By Natasha Bhandari | Director, Skillzpage Published: April 2026 | Last updated: April 2026
Can employers request salary slips from job candidates in South Africa? Right now, the answer is yes. There is no legislation that prohibits a prospective employer or a recruitment agency from asking a candidate to provide their most recent payslips as part of the hiring process. It is standard practice across industries, widely accepted by candidates, and used by the majority of HR teams and hiring managers to verify earnings and inform salary negotiations.
But this may soon no longer be the case.
In June 2025, the Fair Pay Bill was introduced to Parliament by Build One South Africa (BOSA). If passed, the bill would make it unlawful for employers to ask for or rely on a candidate's salary history during recruitment, selection, or appointment. It would also require every job advertisement to disclose a salary range upfront, eliminating the "market-related" placeholder that has long frustrated candidates and contributed to entrenched pay inequality across South Africa.
The bill has not yet become law. It is still working through the parliamentary process. But it is generating serious national discussion, covered by Moneyweb, analysed by Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr and Bowmans, and debated in boardrooms across the country. Employers who rely on salary slips as a standard part of their recruitment process need to understand where things stand, what the risks are, and what they can do now, including how to make their voice heard before the legislation is finalised.
This article covers all of it.
South African law does not currently prohibit employers or recruitment agencies from requesting salary slips from candidates. There is no provision in the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, or the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 that bars a prospective employer from asking for proof of previous earnings as part of a hiring process.
In practice, the request for salary slips has become standard procedure in South African recruitment, particularly in IT, Finance, and C-Suite hiring, where the difference between a candidate's current earnings and their market value can be significant and where offer letters are expected to be defensible to internal remuneration committees.
What the law does regulate is how that salary data is handled once you have it. This is where the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) becomes relevant, and where many employers and HR teams have gaps in their compliance processes. We address this in the next section.
The current legal position is clear: requesting salary slips is lawful. Using them to inform hiring decisions is lawful. That absence of prohibition does not, however, mean the practice is without risk. The Fair Pay Bill is a direct legislative challenge to this status quo, and the question of whether employers will retain this right is now a live parliamentary matter.
The reasons employers give for requesting salary slips are consistent across industries: to verify that a candidate's stated earnings are accurate, to understand what it will cost to secure the candidate, and to benchmark the offer against the candidate's current package.
These are legitimate objectives, and in the context of how the South African salary market has historically worked, they made practical sense. The local convention has long been that a competitive market-related move between companies delivers a 10 to 15 percent increase above a candidate's current package. Annual increases for existing employees have consistently lagged behind inflation, which means job changes have been the primary mechanism through which South African professionals improve their real earnings. Against that backdrop, an employer knowing a candidate's current salary allowed them to formulate an offer that was competitive within an understood framework.
The problem is that salary slips are an imperfect tool for achieving this. The framework itself is increasingly being questioned.
After nearly 20 years of placing IT, Finance, and C-Suite professionals across South Africa, we can say with confidence that a candidate's current salary is frequently a poor indicator of their market value. Some of the most capable IT architects and Finance managers we place are earning 20 to 30 percent below the market rate, not because they lack ability, but because they have been loyal to an employer who has given modest annual increases, or because they entered the workforce during a difficult economic period and have never fully recovered their starting position.
Basing a new offer on what someone currently earns does not tell you what the role is worth. It tells you what their previous employer paid them. For a candidate who has been underpaid for years, that number is simply the wrong starting point. You risk losing good people to employers who are willing to pay what the market actually demands.
There is, however, a meaningful difference between using a salary slip to set an offer and using one to check that a candidate has been honest. If someone tells you they earn R120,000 per month and the payslip shows R54,000, that is a credibility issue. Knowing that before you make an offer has clear value. This distinction between checking facts and setting salaries is one that employers should understand well before the Fair Pay Bill's public comment window opens, because it is the strongest practical argument for retaining limited access to salary documentation.
When an employer requests a salary slip from a candidate, they are collecting personal information as defined under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013. A payslip contains an employee's full name, employer details, gross and net earnings, deductions, and in many cases identity reference information. Under POPIA, this data must be collected, stored, and processed in compliance with specific conditions.
The conditions that apply to salary slip data in a recruitment context are straightforward but frequently ignored.
