Doing Business in South Africa 2026: Setup, Tax, B-BBEE, Visas & the Top 10 Opportunities

Section 7B-BBEE and transformation

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment is South Africa’s statutory transformation framework and, for most investors, the regulatory feature that most needs early engineering. It is not a licence requirement for doing business — a company may trade with any B-BBEE status or none — but it is scored, and the score is priced into the market: state procurement, licensing in regulated sectors (mining, telecoms, financial services, gambling, energy procurement), and the supply chains of large corporates all reward or require recognised status.

How the scorecard works

The generic Codes of Good Practice score five elements — ownership (black shareholding, with 25%+1 the benchmark target), management control, skills development, enterprise and supplier development, and socio-economic development — into levels 1 (best) to 8.

Sector codes — the mining charter, financial sector, ICT and others — override the generic codes where they apply.

Options for foreign investors

• Equity partnership — sell or issue a stake to black investors or an employee or community trust. The most direct route, and often commercially additive when the partner brings market access.
• Broad-based and employee ownership schemes — ESOPs and trusts count toward ownership and align labour; increasingly the mainstream structure in new deals.
• Equity-equivalent investment programmes (EEIPs) — multinationals whose global policy prevents local equity dilution can apply to the dtic to earn ownership points through approved local investment programmes instead. Several major technology and industrial multinationals operate under approved EEIPs.
• Compete on the other elements — a firm can reach useful levels through supplier development, skills spend and management diversity even with modest ownership points, depending on its customer base’s requirements.

Section 8Employing people

• The framework: the Basic Conditions of Employment Act sets floors (45-hour week, leave, notice), the Labour Relations Act governs dismissal fairness, unions and the CCMA dispute system, and sectoral determinations and bargaining councils bind specific industries. Dismissal requires both a fair reason and a fair process — budget management time for this reality.
• The national minimum wage is R30.23 per ordinary hour from 1 March 2026, up 5% from R28.79, applying equally to farm and domestic workers. Expanded Public Works Programme workers are on a separate rate of R16.62. Contract cleaning and wholesale/retail carry their own sectoral minima.
• On-costs: UIF (1% employee + 1% employer), Skills Development Levy (1% of payroll above threshold), COIDA cover, and PAYE administration. There is no general mandatory private pension, though retirement funding is standard practice in formal employment.
• Employment equity: designated employers face the Employment Equity Amendment framework, with five-year sectoral numerical targets in force since January 2025 and compliance certificates now linked to state contracting.

Section 8.1Bringing in foreign talent

Immigration has moved from South Africa’s most criticised business process to one of its most visibly reformed.