SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme for Expats: How to Come Clean

If you are a South African living abroad and you have not been filing tax returns with SARS, or you have been filing but leaving out your foreign income, you are not alone. Thousands of South African expats are in the same position. The good news is that SARS has a programme that lets you come forward, fix your tax affairs, and avoid the worst consequences. It is called the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme, or VDP for short.

Here is the basic deal. You tell SARS what you should have been declaring all along. In return, SARS agrees to waive the extra penalties they would normally charge you (which can be massive, up to 200% of the tax you owe) and they agree not to pursue criminal charges against you. You still have to pay the actual tax you owe, plus interest on the late payment, but the penalty savings alone can be worth hundreds of thousands of rands.

This guide explains the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme in plain English. What it is, who can use it, what you get out of it, the exact steps to apply, and the mistakes that can get your application thrown out.

What Is the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme (VDP)?

The VDP is a permanent programme that SARS runs under the Tax Administration Act. “Permanent” means it is always open. There is no deadline to apply and it does not expire. It has been running since October 2012.

Do not confuse it with the old Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme (SVDP) that ran from October 2016 to August 2017. That was a once-off programme specifically for undeclared offshore assets and income. It ended and is no longer available. The current VDP is different. It covers all taxes that SARS administers, including income tax, VAT, employees’ tax (that is PAYE, SDL, and UIF), donations tax, estate duty, and transfer duty. The only exception is customs and excise duties, which have their own separate process.

The reason SARS created the VDP is practical. It costs SARS a lot of time and money to track down every person who has not been paying their taxes correctly. So instead, SARS offers an incentive. If you come forward on your own and tell SARS what you got wrong, SARS will go easier on you than if they had to find out themselves. But the keyword here is “on your own.” If SARS finds you before you come to them, the VDP is no longer available to you.

Why This Matters If You Are a South African Living Abroad

A lot of South Africans move overseas and assume that SARS no longer cares about them. That is not how it works. South Africa uses a system called worldwide taxation. This means that if you are still a South African tax resident (which most expats are, unless they have formally ended their tax residency), SARS expects you to declare all your income from everywhere in the world on your annual tax return. That includes your foreign salary, any rental income, investment returns, interest earned in a foreign bank account, and everything else.

Many expats did not know about this rule, or knew about it but figured SARS would never find out. The problem is that SARS is finding out. South Africa has signed up to something called the Common Reporting Standards (CRS). This is an international agreement where banks and financial institutions in over 100 countries automatically send your account information to your home country’s tax authority every year. So if you have a bank account in the UK, a pension in Australia, or investments in the UAE, the financial institutions in those countries are already sending SARS information about those accounts.

SARS also gets information through the Double Taxation Agreements that South Africa has with dozens of countries. These agreements include provisions that let tax authorities share information with each other.

The bottom line is this. SARS is building a picture of your financial life abroad. If you have not been declaring that income, it is only a matter of time before they come asking. The SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme is your chance to sort it out before that happens.

For a full explanation of what SARS expects from South Africans living abroad, read the complete guide to South African expat tax.

What Relief Does the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme Give You?

A successful SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme application gives you three things. Let’s go through each one.

SARS Will Not Criminally Prosecute You

Not paying your taxes on purpose is a criminal offence in South Africa. If SARS decides that you deliberately hid income or evaded tax, they can refer your case for criminal prosecution, which can lead to a criminal record, fines, and even jail time. Through the VDP, SARS agrees not to do this for the specific defaults you disclose. This alone makes the VDP worth considering, because a criminal record follows you everywhere.

SARS Will Waive Most or All of Your Penalties

This is the big one, and it needs some explaining. When you owe SARS money because you did not declare your income correctly, SARS does not just charge you the tax you owe. They also add an extra penalty on top, called an understatement penalty. Think of it like a fine for getting it wrong.

How big is this fine? It depends on why you got it wrong. SARS looks at your behaviour and classifies it into categories. At the mild end, you might have simply made a genuine mistake or did not take enough care when filling in your return. At the serious end, you might have deliberately tried to evade tax. The worse your behaviour, the bigger the penalty.

