IRP5 Calculator

Understanding your IRP5 / IT3(a)

An IRP5 is the tax certificate an employer issues to every employee at the end of the tax year — it summarises the year's income, deductions and tax paid. If no tax was withheld, it's called an IT3(a). SARS uses it to pre-populate your ITR12 annual return.

Key IRP5 source codes

• 3601 — Income (PAYE) — normal salary/wages.
• 3605 — Annual payment — 13th cheque, bonuses.
• 3606 — Commission.
• 3701 — Travel allowance.
• 3801 — General benefits (fringe benefits).
• 3808 — Company car (right of use).
• 3810 — Medical aid contribution (employer).
• 4001 — Pension fund, 4003 — Provident, 4006 — RA (deductions).
• 4102 — PAYE withheld.
• 4141 — UIF total (employee + employer).
• 4142 — SDL paid by employer.
• 4149 — Total tax, UIF and SDL.

When you receive the IRP5

Employers must issue IRP5s within 60 days of the end of the tax year (28 February). If you left during the year, they can issue an interim IRP5 at termination. SARS pulls the same data through the EMP501 reconciliation the employer files by end of May.

How to read the certificate

1. Check your ID, tax number and PAYE reference are correct.
2. Sum the income codes (3601–3606, 3701 etc.) — this should match your gross annual pay.
3. Deduction codes (4001–4006) reduce your taxable income.
4. Code 4102 should roughly equal what this calculator estimates.

What to do if it's wrong

Ask the payroll office to reissue the certificate and file a corrected EMP501. SARS will then update your ITR12 pre-population. Never file with an incorrect IRP5 — the mismatch will trigger a SARS audit.

Worked example: R30,000 a month, age 35, no medical aid

Take an employee earning R30,000 per month for the full 2025/26 tax year with no medical scheme and no retirement fund. Here is how the certificate is built up, line by line:

1. Code 3601 — R360,000. R30,000 × 12 months of normal remuneration.
2. Taxable income — R360,000. No 4001/4003/4006 deductions apply, so gross equals taxable income.
3. Tax before rebates — R73,726. R42,678 on the first R237,100, plus 26% of the R122,900 above it.
4. Less primary rebate — R17,235. Applies to every taxpayer under 65.
5. Code 4102 — R56,491. That is roughly R4,707 of PAYE withheld each month.
6. Code 4141 — R4,250.88. UIF is capped at R17,712 of remuneration, so the employee pays R177.12 and the employer pays R177.12 per month. Code 4141 shows both added together.
7. Code 4142 — R3,600. SDL at 1% of R360,000, paid by the employer only.
8. Code 4149 — R64,341.88. The sum of 4102, 4141 and 4142.

Net pay to the employee is R360,000 − R56,491 − R2,125.44 (their half of UIF) = R301,383.56for the year, or about R25,115 per month. Cross-check the monthly figures with the PAYE calculator and the UIF calculator.

Second example: mid-year increase and a 13th cheque

Real certificates rarely come from one flat salary. Say the same employee earned R30,000 for six months, was increased to R34,000 for the remaining six, and received a R34,000 bonus in December:

• 3601 — R384,000 (R180,000 + R204,000 of normal salary).
• 3605 — R34,000 — the 13th cheque is reported separately as an annual payment.
• 4102 rises to roughly R72,900, because SARS requires the bonus to be spread over the remaining periods rather than taxed in isolation.
• 4141 is unchanged at R4,250.88 — the UIF ceiling was already exceeded every month.
• 4142 — R4,180, since SDL is 1% of total remuneration including the bonus.

This is why an estimate from a single monthly figure will never match a real certificate to the cent. Payroll Africa builds the IRP5 from the actual processed payslip history, so every increase, bonus, back-pay and unpaid-leave month is already reflected.

How the IRP5 fits into the EMP501 reconciliation

An IRP5 is not filed on its own. Employers submit it inside the EMP501 employer reconciliation declaration, which SARS matches against the monthly EMP201 returns already filed and paid. The three numbers that must agree are:

1. The EMP201 PAYE, UIF and SDL declared and paid each month.
2. The payments actually received by SARS for those periods.
3. The total of all IRP5/IT3(a) certificates (codes 4102, 4141 and 4142).

If they do not reconcile, SARS raises the difference as a liability with 10% penalties and interest. The interim submission covers 1 March to 31 August and is due by the end of October; the annual submission covers the full tax year and is due by the end of May. See the IRP5 submission deadline guide and the EMP201 due date guide for the exact 2025/26 dates.

The five most common IRP5 rejection reasons

• Invalid or missing income tax reference number for the employee.
• Directive amounts without a directive number — lump sums under 3901/3907 must carry the SARS directive.
• Code 4141 out of balance — employee-only UIF was captured instead of the combined amount.
• Periods worked / periods in year mismatch for staff who joined or left mid-year.
• Nature of person code wrong — for example a director coded as an ordinary employee.

Every one of these is validated before export in Payroll Africa's IRP5 software, so the file loads into e@syFile first time.