Business.co.za

State of South African Business

September 2026

The economy, what South African business news covered, what the directory holds and what people looked for — counted, not estimated.

7.25%Repo ratefrom 25 Sep 2026 · South African Reserve Bank
4.4%Inflation (CPI)August 2026 · Stats SA
33.6%UnemploymentQ2 2026 · Stats SA
-0.2%GDP growthQ2 2026 · Stats SA
313business stories read9 publishers
10 060businesses on the directory388 verified · 9 provinces

1. The economy

IndicatorLatestBeforePeriodSource
Repo rate7.25%7%from 25 Sep 2026South African Reserve Bank
Prime lending rate10.75%10.5%from 25 Sep 2026South African Reserve Bank
Inflation (CPI)4.4%4.3%August 2026Stats SA
Petrol 95 (inland)R30.25/lR26.92/lOctober 2026Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources
Unemployment33.6%32.7%Q2 2026Stats SA
GDP growth-0.2%0.4%Q2 2026Stats SA
Rand / US dollarR16.52R16.5816 Oct 2026ExchangeRate-API
Rand / euroR18.53R18.5416 Oct 2026ExchangeRate-API
Rand / poundR21.91R21.9316 Oct 2026ExchangeRate-API

2. What the news covered

313 stories from 9 South African publishers. Each headline and teaser was read for the industries it concerns and the companies and institutions it names.

Industries and services most covered

  1. Funding37 stories · 4 publishers
  2. Infrastructure19 stories · 3 publishers
  3. SMEs16 stories · 2 publishers
  4. Production15 stories · 5 publishers
  5. Financing12 stories · 3 publishers
  6. Government10 stories · 5 publishers
  7. Software7 stories · 2 publishers
  8. Payments7 stories · 4 publishers
  9. Cloud7 stories · 2 publishers
  10. Finance7 stories · 4 publishers
  11. Awards6 stories · 3 publishers
  12. Insights6 stories · 3 publishers

Our news desk began reading on 1 October 2026, so this month is not compared with the one before.

Most named companies, institutions and places

AI 48SMEs 9FMD 5JSE 4Cape Town 3Bank 3Transnet 3Treasury 3

Recurring subjects

artificial intelligence 6cape town 5foot-and-mouth disease 5cash flow 4

3. The directory

10 060 businesses listed, across 9 provinces. 8 were listed by their owners this month (11 the month before), and 0 owners asked to claim a listing built from public sources.

By province

  1. Gauteng4 393
  2. Western Cape2 301
  3. KwaZulu-Natal682
  4. Eastern Cape222
  5. Mpumalanga100
  6. Limpopo100
  7. Free State96
  8. North West91
  9. Northern Cape33

4. What people looked for

176 searches, 0 questions put to the pros and 0 answers.

  1. Accounting166 searches
  2. Web Design3 searches

Method and sources

  • Economic indicators are reproduced from the South African Reserve Bank, Statistics South Africa, the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources and ExchangeRate-API, as named on each row.
  • News counts cover the headlines and RSS teasers of the publishers on our news page; a topic is counted when it appears in at least three stories from two publishers.
  • Directory counts are businesses listed on Business.co.za, excluding quarantined listings. Listings built from public sources are not counted as new in any month.
  • Search demand is counted only where a search names a trade and three or more searches were made.
Cite this reportBusiness.co.za (2026). State of South African Business, September 2026. https://www.business.co.za/report/2026-09 (accessed 16 October 2026).Licence CC BY 4.0. The underlying data: open data.