Here is a table showing the penalty percentages. The “shortfall” is the difference between the tax you should have paid and the tax you actually paid. The penalty is calculated as a percentage of that shortfall.

Look at the last column. That is what happens if you apply for VDP before SARS contacts you about the problem. For most expat situations (not declaring your foreign salary, not knowing you had to file, not taking enough care), the penalty drops to 0%. Zero. Nothing. Even in the absolute worst case of deliberate tax evasion, the penalty drops from 150% to just 10%.

To put that into real numbers, if you owe SARS R400,000 in unpaid tax and SARS classifies your behaviour as “reasonable care not taken,” the normal penalty would be 25% of R400,000 which is R100,000 extra on top of the tax. With VDP (before SARS contacts you), that penalty drops to R0. That is R100,000 you do not have to pay.

SARS Will Waive Certain Administrative Penalties

On top of understatement penalties, SARS also imposes administrative penalties for general non-compliance. These are separate fixed-amount penalties and percentage-based penalties for unpaid tax. The VDP gives you 100% relief on these as well.

But there is one exception that catches people off guard. Penalties for late submission of tax returns are not covered by VDP relief. If SARS already knew your returns were outstanding (because you were registered for income tax and simply stopped filing), those late submission penalties still apply. The VDP cannot wipe those.

What You Still Have to Pay

The VDP does not make your tax bill disappear. You still owe the actual tax that should have been paid in the first place. You also owe interest on the late payment. Interest starts running from the date the tax was originally due, and it adds up over the years. SARS cannot waive or reduce the interest under the VDP. The Constitutional Court confirmed this in 2025 in a case called Medtronic, where the court ruled that once you sign a VDP agreement with SARS, the interest included in that agreement is final and you cannot challenge it separately.

So to summarise what the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme covers and what it does not.

The Six Requirements for a Valid SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme Application

SARS does not approve every SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme application. Your application has to meet all six of the following requirements. If you fail even one, SARS will reject it.

1. You Must Come Forward on Your Own

This is the most important requirement. The word “voluntary” is right there in the name of the programme. It means you must approach SARS first, before SARS approaches you. If SARS has already contacted you, or started looking into your tax affairs, or sent you any kind of letter or notification about the issue you want to disclose, it is too late. Your application will be treated as “not voluntary” and rejected.

South African courts have been very strict about this. In a 2022 case called Purveyors South Africa Mine Services, the Supreme Court of Appeal threw out a VDP application because the company had spoken to SARS about its tax problem before submitting the VDP form. The court said the company was not genuinely trying to “come clean.” It was trying to avoid paying penalties after SARS had already become aware of the issue.

In another case called Reed, a taxpayer’s VDP was rejected because a SARS auditor had already been checking his tax situation through a routine review of his business, and his accountant knew about it. Even though SARS had not formally started an audit, the court said the fact that SARS was “looking into” his affairs was enough to make the application not voluntary.

What does this mean for you as an expat? Do not wait. Do not wait for a letter from SARS. Do not wait for your accountant to tell you SARS is asking questions. And critically, do not contact SARS to “ask about” your situation before applying. If you tell SARS about your problem in an informal way before submitting the VDP form, SARS now knows about it, and your application may no longer count as voluntary.

2. You Must Not Have Made a Similar Disclosure in the Past Five Years

If you have already used the VDP to disclose a similar problem in the last five years, you cannot use it again for the same type of issue. “Similar” does not mean exactly the same. It means the same kind of problem. For example, if you used VDP three years ago to disclose foreign salary income you had not declared, and now you want to disclose more undeclared foreign salary income from later years, SARS will treat that as a similar default and reject the new application.

The five-year period is counted from the date you made the previous disclosure. It does not matter whether that previous application was accepted or rejected.

