Good luck buying an e-tag in South Africa
We waited a month for the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) to deliver an e-tag to our address in a major metropolitan area.
Like many Gauteng motorists, we have long been apprehensive about getting an e-tag, considering the devices and their associated accounts were linked to the controversial provincial e-toll system.
However, having driven a few fleet and rental vehicles with e-tags, I was also envious of motorists who could bypass the queues at cash and card lanes at toll gates and quickly continue their journey.
When Gauteng’s e-toll gantries were disconnected from Sanral’s tolling system in early 2024, we quickly became more interested in buying an e-tag.
While all major tolled roads now have convenient tap-to-pay terminals, these lanes often still amass queues.
Sanral has also continued to encourage people to adopt e-tags for the fastest and most convenient payment method at toll gates.
With a trip across the Botswana border via the tollgate-ridden N4 planned for our December 2025 holiday, I thought it was the opportune time to obtain an e-tag.
I initially tried to create an account on Sanral’s Mobility Account website on 15 November 2025. However, shortly after loading my vehicle details, the site encountered a technical error.
An email confirmed that my account had been created, however. We forgot about the e-tag plan until 2 December 2025, when we logged into the site again to try and get an e-tag.
Then we encountered another problem — we could not add an e-tag to the vehicle that we had already linked to my profile.
That option is presented during the initial vehicle linking, which was when I encountered the first technical issue.
We queried the issue with Sanral support on the same day. To the company’s credit, the customer support responded within a few minutes.
Unfortunately, the response was not helpful. An agent advised that I must pay a R50 activation fee and a R60 delivery fee for the tag on the Sanral website.
This option was not available on our vehicle, which was already linked to the Sanral account.
Money loaded, order placed, and then — silence
Fortunately, we could remove the vehicle and reload it to reach the step where we could choose to have an e-tag delivered to my address.
We loaded our account with the required R110.00 and ordered the e-tag through the Sanral mobile app on 4 December 2025.
After not receiving further information from Sanral or a courier regarding the delivery progress, I tried to order the e-tag again on 10 December, but was presented with an error.
We assumed this was because I could not place an order for an e-tag while a delivery was pending for the same vehicle.
In a last gasp effort, we visited several Checkers and Pick n Pay retailers to see if they had starter packs for the devices, as communicated on Sanral’s website.
None of the stores in our area had stock. While the Sanral customer service centre was another option, we decided to wait as we did not want to end up paying for two e-tags.
No updates until follow-up
Another three weeks passed without an update from Sanral. After returning from our trip, we enquired about the delay with Sanral support through the mobile app on 7 January 2026.
While we received an instant notification that my enquiry was submitted successfully, I only received an update on 12 January 2026 that the enquiry was being attended to.
That same day, we received a call from a friendly staff member at Courier IT, who asked us to confirm our delivery address and availability to receive the e-tag.
The e-tag was delivered the next day, 13 January 2026. It ultimately took more than a month — or 22 business days accounting for public holidays — from placing the order to receiving the e-tag.
MyBroadband asked Sanral for more information about the delivery delays and whether the issue was widespread, but it did not provide feedback by the time of publication.
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