CIPC Notice Provides 10 Days to Rectify BO Non-compliance

16 Sept

Written By Eszter Rapanos, Quality Assurance, Public Sector and Publication Manager, Chartered Institute for Business Accountants (CIBA)

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Customer Notice 44 of 2026 issued on 10 September 2026, republishes Customer Notice 4 of 2025 on beneficial ownership and annual filing non-compliance.

The message is a reminder, not a new rule. Every company and close corporation must file and keep accurate beneficial ownership (BO) information. CIPC says non-compliance is still stubbornly high, and it singles out public companies as the worst offenders.

The part that bites

CIPC will keep publishing the list of non-compliant entities on its website and across all its social media platforms. The current list is the file "BO Non-Compliant Businesses A to Z" on the CIPC site.

If an entity stays non-compliant within 10 business days after the list is published, CIPC will issue a compliance notice under section 171 of the Companies Act.

That is the deadline. It is not the date your client's annual return is due. It runs from the publication of the list.

The annual return rule, restated

The notice also repeats the amended Regulation 30(3), read with section 33 of the Companies Act. A company must file its annual return with the Commission, together with a copy of its securities register as required by section 50, within 30 business days after the anniversary of its date of incorporation. For a domesticated company, the clock runs from the date registration was transferred to South Africa.

So the securities register copy now travels with the annual return. If you have been filing the return on its own, fix that this filing season.

Dormant does not mean exempt

CIPC is blunt on this one. BO information must be filed and updated annually whether the entity is trading, dormant, inactive or doing nothing at all. Compliance is a legal obligation attached to registration, not to activity.

Entities that ignore it face enforcement action and, eventually, deregistration.

What to do this week

Pull the CIPC non-compliant list and search it for every client you act for. Do it before a client forwards you a screenshot.
For any hit, file the BO declaration immediately. Remember the hard stop: no BO declaration, no annual return.
Check dormant and shelf companies on your books. They are the ones that quietly slip.
Confirm the securities register copy is attached to every annual return you submit.
Bill for it. As we set out in Beneficial Ownership: CIPC Answers the Hard Questions, the filing is annual, mandatory, blocks the annual return, and most clients cannot do it themselves. That is a service, not a favour.

Step by step BO filing guides are published under the Beneficial Ownership section on the CIPC website.

👉 Join CIBA and we'll show you how to turn CIPC compliance work into a billable annual service.