CoR15.1A, B and C): R175, subject to the allowed reduction, which credits a name reservation fee already paid
- Amendment of the MOI (CoR15.2): R80 for minor amendments, R250 for any other amendment
- Re-instatement of a deregistered company (CoR40.5): R200
With that credit applied, CIPC's published cost is R125 for a company registered without a name and R175 for one with a reserved name.
Not included at any price: a securities register, share certificates, a shareholders agreement, SARS eFiling access, a beneficial ownership filing, or annual return fees in later years. Legalyze's published prices likewise exclude statutory third-party fees unless a quote says otherwise, so check any quote for that line.
Name reservation is a strategy, not a form
You may apply for up to four alternative names in one application, in order of preference, and CIPC's service standard is one working day. A confirmed reservation is valid for six months, extendable by 60 business days at a time for R30. CIPC accepts an extension only in the final month before expiry, which catches people who diarise it early, and a lapsed reservation cannot be extended.
Two traps here.
First, a reservation is not a clearance. CIPC states that preliminary searches by applicants, including trade mark or internet searches, do not guarantee that a name will satisfy the statutory criteria or be approved, and that reliance may be placed only on its written confirmation, the CoR9.4. Nor is approval the end of it. Under section 160 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008, anyone with an interest in the name may ask the Companies Tribunal whether it satisfies section 11, within three months of a notice where one was received and otherwise at any time on good cause shown. No filing on your side determines how such a dispute is decided.
Second, you can skip the name entirely. A for-profit company may be registered with or without one, and where it registers without one, the registration number becomes the company name with "(South Africa)" as the suffix. That is fine if you will trade under a separate business name, and a poor choice if you are about to print letterheads.
The MOI decision you make by default
Register on an electronic channel and you get the short standard MOI, form CoR15.1A. It is the company's constitutional document, not a formality, and for a single-owner or equal-partners business it is usually adequate.
It stops being adequate when founders are not equal, when someone is investing cash rather than time, or when you want to settle now what happens if a shareholder leaves, dies or wants out. A private company may instead use the long standard form CoR15.1B, or a customised MOI, which CIPC says lets shareholders impose certain conditions or waive certain requirements, such as an audit requirement. The catch: CIPC states a customised MOI can only be registered manually, at five days from date of tracking against one working day electronically, and notes it may need a legally qualified person or someone with company secretarial knowledge.
Deciding this before you file is cheap. Afterwards it means a CoR15.2 amendment, and usually renegotiating with a co-founder who already holds shares.
The securities register: the record nobody makes
Incorporation gives you a registration number, a certificate and an MOI fixing your authorised shares. It does not produce the record of who holds what. Section 24(4)(a) of the Companies Act requires every profit company to maintain a securities register as required by section 50, and Regulation 32 of the Companies Regulations 2011 prescribes its contents: each class of authorised securities, the number issued and still available to issue, the holders with their identifying numbers and addresses, the date of each issue or transfer, and the consideration set by the board. Since the 2023 amendment to Regulation 32(3) it must also record the company's beneficial owners.
Founders who self-register rarely do this, because nothing in the online flow asks for it. Then three things happen at once. A bank asks for proof of ownership during FICA. An investor or client asks for share certificates. And CIPC's beneficial ownership filing asks for the securities register itself. The register then gets reconstructed from memory, which is exactly when disagreements about who owns what surface.
Separate authorised from issued shares while you are at it: authorising more than you issue leaves room to bring someone in later without restructuring.
Beneficial ownership: ten business days, and it blocks everything downstream
This is the obligation self-registrants miss most often. Under the Companies Act as amended by the General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing) Amendment Act 22 of 2022, newly incorporated entities must file beneficial ownership information within 10 business days of incorporation, and amended declarations within 10 business days of any change. The requirement took effect on 24 May 2023.