Informed consent. The candidate must give their informed consent to the collection and processing of their personal information before you request it. This consent must be documented. A verbal agreement is not sufficient, and an assumption that candidates are happy to share is not consent.
Lawful purpose. The data must be collected for a specific, explicitly defined purpose directly related to the recruitment process. Using salary slips collected for one role to inform remuneration decisions on a different role at a later date is not covered by the original consent.
Retention limits. Salary slip data may only be retained for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. Once the recruitment process concludes, whether the candidate is placed, declines, or is unsuccessful, the salary slip data should be deleted or retained only within a documented data retention policy with defined timelines.
Security. The data must be stored securely, with access restricted to those with a legitimate need to process it.
At Skillzpage, we obtain written POPIA consent from every candidate before requesting or processing any personal documentation, including salary slips. We also operate under the Code of Ethics of the Association of Personnel Service Organisations of South Africa (APSO), which sets binding standards for how candidate data is handled throughout the placement process.
Employers who request salary slips directly, without a documented consent process, a defined retention policy, or secure storage, are exposed to complaints to the Information Regulator and the reputational damage that accompanies an investigation. If the Fair Pay Bill passes and salary history requests become unlawful, any employer still holding undeleted salary slip data from previous recruitment rounds will face compounded legal exposure. The time to audit your data practices is before that conversation becomes urgent.
The Fair Pay Bill was introduced to Parliament by Build One South Africa (BOSA) in June 2025 as an amendment to the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998. Its headline provisions are significant.
Ban on salary history inquiries. Employers will be prohibited from asking for or relying on a candidate's past or current salary during recruitment, selection, or appointment. The one exception is narrow: where an offer has already been made and the candidate has submitted a written request for their previous remuneration to be taken into account.
Mandatory salary band disclosure. Every job advertisement, internal transfer listing, or promotion posting must specify a salary range upfront. References to "market-related" remuneration will no longer be acceptable.
Right to discuss remuneration. Employees will have a legal right to discuss and compare their salaries with colleagues. Confidentiality clauses that currently prohibit these conversations will not be enforceable.
Equal pay reinforcement. The bill strengthens existing equal pay provisions, requiring remuneration to be determined by skills, experience, and qualifications, not race, gender, age, or employment history.
As of April 2026, the bill is still in the early stages of the parliamentary process. Parliament's Legal Advisors are refining the bill and preparing an explanatory memorandum. Once that work is complete, the bill will be published in the Government Gazette for public comment, after which it goes before the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour, and then to the National Assembly for deliberation and voting.
The formal public comment window has not yet opened. There is no gazette notice and no submission deadline in place at the time of writing. When the gazette notice is published, a closing date for submissions will be specified. That deadline is typically firm. This is the moment employers need to be ready for.
Reputable legal commentary from Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr and Bowmans suggests the bill's core provisions are likely to remain substantially intact through the parliamentary process. Employers should treat the legislation as probable, not merely possible, and begin preparing accordingly, including considering whether to engage with the process before it is too late to influence the outcome.
The Fair Pay Bill has generated genuine support from candidates, youth organisations, and equality advocates. The argument that salary history discrimination entrenches pay inequality, particularly for women and historically disadvantaged South Africans, is well-evidenced and widely accepted. Employers who dismiss the bill's intent entirely are unlikely to be taken seriously in the submission process.
A credible counterargument acknowledges the problem the bill is trying to solve and then challenges specific provisions on practical and implementable grounds. Here is how to frame it.
Argument 1: Mandatory salary band disclosure creates competitive disadvantage for smaller employers.
Large corporates and multinationals can advertise roles with market-leading salary bands. Smaller and mid-sized businesses, which employ the majority of South Africa's workforce, often cannot compete on stated salary alone. Their value proposition includes culture, flexibility, growth opportunity, and equity participation. Requiring upfront salary band disclosure without any flexibility for negotiation may deter strong candidates from applying to employers where the total package is part of the conversation, not just the base figure. Submissions should quantify this risk using specific examples from your sector, particularly for IT and Finance roles where candidate scarcity is already acute.
Argument 2: Salary verification and salary anchoring are not the same thing. The bill should distinguish between them.
