Newsflash: New merger thresholds and increased filing fees for South Africa now effective

The amendments will affect not only merger notifiability assessments by making fewer mergers subject to prior approval from the competition authorities, reducing deal complexity and deal costs. These are welcome adjustments considering that the thresholds were last updated in 2017.  For the first time, the parties to a merger transaction will need to meet a combined R1billion in asset or turnover to trigger a mandatory notification to the Competition Commission.

Intermediate mergers

	Old thresholds	New thresholds
The higher of Target firm asset value or turnover	R100 million	R200 million
Combined asset value or turnover of the target firm and the acquiring group	R600 million	R1 billion

Large mergers

	Old thresholds	New thresholds
The higher of Target firm asset value or turnover	R190 million	R280 million
Combined asset value or turnover of the target firm and the acquiring group	R6,6 billion	R9,5 billion

The increases are material. In practice, a number of transactions that would previously have qualified as intermediate mergers may now fall below mandatory notification thresholds and be treated as small mergers, which are not subject to compulsory notification before completion.

Increased merger filing fees

In parallel with the new thresholds, the merger filing fees payable to the Competition Commission have also increased.

The applicable filing fees are now:

	Old fee	New fee
Intermediate merger	R165,000	R220,000
Large merger	R550,000	R735,000

These increases reflect inflationary adjustments since merger filing fees were last revised in 2017.

Practical implications for deal teams

Parties should –

• reassess mergers currently being contemplated to confirm notifiability (and merger size);
• factor the higher filing fees into deal costs;

The new thresholds took effect on 1 May 2026 (despite only being Gazetted on 8 May).