Standard regulations for shipments to South Africa (SARS)

Orders to South Africa must be sent with the personal identification details for the recipient. A Tax ID or simply just a unique number every citizen is required by the SARS to confirm it is referring to the recipient (you). If you do not have a Tax ID, you may also provide us with your personal ID rather than a tax ID, so customs an check the reicipients details to successfully undergo customs clearance.

Failing to provide this information will result in your item returned or held by South African customs causing inconvenience or long delays and may prevent the item arriving safely. 

What is the Unique ID Reference? 

A South African personal identification number is 13 digits long containing only numeric characters, with no white space, punctuation or alpha characters.

It is defined as YYMMDDSSSSCAZ:

YYMMDD represents the date of birth (DoB);

•  SSSS is a sequence number registered with the same birth date (where females are assigned sequential numbers in the range 0000 to 4999 and males from 5000 to 9999);

•  C is the citizenship with 0 if the person is an SA citizen, 1 if the person is a permanent resident;

•  A is 8 or 9. Prior to 1994, this number was used to indicate the holder's race;

•  Z is a checksum digit. 

Using ID Number 8001015009087 as an example, it would read as follows:

The ID indicates that a male citizen was born on 1 January 1980; he was the 10th male to be registered (assuming that the first male to be registered on that day would be assigned the sequence number 5000).

If the recipient is not an SA resident their national insurance number or alternatively their passport number will be required.