There is a meaningful difference between using a candidate's salary history to determine what to offer them (which the bill rightly targets) and using a salary slip to verify that the candidate's stated earnings are accurate (which is a reasonable integrity check that protects both parties). The bill as drafted does not clearly distinguish these two uses. A focused submission requesting a narrow verification exception, one that permits confirmation of declared earnings after an offer has been made but prohibits using that information to set the offer, is specific, practical, and defensible.
Argument 3: Market benchmarking tools already exist. The bill may be addressing a practice that the market is already moving away from.
Specialist recruiters and HR professionals who work at the top end of the IT and Finance market are already setting salary offers based on live market intelligence rather than candidate history. The knowledge exists. The capability exists. A submission that acknowledges this market shift and argues for industry education and guidance alongside legislative reform, rather than prohibition alone, demonstrates constructive engagement rather than blanket resistance. It also strengthens the case for a phased approach that gives employers time to adapt their processes rather than face an abrupt change with no support.
Argument 4: Transition timelines must be realistic for businesses of all sizes.
If the bill passes, HR teams across South Africa will need to revise job advertisement templates, retrain hiring managers, update recruitment policies, and audit historical data retention practices. The bill as introduced does not specify transition periods or provide implementation support. A submission requesting phased implementation, particularly for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, is a practical and proportionate ask that is likely to find sympathetic ears on the Portfolio Committee.
Where to submit when the window opens.
The formal submission channel is the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour. Parliament publishes gazette notices and submission instructions at www.parliament.gov.za. Watch this page for the notice that triggers the comment period. Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) and sector bodies including the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) are expected to make consolidated submissions on behalf of organised business. Engaging with these bodies now ensures your concerns are part of a coordinated response, which carries more weight in the committee process than individual submissions. For high-value or detailed submissions, engaging a labour law practitioner to draft or review your response is advisable. Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Bowmans, and SERR Synergy have all published analysis of the bill and are well-positioned to assist.
The window to influence this legislation is still open. But it will not stay open indefinitely.
Whether or not your submission to Parliament influences the final shape of the Fair Pay Bill, preparing your recruitment process for a world without salary slip access is sound commercial practice regardless of the legislative outcome. The employers who will be least disrupted by this change are those who have already built relationships and processes that do not depend on salary history as the starting point for every offer.
The roles Skillzpage recruits for are, by nature, niche and hard to fill. IT and Finance professionals with specialist skills are in short supply across South Africa, and that scarcity shifts the dynamic considerably. In many of the placements we handle, it is the candidate who sets the salary expectation rather than the employer. They know their value, they have options, and they are not interested in a modest market-related increase. Our role in that conversation is not to override what a candidate believes they are worth, but to guide and educate both parties on how the South African market typically operates, what employers are genuinely willing to pay, and where the realistic middle ground sits. That kind of informed navigation is what prevents good placements from falling apart at the offer stage.
One pattern we encounter consistently illustrates why this matters. We regularly work with Finance managers, IT architects, and senior professionals who have spent eight, ten, or twelve years with a single employer. Their loyalty is genuine and their capability is not in question. But their salary tells a different story. Modest annual increases of three to five percent over a decade have left them earning 30 to 50 percent below the market rate for their role and experience level. When we compare their package to a professional with equivalent skills who changed employers every three to four years, the difference is substantial. An offer based on their current payslip does not correct this. It perpetuates it. In these cases, our role is to educate the employer on what fair market positioning actually looks like for that skill set and experience level, and to guide the candidate on what is realistic to expect, so that both parties arrive at an offer that reflects the role's genuine value rather than an arbitrary starting point.
This dynamic is particularly pronounced in specialist IT roles where skills shortages are acute. DevOps Engineers, Software Architects, Cybersecurity Specialists, and Data Scientists regularly command increases well above the standard market-movement range, not because convention has been abandoned, but because demand consistently outstrips supply and candidates in these disciplines have genuine leverage. When talent is scarce, market dynamics shift and salary history becomes even less relevant as a benchmarking tool.
This is the model that compliant, competitive South African recruitment is moving towards. The Fair Pay Bill is accelerating a shift that was already underway in the upper end of the IT, Finance, and Executive market. For employers who have not yet made this shift, the bill is both a warning and an opportunity.
Is it currently legal for employers in South Africa to request salary slips?
