Every company registered with the CIPC must file an annual return, every year, whether or not it traded and whether or not it made a cent. It is not a tax return, it does not go to SARS, and filing one has nothing to do with filing the other.
It is a short form and a small fee, and skipping it is the most common avoidable failure in South African small business administration.
When it is due
On the anniversary of the company's registration, not at the end of the tax year and not in February with everything else. You have a window of a month or so after that date, and the fee rises the longer you leave it.
If you do not know your registration anniversary, it is on your registration certificate and it is visible on the CIPC's own system. Find it once and put it in a calendar with a reminder two weeks ahead. That single act prevents almost everything below.
What it costs
The fee is scaled to turnover, and it is small for a small company. Late filing carries a penalty that grows, so the cheapest version of this is always the one done on time.
You do not need an accountant to file it. Many people use one because it is bundled with other work, and that is a convenience rather than a requirement.
What you are actually declaring
Turnover for the year, and confirmation that the company's details on the register are correct — directors, registered address, and contact details. Larger companies must also lodge financial statements or a financial accountability supplement; most small ones will not.
Take the confirmation seriously. If a director resigned two years ago and the register still names them, they are still a director as far as the world is concerned, and this is the moment to notice.
What happens if you do not file
Nothing, for a while. That is the trap.
After returns are outstanding for long enough, the CIPC begins the deregistration process. The company's status changes, and eventually it is deregistered — at which point it no longer legally exists. Notice goes to the registered address and contact details on file, which for many small companies are an old accountant's office or an email nobody reads any more.
Owners routinely discover the problem years later and from someone else: a bank freezing the account, a customer running a supplier compliance check, or a tender submission rejected. By then the company may have been trading for a considerable time without existing.
If you are already behind
File the outstanding returns. They can be filed together, each with its own fee and penalty, and doing it is far cheaper than restoration if the company has already gone.
Do it before you need the company for anything — before the loan application, before the tender, before the sale. Every one of those has a deadline, and this process does not accelerate because yours is close.
General guidance, not legal or financial advice. Fees, deadlines and requirements change; confirm the current position with the CIPC.