Two provinces have more taxpayers than the rest of South Africa put together

Gauteng and the Western Cape have more registered taxpayers than the seven other provinces in South Africa put together.

This was revealed in the National Treasury’s and the South African Revenue Service’s (SARS’s) 2025 Tax Statistics.

The 2025 edition reviews tax revenue collection and tax return information for the 2021 to 2024 tax years, as well as for the 2020/21 to 2024/25 fiscal years.

Tax collections have increased from R113.8 billion in 1994/95 to R1,855.3 billion in 2024/25, at a compounded annual growth rate of 9.8%.

Personal income tax remains the largest contributor to tax revenue, accounting for 39.5% of total tax revenue.

The report revealed that by 31 March 2024, the personal income tax register had grown annually by 4.3% to 27.1 million individuals.

The number of individuals expected to submit income tax returns was 7.7 million for the 2024 tax year.

It further showed that 2.9 million of assessed taxpayers were registered in Gauteng, accounting for 38% of all registered taxpayers.

36% of assessed taxpayers in Gauteng lived in the Johannesburg Metro and had an average taxable income of R480,318.

The Western Cape recorded 1.3 million registered taxpayers, accounting for 17% of the country’s total.

What is striking is that Gauteng and the Western Cape account for 55% of South Africa’s total taxpayer base. SARS collected a combined R351 billion in personal income tax from these two provinces.

This is significantly higher than the R212 billion collected in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, the Free State, and the Northern Cape.

This shows why these two provinces are crucial to the country’s financial well-being and support the rest of South Africa.

The chart below shows the number of assessed individual taxpayers and the tax assessed by province.