3. Your Disclosure Must Be Full and Complete

You cannot pick and choose what to tell SARS. If you are going to use the VDP, you must disclose everything related to your default. That means every year you got it wrong, every type of income you left out, and every tax type that is affected. If SARS later discovers that you left out something important on purpose, they can take back all the VDP relief they gave you, charge you the full penalties after all, and pursue criminal prosecution.

If you do not have all your records anymore (which is common when you left South Africa years ago and did not keep your foreign payslips or bank statements), SARS will accept reasonable estimates. But you need to explain clearly what is an estimate and what is based on actual records, and provide whatever supporting documents you do have.

4. Your Default Must Involve a Tax Understatement

The VDP is designed for situations where you understated your income or overstated your deductions, and as a result you paid less tax than you should have. This is called an “understatement.” In practical terms, almost every expat who has not been declaring foreign income meets this requirement, because leaving out your foreign salary means you understated your income.

5. The Disclosure Must Not Result in SARS Owing You Money

If correcting all the defaults across all the affected tax years would result in SARS having to pay you a refund, then the VDP does not apply. This situation is uncommon for expats (because the typical case is that you owe SARS, not the other way around), but it is worth knowing about.

6. You Must Use the Official VDP01 Form on eFiling

You cannot apply for VDP by sending an email to SARS, calling them on the phone, or writing a letter. You must use the official application form, called the VDP01, and submit it through SARS eFiling (SARS’s online platform). To do this, you need to be registered on eFiling. If you do not have internet access, you can visit a SARS branch in person and they will fill in the form on your behalf.

How to Apply for the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme: Step by Step

Step 1: Gather Your Documents First

Before you start the application, get everything together. Here is what you will need.

Your foreign employment contracts for each year you worked abroad. Your payslips or salary statements showing what you earned. Your bank statements showing income going into your accounts. Tax certificates or summaries from the country where you worked (for example, a P60 from HMRC if you worked in the UK, or a Payment Summary from the ATO if you worked in Australia). If you earned any income in South Africa during those years (like rental income from a property you still own, or interest from a South African bank account), you need records of that too. You also need your travel records showing the dates you entered and left South Africa, because these dates determine whether you qualify for the R1.25 million foreign income exemption and whether you meet the 183-day and 60-continuous-day tests.

One important point. You need to go back to the first year things went wrong. If you stopped filing in 2020, you need documents from 2020 onwards. You cannot just fix the last two years and ignore the earlier ones. SARS requires your disclosure to cover every year where there was a default.

Step 2: Make Sure You Are Registered on SARS eFiling

Go to the SARS eFiling website and log in. If you do not have an eFiling account, you need to register for one. If you are using a tax practitioner (an accountant or tax specialist who will submit the application for you), they also need to be registered on eFiling and their profile must be linked to your tax number.

Step 3: Fill In the VDP01 Form

Once you are logged into eFiling, click on “Returns” in the main menu. Then click “Voluntary Disclosure” on the left side. Then click “New Application.”

The system will ask you two things. First, whether you are a registered taxpayer or whether you want to apply anonymously. Second, which tax types your disclosure is about (income tax, employees’ tax, VAT, or other).

The form then asks for your details, a description of the default (what went wrong, which years are affected, how much money is involved), and the reasons for the default (why it happened). Be as thorough as possible. Write a detailed description. Include the amounts for each year. The more complete and honest your application is, the better your chances of approval.

Step 4: Upload Your Supporting Documents

After you submit the VDP01 form, go to the Voluntary Disclosure Work Page on eFiling and click “Add Supporting Documents.” Upload everything you gathered in Step 1, plus a detailed written explanation of the default. Include a year-by-year schedule showing the income you did not declare and the tax calculations for each year.

Supporting documents are not technically required by law, but SARS strongly prefers them. An application with proper documentation is much more likely to be approved than one without.

Step 5: Wait for SARS

After you submit, your application goes into a queue called the VDP register. You do not need to call SARS to check if they received it. If eFiling accepted the submission, it is on the register.

SARS will contact you when your application is assigned to a VDP evaluator (the person who reviews your case). They may ask for more information or documents. If they do, you must respond within the deadline they give you. If you need more time, contact the VDP Unit before the deadline to ask for an extension.

