Customs in South Africa is run by SARS, and there is one number for all of it. SARS states on its own Customs pages that all telephone calls to Customs offices are routed automatically to the SARS Contact Centre, and that this was done deliberately so that every query has a single point of contact and can be tracked and traced.
Customs contact details
- SARS Contact Centre, for every Customs office in the country: 0800 00 7277
- Online: the Send an Online Query form, the AI assistant, or the SARS WhatsApp channel, all on sars.gov.za
- Office addresses: the Customs Offices and Contacts directory on sars.gov.za lists every office by category
This is why searching for the number of a particular Customs office is usually a waste of time. The office exists and has a street address, but its phone rings at the contact centre.
How the office directory is organised
- Customs: Airports — O R Tambo (New Agents Building), Cape Town International with separate arrivals and cargo offices, King Shaka at La Mercy, Lanseria, Bram Fischer in Bloemfontein, Kruger Mpumalanga, Pilanesberg, Polokwane.
- Border Posts — the land crossings.
- Seaports — the commercial harbours.
- Customs Mail Centres — where posted and couriered parcels are cleared.
- Internal Offices — inland clearance and administration.
If a parcel is being held, it is a mail centre or a courier’s bonded warehouse that has it, not an airport office, and the tracking number is what the contact centre will ask for.
Customs is not the same as tax
SARS splits its site into Individuals, Businesses and Employers, Tax Practitioners, and Customs and Excise. Excise — the duty on alcohol, tobacco and fuel — has its own office directory separate from Customs. Import and export registration, tariff classification and valuation all sit under Customs and Excise rather than under ordinary tax, so quoting your tax reference number will not help; quote the customs client number or the movement reference number instead.
If the contact centre does not resolve it
- SARS publishes a Customs query resolution process on the same page — work through it in order, because the later steps require the earlier reference numbers.
- Lodge a formal complaint through the Lodge a Complaint route on sars.gov.za rather than by repeating the call.
- The Office of the Tax Ombud is the independent escalation once the SARS complaints process is exhausted; it is linked from the SARS footer.