Last updated on 19 October 2026.
This is a living article. It carries only DATED obligations: things with a deadline you can put in a diary. Instruments that are still in motion, with no fixed date, live in the companion article "In Progress Now". When a draft acquires a date, it moves here.
In brief
Most compliance failures are not decisions. They are dates that passed while nobody was looking. This page carries every dated South African occupational health and safety obligation we are currently tracking, what happens if you miss it, and how far away it is. It is deliberately short. Dates that have passed stay on the page and are marked as passed, because a date you have already missed is more useful to know about than one you have not, and the instruments still awaiting a date are tracked separately in our In Progress Now article.
The dates
06 September 2026, now passed: two regulations were repealed
What happened. The Environmental Regulations for Workplaces, 1987 and the Noise-Induced Hearing Loss Regulations, 2003 were repealed in their entirety. The Physical Agents Regulations, 2024 and the Noise Exposure Regulations, 2024 have stood alone since that day. [1][2][3]
Why the date is fixed. Both new instruments were gazetted on 06 March 2025 (Government Gazette 52226). Regulation 21 of the Physical Agents Regulations and regulation 18 of the Noise Exposure Regulations each repeal their predecessor 18 months after promulgation. Eighteen months from 06 March 2025 is 06 September 2026. [1][2]
What you must now have. These are live duties, not preparation. A documented risk assessment by a competent person, refreshed at least every two years. Exposure monitoring where limits are approached or exceeded, and for noise that monitoring must be done by an approved noise inspection authority. Medical screening and surveillance overseen by an Occupational Medicine Practitioner, with written informed consent. Audiometry under the Code of Practice for Audiometry. Annual refresher training, not once-off. Records kept for forty years. [2]
Who it reaches. Wider than the name suggests. A physical agent is a source of energy that may cause injury or disease after exposure, and expressly includes heat, cold, vibration, illumination and non-ionising radiation, with indoor air quality also covered. Warehousing, manufacturing, construction, hospitality and most office environments are in scope. [1][2]
Open point, now largely closed. Before the date it was unsettled whether both sets of regulations applied concurrently or whether the new ones took effect only on the date. [2] That question governed the transitional period and no longer bites: from 06 September the new regulations apply on their own, and there is no older instrument to comply with instead. Our full treatment of the transition, including the measurement exemption that is still open, is in "The 06 September 2026 Deadline: Two OHS Regulations Disappear".
01 April to 30 June, every year: the COIDA Return of Earnings
What happens. The Return of Earnings season runs 01 April to 30 June. The Acting Compensation Commissioner's notice for the 2025 assessment period fixed the window at 01 April 2026 to 30 June 2026, and states that a penalty of 10 percent is charged for late submission, with interest charged on accounts unpaid 30 days after the invoice date and on overdue accounts. [4] The Letter of Good Standing lapses until the submission and payment are brought current. [5]
Status for 2026. The season closed on 30 June 2026, but the Fund has since opened a hard final window for everything still outstanding. See the next entry, 31 October 2026, which now governs. An employer that missed 30 June 2026 should file before that date rather than wait for the next season, because the Letter of Good Standing does not restore itself. [5][11]
Next occurrence. 01 April 2027.
31 October 2026: the final date for outstanding Returns of Earnings
What happens. On 08 September 2026 the Department of Employment and Labour published Notice 4140 of 2026 in Government Gazette 55347, a final reminder to every employer not in compliance with section 82 of COIDA to submit outstanding Returns of Earnings (form CF-2A/W.As 8) for 2025 and prior years. [11][12] If a return is not submitted before 31 October 2026, the Commissioner may raise an assessment on an estimated earnings basis under section 83(6)(a), and may impose a penalty not exceeding 10 percent of the final assessment under section 83(6)(b). [11] The notice also records expressly that the department has the right and the obligation to conduct employer compliance reviews and audits against COIDA. [11] It is signed by the Acting Compensation Commissioner.
Why this one is easy to miss. It is not an annual date and it is not the ROE season. It is a one-off catch-up window aimed specifically at employers whose older returns were never filed, which is exactly the population least likely to be watching the Government Gazette. An employer who believes its COIDA position is in order because this year's return went in may still be carrying an unfiled 2023 or 2024 return, and the assessment that follows is calculated on the Commissioner's estimate rather than on actual earnings.
