SARS Cuts Wheat Duty To Free, Tightens Customs Rules
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Your milling client phones on the Thursday. The wheat duty is gone. Do they reprice now, or wait for the gazette?
That question came out of a busy week. Between 5 and 11 August 2026, SARS published a duty cut on a staple food, a set of rule amendments touching four different licence types, a draft that changes accreditation, and a data-sharing arrangement with Malawi.
The wheat duty falls away
On 5 August SARS published a tariff amendment notice reducing the customs duty on wheat (tariff subheadings 1001.91 and 1001.99) and wheaten flour (1101.00.10, 1101.00.20, 1101.00.30 and 1101.00.90) to free of duty. The rates were 15.37c/kg on wheat and 23.05c/kg on flour. The cut is not a policy decision taken this month, it is the existing variable tariff formula doing its work off the international reference price.
Duty rates change on the date the notice is gazetted, not the date SARS announces it. SARS said publication details for the wheat notice would follow later, so until the gazette number appears, the old rates still apply and an entry cleared a day early still carries duty. On 6 August SARS confirmed the publication details for a separate tariff notice, R7794, in Government Gazette 55153. That is the implementation date.
Rules Amendment Notice - Four licence types, one notice
Rules amendments notice R7777 was issued in Government Gazette 55151 on 7 August. SARS describes the changes as miscellaneous, and they sit in the rules under sections 54F, 64B, 64D, 64E, 64G and 120. Those sections cover clearing agent licences, the licensing of a remover of goods in bond, accredited client status and degrouping depots. If a client holds any of those licences, the paperwork and security arrangements behind it may have shifted.
Accreditation is open for comment until 21 August
Also on 7 August, SARS released draft amendments to the rules under sections 64E and 120, dealing with accreditation. Comment closes on 21 August 2026.
Accredited client status is worth real money to an importer: faster release, fewer stops, deferred payment terms. A change to the criteria is a change to a client's working capital. This is one of the few weeks in the year where a small practice can put a client's operational reality in front of SARS at no cost. As we covered in SARS Customs Tariff Updates: Key Import Changes for July 2026, most of the recent tariff movement has gone the other way, upwards, so accreditation benefits are getting more valuable, not less.
Malawi now sees the same declaration you do
SARS published its arrangement with the Malawi Revenue Authority for the automatic exchange of customs information. Declarations lodged on the Malawian side can be matched against declarations lodged here. Any client who runs different numbers in each direction should assume the two sets will meet.
The weekly list of unentered goods followed on 11 August. Goods taken into a state warehouse get disposed of under the Act if nobody enters them, which is a slow and expensive way for a client to lose a container.
What to do this week
Pull your client list and ask three questions.
Who imports wheat or flour, and do they know the rate changes on gazetting and not on announcement?
Who holds a clearing agent, bond remover, degrouping depot or accreditation licence, and have they read R7777?
Who trades with Malawi?
Then send the accreditation draft to any accredited importer with a note asking what it costs them in practice. That note is a comment, and it is also a piece of advisory work you can bill for. Registration and documentary requirements also keep moving, as we noted in SARS Customs Updates.
