Diesel Refund Registration Goes Live 18 September 2026
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SARS confirmed that the final phase of the Diesel Refund Registration Programme goes live on Friday, 18 September 2026. This phase introduces the Diesel User Dashboard and completes the end-to-end registration solution.
The core change is simple to state and easy to underestimate. Diesel refund registration moves off the VAT-linked model and onto a dedicated Diesel Refund Registration System on eFiling.
Read that again with a client file in your hand. The refund is no longer something that hangs off a VAT registration. It is its own registration, on its own system, with its own dashboard.
Diesel Refund Users must register on the new system
Existing diesel refund users must register on the new solution, and registration is not automatic. Nothing carries over, not the years of clean claims, not the VAT registration, not the logbooks. Your client is a diesel refund user today and an unregistered party on the new system tomorrow, until somebody does the work. That somebody is usually you.
We first covered the timelines for this system back in January, when the plan was an April 2026 go-live. Then it slipped, as we reported when SARS delayed the Diesel Refund System. Two delays teach practitioners a bad habit. You stop diarising it. This time the date is real and it is this week.
Sellers are in the net too
The new system is built on relationships between buyers and sellers, captured electronically. Diesel sellers must register as sellers. If they do not, diesel refund users cannot create and manage seller relationships with them on the system. A refund user can do everything right on their side and still be stuck because their supplier has not registered.
If you act for a fuel supplier, a wholesaler, or a contractor who onsells diesel, this is your call to make this week. If you act for the buyer, check who they buy from and start asking questions now.
What the dashboard gives you
The Diesel User Dashboard shows applications, registrations and seller relationships in one place.
That is genuinely useful. For the first time you get visibility of where an application sits instead of guessing. Use it as a monitoring tool for every diesel client, not a once-off setup screen.
What SARS wants you to have ready
For diesel refund users and buyers:
A SARS legal entity profile that is valid and confirmed. Fix this first, because a broken profile stops everything behind it.
Business activity information, gathered and accurate.
A list of the sellers you will need to link to, ready to load.
For diesel sellers:
Register as a diesel seller.
Check that your details are correct, because your buyers will be validating relationships against them.
There is a SARS webinar on 18 September
SARS is running a webinar on the implementation phase, and it lands the same day as the release.
Date: Friday, 18 September 2026
Time: 11:00 to 13:00
Platforms: Zoom and YouTube
Zoom registration: Register here
Passcode: 018641
YouTube live stream: Watch here
Zoom seats are limited and allocated first come, first served, so register now rather than at 10:55 on Friday. The session covers the phased implementation, registration requirements for users and sellers, how the electronic seller and user relationships work, what to prepare, and a live question and answer slot. It will be recorded and published on the SARS TV YouTube channel afterwards, so the YouTube stream is the safe fallback if Zoom fills up.
The practical move this week
Pull a list of every client who has claimed a diesel refund in the past 24 months. Farming, forestry, mining, transport, offshore. Split it into buyers and sellers.
For each one, do three things before month end. Confirm the legal entity profile on eFiling is valid. Gather the business activity detail SARS will ask for. Identify the sellers or buyers they need to link to.
Then bill for it. This is a registration project with a hard regulatory driver and a real consequence if it is missed. It is not a favour you do between EMP201 runs. Diesel refund clients are already used to the money involved, and the refund maths changed twice this year as we covered when the diesel levy dropped to zero. They will understand why the registration matters.
The firms that lose here are the ones that assume SARS migrated everybody. SARS said it did not.
👉 Join CIBA and we will show you how to turn compliance deadlines like this one into billable advisory work instead of unpaid admin.
