CIPC wants the living people behind the shares, not just the names on the certificate. Get it wrong and you cannot file your annual return at all — the system simply blocks you. Work out which kind of company you are, then generate exactly what CIPC asks for.
Beneficial ownership is not a form you can quietly leave for next year. Since April 2024 CIPC has wired it directly into the annual return process, and in 2026 it started inspecting the answers rather than just collecting them.
CIPC asks for completely different things depending on which kind of company you are. Most rejections start here — with someone picking the wrong category on the very first screen.
You file a beneficial interest register whether or not you have anything to declare. Three uploads, no owners captured on screen, and no certificate at the end.
The longest route. Every beneficial owner captured individually, and certified ID copies needed for all of them — not just the person filing.
CIPC's Optimised route — and where most one-owner companies belong. Nothing is uploaded at all: you type your register straight into the screen and you are finished.
The catch is that a perfectly ordinary (Pty) Ltd can become an affected company without anyone noticing — usually by selling more than 10% of its shares to an outsider in the last two years. The free tool walks you through that test properly, including the related-person exclusion that most people get wrong.
It also gets the common case right. If you are the sole director and sole shareholder of your own company, CIPC treats that as having no beneficial ownership to declare — the ownership questions are hunting for someone standing behind the register, not for you holding your own shares in your own name. Read literally, those questions send almost every one-owner company down the wrong route.
Do it yourself with professional-grade documents, or hand the whole thing to a practising Professional Accountant (SA) who files it for you.
DIY document generator
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Everything you need to file it yourself, generated in your browser
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A Professional Accountant (SA) acts as your mandated filer and submits the whole pack
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The done-for-you service is delivered by a practising Professional Accountant (SA) and Professional Tax Practitioner (SA) who files these declarations for real South African companies — the same professional behind the whole SMMEComplyZA suite. Classification confirmed, documents prepared, filing lodged, queries handled.
Tick anything that is true of your company. Tick none of them and you are non-affected.