What CIPC asks for:
- The beneficial owners, established by asking whether anyone holds securities for another natural person's benefit, exercises or controls more than 5% of the voting rights, may appoint and remove directors, or can materially influence management
- A mandate, as a letter, resolution or power of attorney on the company's letterhead, instructing a named natural person to file, signed by 50% plus one of the directors
- Certified ID copies of the filer and the captured beneficial owners. Under Practice Note 2 of 2022 certification may not be older than three calendar months, one ID or passport per page, both sides of an SA ID card on one page
- The securities register, or a beneficial interest register for affected companies
Since July 2024 the declaration must also accompany the annual return, whether or not anything has changed, and CIPC will not let the return complete without it. Miss it and the return is blocked, which starts the deregistration clock.
SARS: the number arrives, the access does not
SARS says a CIPC-registered company needs no separate income tax registration, because it is registered automatically through a direct interface with CIPC. Many founders stop there, assuming they are registered with SARS in a useful sense.
They are not, because they cannot transact. You still have to register the company on eFiling and activate a registered representative, the person SARS recognises as acting for the entity, usually the public officer. SARS asks for that person's ID or passport, proof of residential address, the registration documents, and an appointment letter or power of attorney. One exception: no appointment letter is needed where the founding documents show a single director and that same director is being activated.
Treat the public officer as due at formation. The Tax Administration Laws Amendment Act 43 of 2024, in operation from 24 December 2024, removed the one-month window in section 246 of the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 for appointing one. Treasury's reasoning was that, since companies are registered for income tax automatically on formation, a new company should have its directors and public officer in place from the start. Until the representative is active, nobody can file a return, request a tax compliance status PIN or fix an error.
B-BBEE: free, and often bought unnecessarily
An enterprise with an annual turnover of R10 million or less is an exempted micro enterprise. CIPC issues B-BBEE certificates for EMEs electronically at no cost, valid for 12 months, through CIPC e-services, BizPortal and self-service terminals. Where a business cannot apply digitally, a B-BBEE affidavit signed and stamped by a Commissioner of Oaths serves as a valid certificate, since EMEs need no further verification. If anyone quotes a fee for one as a government charge, ask questions.
Annual returns start counting from day one
Section 33 of the Companies Act, read with Regulation 30, requires an annual return every year, active or dormant, and CIPC allows 30 business days from the anniversary date before treating the company as non-compliant. Returns can only be filed electronically. CIPC's published fee table:
| Annual turnover | Within 30 business days | Later |
|---|---|---|
| Less than R1 million | R100 | R150 |
| R1 million but less than R10 million | R450 | R600 |
| R10 million but less than R25 million | R2 000 | R2 500 |
| R25 million or more | R3 000 | R4 000 |
The latest beneficial ownership declaration and either annual financial statements or a financial accountability supplement must be filed with the return. CIPC automatically triggers deregistration when two or more successive returns are outstanding, and notifies companies only by email, using the contact details on its records, so a company with outdated details never receives the notice. Deregistration withdraws the company's juristic personality. Re-instatement is a CoR40.5 application at R200, plus every outstanding return.
What to do next
Self-registration usually suits a sole founder trading under the registered name, with no investors and no tender ambitions. Three dates are then worth diarising: the beneficial ownership filing at 10 business days, the eFiling representative activation, and the first annual return.
Support tends to earn its cost where there is more than one founder, where money is going in on different terms, where a bank or tender deadline drives the timeline, or where you would rather not learn Regulation 32 from a rejection notice. Legalyze's Standard registration is R880 and covers name reservation, the CIPC certificate, the income tax number and B-BBEE EME affidavit guidance. Premium at R1,990 adds share certificates and the beneficial ownership filing. For a company already registered but missing its records, Share Certificates and Statutory Registers starts at R950, and the annual return plus beneficial ownership package is R1,490. The Tender-Ready Company Package at R3,890 sequences CIPC, SARS and Central Supplier Database registration in the order those systems require. Statutory fees are separate from these prices.
Legalyze provides administrative support rather than legal representation, and reserved legal work, such as a negotiated shareholders agreement or a contested name dispute, is referred to an admitted practitioner.
This is general information about company registration in South Africa and not advice on your particular circumstances.