South Africans have stopped paying their TV licences – but a new tax could change that

Posted on 10th Feb 2022

An analysis of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC’s) annual reports over the last four years shows that South Africans have steadily stopped paying their TV licences.

This figure is tracked annually as an ‘evasion rate’ – the estimated number of TV licence holders in South Africa who are reported to make use of a television set but have not paid their annual licence fee.

The TV licence evasion rate stands at 82.1% in 2021 – indicating that the vast majority of South Africans are not paying their licence fees.

Notably, this is up from 80.6% in 2020, and is a significant increase from the evasion rate of 69% in 2019.

This jump can be partially attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic which directly impacted collection processes and the ability of many South Africans to pay annual licence fees. However, the data also shows a clear trend of fewer people paying for their TV licences.

“The current depressed economic environment resulted in a lower collection than anticipated,” the national broadcaster said in its 2021/2022 annual report.

“While there is current legislative prescripts of imprisonment and payment of fines for non-compliance, the limited resources and costs required to make this at present uneconomically viable.”

Under current regulations, first-time applicants for a television licence must pay the full annual fee of R265. Renewals must then be made annually before the licence expires, with users given the option of paying R264 each year or R28 in monthly instalments.

By: Business Tech