You can check the status of your application at any time by going to eFiling and clicking on the “History” tab under Voluntary Disclosure.

Step 6: Sign the VDP Agreement

If SARS approves your application, they will send you a document called a voluntary disclosure agreement. This is a formal contract between you and SARS. It sets out exactly what was wrong (the defaults you disclosed), exactly how much you owe (the tax, interest, and any reduced penalties), and when you need to pay.

Before you sign, you can ask SARS for payment terms if you cannot pay the full amount at once. For example, you could ask to pay in monthly instalments. But you must request this before the agreement is finalised. Once you sign the VDP agreement, it is a done deal. You cannot appeal it, object to it, or ask for changes afterwards.

Read the agreement carefully before you sign it.

Common Reasons SARS Rejects Voluntary Disclosure Programme Applications

SARS Already Knew Your Returns Were Outstanding

This is the most common trap for expats. If you were registered for income tax in South Africa and you simply stopped filing your returns, SARS already knows those returns are missing. Their system shows them as “outstanding.” Because SARS already knows about the problem, you cannot “disclose” it through VDP. You cannot disclose something that is not a secret.

In this situation, you need to file those outstanding returns through the normal SARS process (not through VDP) and pay the late submission penalties that come with them.

The VDP is for defaults SARS does not know about. The classic example is where you filed your tax returns every year, but you left out your foreign salary. SARS received your returns and they looked complete, but they were not. The undeclared foreign income is the kind of default that qualifies for VDP, because SARS had no way of knowing you were leaving it out.

You Spoke to SARS About It Before Applying

As explained earlier, if you contacted SARS to ask about your situation before submitting your VDP application, SARS may consider your application to be “not voluntary.” The courts have been clear about this. Do not call SARS to “check” what you owe. Do not email them asking for advice on your situation. Prepare your application properly and submit it through the official process.

You Left Something Out

If your disclosure is not “full and complete in all material respects,” SARS will either reject it outright or, even worse, approve it first and then withdraw the relief later when they discover the omission. If that happens, you lose everything. The penalties come back, the criminal prosecution protection disappears, and any money you already paid is just treated as a partial payment toward a larger bill.

The VDP01 Form Was Not Filled In Properly

SARS will throw out incomplete VDP01 forms without telling you. If you forgot to describe the default, left out the relevant tax amounts, or submitted the application for returns that SARS already knew were outstanding, the application is simply discarded. There is no second chance notification. Make sure every section is completed before you click submit.

Can You Apply for the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme During an Audit?

If SARS has sent you a Notification of Audit letter, your VDP application for any default related to that audit will generally be rejected. SARS will say the disclosure is not voluntary because they were already investigating.

However, there are two situations where you may still qualify.

The first is if the default you want to disclose through VDP is completely unrelated to what SARS is auditing. For example, SARS is auditing your 2024 tax return to check your rental income, but you want to disclose undeclared foreign salary from 2025. Different year, different income type, not connected to the audit. That application can still go through.

The second is a special exception where a senior official at SARS decides that even though the audit relates to your default, SARS would not have found the default during the audit anyway, and it is in the interest of good tax administration to allow the VDP. This is entirely at SARS’s discretion. You cannot demand it.

One more thing worth knowing. There is a difference between an audit and a verification. SARS regularly selects tax returns for “verification,” which is a lighter process than a full audit. Being selected for verification does not automatically disqualify you from VDP. However, if you only realised you had a problem because SARS sent you a verification request, then the disclosure is not truly “voluntary” and SARS may reject it on that basis.

Can Someone Else Apply for You?

Yes. A tax practitioner (such as an accountant, tax advisor, or attorney) can submit a VDP application on your behalf. Both you and the tax practitioner must be registered on eFiling, and the practitioner must be linked to your tax profile.