Yes. There is no legislation that prohibits a prospective employer or recruitment agency from requesting salary slips as part of the hiring process. This is the current legal position as of April 2026. The Fair Pay Bill, if passed, would change this. It has not yet been enacted. Requesting salary slips is lawful provided it is handled in compliance with POPIA, including obtaining the candidate's informed consent before processing their personal information.
Does POPIA apply to salary slips collected during recruitment?
Yes. A salary slip contains personal information as defined under POPIA, including earnings, deductions, and employer details. Employers must collect this data with documented consent, use it only for the stated recruitment purpose, store it securely, and delete it once the process is concluded. Retaining salary slips indefinitely without a documented data retention policy is a compliance risk regardless of whether the Fair Pay Bill passes.
What is the Fair Pay Bill and is it definitely going to become law?
The Fair Pay Bill was introduced to Parliament by Build One South Africa in June 2025. If passed, it would ban employers from requesting salary history during recruitment and require all job advertisements to disclose a salary range. As of April 2026, it is still with Parliament's Legal Advisors and has not been gazetted for public comment. It has not been voted on and is not yet law. Legal analysis from Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr and Bowmans suggests the core provisions are likely to survive the parliamentary process, but the bill could be amended, delayed, or rejected. Employers should treat it as probable and begin preparing.
Can candidates refuse to provide salary slips when asked?
Yes. A candidate is not legally obligated to provide salary slips to a prospective employer or recruiter. Declining to provide them may raise questions during the process, but no employer can compel this disclosure. If the Fair Pay Bill passes, employers will no longer be permitted to make the request at all, which would make the question moot.
How should employers set salaries if they can no longer use salary history?
The answer is straightforward: work with a specialist recruiter who already has that market intelligence built in. At Skillzpage, salary guidance is a core part of what we do. We have spent two decades recruiting exclusively in IT, Finance, AI, and C-Suite — interviewing thousands of candidates and developing a detailed understanding of what professionals at every level are earning across South Africa right now. When you brief us on a role, that knowledge informs the salary conversation from the outset. You do not need to build internal benchmarking infrastructure or subscribe to external tools. You need a recruitment partner who can tell you what the role is worth, what candidates in that space are expecting, and what a competitive offer looks like before you go to market.
How can employers submit feedback on the Fair Pay Bill?
The formal public comment period has not opened as of April 2026. When it does, the submission channel is the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour at www.parliament.gov.za. Watch the Government Gazette for the notice that triggers the comment period, as it will specify the closing date. Employers should also engage with Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) or their relevant industry body to ensure their concerns are included in consolidated submissions. For substantive submissions, engage a qualified labour law practitioner to draft or review your response.
What should employers do right now to prepare?
Start with three actions. First, audit your current recruitment process to identify where salary history is requested and how that data is used and stored, and confirm your POPIA consent and retention practices are documented. Second, brief your hiring managers on the incoming legislation so that when the bill passes, or when the public comment period opens, your organisation is not caught unprepared. Third, partner with a specialist recruiter now rather than later. If salary slips are removed from the process, the employers who will still make fast, accurate offers are those whose recruitment partners already understand the market deeply enough to advise without them. That relationship takes time to build. Starting it now puts you in a stronger position when the legislation lands.
This is where working with a specialist recruitment agency makes a real difference. At Skillzpage, we have spent decades placing professionals across IT, Finance, AI, and C-Suite roles in South Africa. Over that time, we have interviewed thousands of candidates, navigated thousands of salary conversations, and developed a detailed picture of what professionals at every level, in every niche, are actually earning and expecting across the market right now. That knowledge comes from being in those conversations every day, not from a spreadsheet.
That depth of knowledge does not disappear when the Fair Pay Bill becomes law. Whether or not employers retain the right to request salary documentation, we will continue to provide the salary guidance our clients rely on. If you need to know what a Senior DevOps Engineer, a Finance Manager, or a C-Suite appointment should cost in the current market, partner with us and we can guide you. That is what two decades of specialist recruitment looks like in practice.
If you have a role to fill and want a recruitment partner who understands both the compliance landscape and the talent market, we would like to hear from you.
Visit www.skillzpage.com or call 010 157 0179.
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Disclaimer: This article provides general information about South African employment law and proposed legislation. It does not constitute legal advice. Employers should consult a qualified labour law practitioner before making changes to their recruitment policies or data practices.
