PAIA Reports Are Due. Charge For Them.
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The annual PAIA reports are due on 30 June 2026. Every Information Officer, Head of a Private Body and Deputy Information Officer must file their PAIA Annual Report with the Information Regulator. If your client is a private company, the CEO or equivalent senior officer (usually the MD or, in a small company, the sole director) is the Head of the Private Body by operation of law. Most don't know it.
What the notice says
The Information Regulator’s formal Notice covers the 2025/2026 financial year and applies to both public and private bodies. Submissions run through the eServices portal at https://eservices.inforegulator.org.za.
Two sections of PAIA do the heavy lifting:
Section 32 covers public bodies. The Information Officer (IO) must file.
Section 83(4) covers private bodies. The Head of the Private Body (HPB) or a delegated Deputy Information Officer (DEO) must file.
You can only submit once the IO, HPB or DIO is registered on the portal. No registration, no submission. No submission, exposure to enforcement action.
Why this is your problem, not just theirs
Every juristic person carrying on a trade, business or profession is a "private body" under PAIA. That covers almost every client on your books, from the panel beater in Booysens to the medical practice in Sandton. The CEO or MD is the Head of the Private Body by operation of law, whether they read the regulations or not. Most won't. Most will only find out when something goes wrong.
You cannot be the Information Officer for your client. The law is clear on that. But you can register them on the portal, you can prepare and file the annual report on their behalf, and you can charge for the work.
As covered in our earlier piece on the BizPortal integration, CIPC and the Information Regulator have made the workflow even easier. You can register Information Officers and submit PAIA Annual Reports directly through BizPortal, alongside POPIA registration. That's a full compliance package, ready to be sold.
What to do this week
Pull a list of every business client where you handle company secretarial work.
Check whether the CEO or MD is registered as an IO on the eServices portal. If not, register them.
Confirm whether the client received any access to information requests during the 2025/2026 year. Most will say no. That's still a report.
Diary 30 June 2026 as a hard deadline.
Send a short email to clients explaining what PAIA is, that the window is open, and what you'll charge to handle it.
This is real billable work. It earns trust, protects clients from regulatory exposure, and adds a recurring line to your fees. The clients are not going to raise it. You have to.
