Customs Contact Details

There is no direct telephone number for Johannesburg Customs. SARS routes every call to a Customs office automatically to its Contact Centre on 0800 00 7277. The centre is open weekdays 08:00 to 16:00, except Wednesdays when it opens at 09:00, and is closed on weekends and public holidays. International callers use 011 602 2093. We read this on sars.gov.za on 24 September 2026.

SARS Customs contact details

Contact Centre, all Customs offices	0800 00 7277
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday	08:00 to 16:00
Wednesday	09:00 to 16:00
Weekends and public holidays	Closed
From outside South Africa	+27 11 602 2093

The Wednesday opening time is an hour later. It is easy to miss and it is the most common reason an early Wednesday call to SARS goes unanswered.

0800 00 7277 is toll-free from within South Africa. The international number is an ordinary Johannesburg landline and is charged at international rates.

Why there is no Johannesburg number

This is SARS’s own explanation, not an inference, and it saves you hunting for a direct line that does not exist.

SARS states that all telephone calls to Customs offices are routed automatically to the Contact Centre, and that this was introduced at SARS offices around the country deliberately. The reasons it gives are improved tracking and tracing of queries and a single point of contact, so that a call is always answered.

So a number you find elsewhere purporting to be a direct line to a Johannesburg Customs office is either out of date or was never a public number. Dialling it will not get you to the office.

The practical upside is that your query gets a reference and can be traced. Write the reference number down, because it is the only way to follow up.

Customs offices in and around Johannesburg

Office	Type	Where
O R Tambo International Airport	Customs: Airports	New Agents Building, Johannesburg, Gauteng
Lanseria Airport	Customs: Airports	Johannesburg, Gauteng
Johannesburg International Mail Centre	Customs: Mail Centres	O R Tambo International Airport, Kempton Park, Gauteng

Note that the Johannesburg International Mail Centre is in Kempton Park, not in Johannesburg, despite the name. It is at O R Tambo. If a parcel has been held by Customs, this is the office that has it.

The O R Tambo Customs office is specifically in the New Agents Building. That detail matters at an airport, where a building name is more use than a street address.

All three route to the same Contact Centre number, so name the office when you call.

How Customs offices are grouped

SARS lists its Customs offices in five categories, which is useful for working out which one holds your goods:

• Airports, for goods arriving by air with a passenger or as air cargo
• Customs Mail Centres, for anything that arrived by post, of which there are three: Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban
• Seaports, for sea freight
• Border Posts, for goods arriving overland
• Internal Offices, inland offices away from a port of entry

If a package you ordered online has been stopped, it is almost always a mail centre matter rather than an airport one, even though the Johannesburg mail centre sits at the airport.

Other ways to reach SARS

SARS publishes a wide set of channels besides the phone, and several are faster than the Contact Centre queue.

These include the SARS Online Query System, an AI assistant, SMS, WhatsApp, a USSD option, online queries, virtual appointments, a branch finder for in-person visits, and routes to lodge a complaint, pass on a compliment or report a tax crime.

For a Customs query specifically, SARS also publishes a Customs query resolution process on its site, which sets out the escalation path if you are not satisfied with the service you receive.

Note that international callers are reminded that the time difference applies to everything, including Contact Centre calls, appointment bookings and call-back requests. The hours above are South African time.

Sources

• SARS Customs Offices and Contacts page, sars.gov.za, for the statement that all Customs office calls are routed to the Contact Centre, the reasons given, and the five office categories (read 24 September 2026)
• SARS Customs airports and mail centres listings, for the O R Tambo, Lanseria and Johannesburg International Mail Centre entries and their locations (read 24 September 2026)
• SARS Contact Centre page, for the toll-free number, the weekday and Wednesday operating hours, the international number and the time difference note, and the SARS contact page for the list of digital channels (read 24 September 2026)