What to do. Confirm that every return for 2025 and prior years was not merely prepared but successfully submitted, then file anything outstanding before 31 October 2026. Submissions go online at cfonline.labour.gov.za or by email to [email protected]. [11] Keep the submission confirmation, because the Letter of Good Standing that a client or principal contractor asks for is only as current as the last accepted return behind it.
06 November 2026: written submissions close on the Employment Services Amendment Bill
What happens. The Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour opened public comment on the Employment Services Amendment Bill [B16-2026] on 18 September 2026, and written submissions must reach the committee by no later than Friday, 06 November 2026 at 16h00. [13][14] Submissions go to the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour, for the attention of Mr Zolani Sakasa, at [email protected]. [13] The Bill is the instrument that would require an employer, before recruiting a foreign national, to satisfy itself in a prescribed manner that no suitably qualified South African citizen, permanent resident, refugee or asylum seeker is available, and that would empower the Minister to set maximum employment quotas for foreign nationals by sector, occupational category or region. Employers with fewer than 10 employees are excluded from the quota provisions as the Bill is currently drafted. [14] The Bill remains at Introduction stage and is not law; the instrument itself is tracked in the companion article "In Progress Now". [13]
Why this one is easy to miss. It is the only date on this page that is an opportunity rather than an obligation. Nothing goes wrong on 07 November if an employer does nothing, which is precisely why it will pass unremarked, and then the labour market test and the quota power will be settled by the people who did write in. This is also the shortest window the Hub is tracking: seven weeks from opening to close, over a period that includes the year-end run-up for most businesses.
What to do. Decide, once, whether the quota power and the labour market test would change how your business hires, and if they would, put the submission in writing before 16h00 on 06 November 2026. If you belong to an employer body or a bargaining council, ask now whether it is submitting, because a sector submission carries further than an individual one and the deadline is the same for both.
Within 7 days of an incident: report the injury
What happens. Failing to report an accident to the Commissioner within 7 days attracts a penalty equal to the full compensation payable, plus interest calculated from the date of the accident. [6][10] The interest is the part most employers miss: it runs from the accident, not from the day the failure is discovered, so the cost of a late report grows quietly for as long as it goes unnoticed.
Since when. The commencement is staggered, and it is worth stating precisely because the dates differ by section. On 23 January 2026 the President fixed the commencement dates for the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Amendment Act 10 of 2022. Most provisions, including the reporting and penalty regime, commenced on 23 January 2026. The sections commencing on 01 February 2026 deal with the composition, appointment and procedures of the Compensation Board, and those commencing on 01 April 2026 deal with assessment payment deadlines, interest calculation and penalty enforcement. [6][10]
What else changed on the same day. Administrative penalties now replace criminal prosecution for these failures, the prescription period for an employee's claim extends from 12 months to three years from the date of the accident, employers must retain earnings records for five years, and a new inspectorate may enter workplaces, compel disclosure under oath, copy records and issue compliance orders enforceable through the Labour Court. [6][10]
Why it belongs on a calendar. It is the only deadline on this page that starts when something goes wrong, rather than on a fixed date. That makes it the easiest one to miss, because the clock starts on your worst day. The three-year prescription period compounds it: the claim can arrive long after everyone who witnessed the accident has left.
09 September 2026, now passed: the ISO 45001 draft ballot closed
What happened. The Draft International Standard ballot for ISO 45001:2027 has closed. ISO's own project record moved the standard to stage 40.60, close of voting, on 09 September 2026, and that is the operative date. [9] A straight twelve-week count from the ballot opening on 16 June 2026 lands a day earlier, on 08 September, and several certification bodies have published that earlier date. Where the two disagree, the project record governs. [7][8][9] Nothing was required of an employer on this date. It matters because the shape of the revised standard is now effectively settled, and certified organisations can plan the transition against a stable target rather than a moving one. Publication is still expected in mid 2027, with a three-year transition after that. [7][8]
What to watch next. The draft moves to stage 40.99 if it is approved for registration as a Final Draft International Standard, or back to committee if it is not. That next stage change, published on the same ISO project page, is the first hard signal of whether mid 2027 holds. [9]
GRC Shop view
Look at the shape of this page rather than the individual entries. Of the six, one is a recurring annual cycle, one starts on an incident, two are one-off windows with a hard close, and two have already passed and stay on the page as a record. Only one of them, the submission on the Employment Services Amendment Bill, is a choice rather than an obligation. The rest arrive whether or not anyone is watching for them.
That is the argument for a live compliance record in one sentence. A folder does not know what month it is. A system does.