For expats with multiple years of non-compliance, using a qualified tax practitioner for a SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme application is strongly recommended. The calculations involved can be complicated. You may need to work out the foreign income exemption for each year, claim foreign tax credits (to avoid paying tax twice on the same income), confirm your tax residency status for each year, and potentially deal with the exit tax if you formally ended your tax residency during the relevant period. Getting any of these wrong could sink your application.

There is also an option to request a non-binding private opinion from SARS before committing to a full VDP application. This lets you describe your situation and ask SARS whether you would likely qualify for VDP relief, without actually making a formal disclosure. You can do this anonymously through the VDP01 form, so SARS does not know who you are until you decide to proceed.

What Happens After the Voluntary Disclosure Programme Agreement Is Signed

Once both you and SARS sign the VDP agreement, SARS will raise tax assessments based on the agreement. Think of an assessment as SARS’s official statement of what you owe. The assessment will show the additional income that should have been declared, the tax on it, the interest, and any reduced penalties.

You must pay on the dates set out in the agreement. If you agreed to pay in instalments, make every instalment on time. If you miss a payment or break any other important term of the agreement, SARS can cancel the entire agreement. If that happens, the penalty relief disappears, the criminal prosecution protection goes away, and you are back to square one but worse, because SARS now has all the information you gave them.

It is also important to know that a VDP agreement does not protect you from future audits. SARS can still select you for an audit or verification on any tax year, including the years covered by the VDP. The agreement only covers the specific defaults you disclosed. If SARS finds something else that you did not include in your VDP application, that is dealt with through the normal process and full penalties apply.

What If Your Voluntary Disclosure Programme Submission Turns Out to Be Incomplete

If SARS discovers after signing the agreement that you left out something important (something “material,” in legal language), they can pull the rug out from under you. A senior SARS official can withdraw all the VDP relief, treat the money you already paid as just a partial payment toward a bigger debt, and pursue criminal charges. This is why it is so critical to be thorough and include absolutely everything in your disclosure, even if you are not 100% sure it is relevant.

If you genuinely discover an additional problem after your VDP is concluded, contact the VDP Unit immediately at vdp@sars.gov.za or 0800 864 613 for guidance on how to handle it.

Practical Tips for Expats Applying for the Voluntary Disclosure Programme

Do not wait. Every month you delay, more interest is accumulating on the tax you owe. And every month that passes, there is a greater chance that SARS’s data matching systems (fed by CRS information from banks around the world) will flag your name. Once SARS starts looking at you, the SARS Voluntary Disclosure Programme window may close.

Do not contact SARS before you apply. This cannot be stressed enough. Do not call SARS, do not email them, do not visit a branch to “just ask a question” about your foreign income situation. The moment SARS knows about your default, your application may no longer count as voluntary. Get professional help, prepare your application, and submit it.

Work out your tax residency first. Before you calculate anything, you need to know whether you were a South African tax resident in each of the years you are disclosing. If you ceased your tax residency at some point, SARS can only tax you on income from South African sources after that date. Your VDP should only cover the years where you were still a tax resident and had to declare worldwide income. The tax residency test explains how SARS decides whether you are a resident or not.

Your tax bill might be smaller than you think. Many expats panic because they think they owe tax on their entire foreign salary. In most cases, that is not true. The R1.25 million foreign income exemption means the first R1.25 million of qualifying foreign employment income can be tax-free. On top of that, if you paid tax in the country where you worked, you can claim a foreign tax credit that reduces your South African tax bill by the amount you already paid overseas. For expats working in countries with higher tax rates than South Africa (like the UK, Australia, or most of Europe), the foreign tax credit often wipes out the remaining South African tax completely.

Get your documents ready early. SARS can ask for supporting documents at any stage during the evaluation. They will give you a deadline to respond, and missing that deadline is a bad idea. Having everything organised from the start makes the whole process smoother and shows SARS you are acting in good faith.

If you have already left South Africa and need to sort out your overall tax position, the leaving South Africa tax guide walks through the full checklist.

How to Contact the VDP Unit

If you need to get in touch with the SARS team that handles VDP applications, here are the contact details.