Customs

Musical instruments’ prohibited and restricted imports and exports list update

On 10 September 2025, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) advised that the “Prohibited and Restricted Imports and Exports List” had been updated with requirements in respect of tariff headings 9201, 9202, 9205, 9206, 9207, 9208, and 9209, which do not require an International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC) import permit.

The requirements are:

  • Prohibited or Restricted: LOA required from NRCS
  • Authority: NRCS Act, 2008
  • Action Required (detain for): National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS)
  • Documentary Requirement: Letter of Authority from NRCS

The tariff headings and their associated tariff subheadings are:

Chapter 92: Musical Instruments; Parts and Accessories of Such Articles

  • 92.01 Pianos, including automatic pianos; harpsichords and other keyboard stringed instruments:
  • 9201.10 Upright pianos    
  • 9201.20 Grand pianos
  • 9201.90 Other
  • 92.02 Other string musical instruments (for example, guitars, violins, harps):         
  • 9202.10 Played with a bow
  • 9202.90 Other
  • 92.05 Wind musical instruments (for example, keyboard pipe organs, accordions, clarinets, trumpets, bagpipes) (excluding fairground organs and mechanical street organs):         
  • 9205.10 Brass-wind instruments
  • 9205.90 Other
  • 9206.00 Percussion musical instruments (for example, drums, xylophones, cymbals, castanets, maracas)
  • 92.07 Musical instruments, the sound of which is produced, or must be amplified, electrically (for example, organs, guitars, accordions):                                 
  • 9207.10 Keyboard instruments (excluding accordions) 
  • 9207.90 Other
  • 92.08 Musical boxes, fairground organs, mechanical street organs, mechanical singing birds, musical saws and other musical instruments not falling within any other heading of this chapter; decoy calls of all kinds; whistles, call horns and other mouth-blown sound signalling instruments:
  • 9208.10 Musical boxes                                  
  • 9208.90 Other                             
  • 92.09 Parts (for example, mechanisms for musical boxes) and accessories (for example, cards, discs and rolls for mechanical instruments) for musical instruments; metronomes, tuning forks and pitch pipes of all kinds:                                     
  • 9209.30 Musical instrument strings     
  • 9209.9 Other:                              
  • 9209.91 Parts and accessories for pianos   
  • 9209.92 Parts and accessories for the musical instruments of heading 92.02
  • 9209.94 Parts and accessories for the musical instruments of heading 92.07
  • 9209.99 Other

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