On 16 February 2024, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced that the internal policy and the external policy for inbound and outbound duty and tax-free shops had been updated to align with Section 38 (1)(a) of the Customs and Excise Act, 1974. The Section specifies that goods entered or cleared may be placed under a Customs warehouse regime, for purposes of being sold in a facility known as a duty- and tax-free shop.
The ‘Purpose’ reads:
(a) The purpose of this document is to explain the requirements, namely:
(i) A duty- and tax-free shop for the sale of goods to Inbound and Outbound travellers is a licensed facility, in terms of Section 21(1) of the Act, 1964 situated at approved international airports.
(ii) The facility operates under the warehousing regime with specific accounting as well as record-keeping principles to govern all goods on hand and removed to the retail outlet for sale.
(iii) Goods sold in these facilities are sold at a price that does not include any duty leviable in terms of the Act or any value-added tax leviable in terms of the Value-added Tax Act,1991.
The Policies are accessible at:
www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Ops/Policies/SC-CW-01-07-Inbound-and-Outbound-Duty-and-Tax-Free-Shops-External-Policy.pdf