The 06 September 2026 cutover is still the one we would act on first, even though it has passed, because it is the only entry on this page that changed what evidence an employer must be able to produce, and that change has now been in force for several weeks. An employer whose physical agents and noise duties were built for the 1987 and 2003 regulations is not behind schedule on a project; the schedule ran out. After it, the 31 October 2026 window for outstanding Returns of Earnings is the nearest hard date on the page.
Which is the whole point of keeping this page. Compliance files go stale. Our system keeps yours current.
We will keep this page current as dates are added, met or moved. Where an instrument is proposed but not yet dated, it stays in In Progress Now until it has a date.
If you want these dates tracked against your own registers rather than a page you have to remember to re-read: https://www.grcshop.co.za/get-a-quote
Abbreviations
- COIDA: Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act
- DIS: Draft International Standard
- ISO: International Organization for Standardization
- OHS: Occupational Health and Safety
- OMP: Occupational Medicine Practitioner
- ROE: Return of Earnings
References
The sources below are external links to third-party websites. We link only to publicly accessible pages and check periodically that the links still work.
[1] ENSafrica, "South Africa: OHASA, Physical Agents Regulations 2024, Noise Exposure Regulations 2024, and Amendment of the General Safety Regulations 2025", 11 Mar 2025. https://www.ensafrica.com/news/detail/9836/south-africa-occupational-health-and-safety-a
[2] Webber Wentzel, "Recent amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act: new regulations", 2025. https://www.webberwentzel.com/News/Pages/recent-amendments-to-the-occupational-health-and-safety-act-new-regulations.aspx
[3] South African Government, "Occupational Health and Safety Act: Noise Exposure Regulations 2024 and Code of Practice for Audiometry, Government Gazette 52226", 06 Mar 2025. https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202503/52226gon5953.pdf
[4] Department of Employment and Labour, "Notice issued by the Acting Compensation Commissioner under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, 1993", General Notice 3894 of 2026, Government Gazette 54524, 15 Apr 2026. https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202604/54524gen3894_0.pdf
[5] Company Partners, "COIDA Return of Earnings 2026 Deadline Explained", 2026. https://companypartners.co.za/coida-return-of-earnings-2026-deadline/
[6] CMS South Africa, "From Penalties to Rehabilitation: Understanding the 2026 COIDA Amendments and Its Impact on Workplace Risk", 13 Feb 2026. https://cms.law/en/zaf/publication/from-penalties-to-rehabilitation-understanding-the-2026-coida-amendments-and-its-impact-on-workplace-risk
[7] LRQA, "ISO 45001 revision update: DIS ballot opening soon" (the headline the page now carries; it was published as "DIS ballot now open"), Jun 2026. https://www.lrqa.com/en-au/latest-news/iso-45001-revision-update-dis-ballot-now-open/
[8] DNV, "Draft Version of ISO 45001:2027 Released", 2026. https://www.dnv.com/news/2026/draft-version-of-iso-45001-released/
[9] International Organization for Standardization, "ISO/DIS 45001, Occupational health and safety management systems: Requirements with guidance for use", project record, stage 40.60 close of voting 09 Sep 2026. https://www.iso.org/standard/89698.html
[10] Webber Wentzel, "COIDA amendments take effect: What employers need to know", 2026. https://www.webberwentzel.com/News/Pages/coida-amendments-take-effect-what-employers-need-to-know.aspx
[11] Department of Employment and Labour, "Final reminder for the submission of 2025 and prior years outstanding Return of Earnings (ROEs)", Notice 4140 of 2026, Government Gazette 55347, 08 Sep 2026. https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202609/55347gen4140.pdf
[12] CRS, "CRS News Flash 11 September 2026, South Africa, COIDA, Final Reminder to Submit Outstanding ROEs", 11 Sep 2026. https://www.crs.co.za/crs-news-flash-11-september-2026-south-africa-coida-final-reminder-to-submit-outstanding-roes/
[13] Parliament of South Africa, "Employment and Labour Committee Calls for Public Input on Employment Services Amendment Bill", 18 Sep 2026. https://www.africa-newsroom.com/press/employment-and-labour-committee-calls-for-public-input-on-employment-services-amendment-bill?lang=en
[14] Eyewitness News, "New Employment Services Amendment Bill seeks to regulate hiring of foreign nationals", 18 Sep 2026. https://www.ewn.co.za/2026/09/18/new-employment-services-amendment-bill-seeks-to-regulate-hiring-of-foreign-nationals