Understand Loan Eligibility in South Africa

It is whether you meet a particular credit provider’s requirements and whether the repayment fits an affordability assessment where the National Credit Act requires one. It is not a button on this website.

Where section 81 applies, a credit provider must take reasonable steps to assess your understanding of the agreement, your debt-repayment history, and your financial means, prospects and obligations before granting the credit. The budget tool on this page is a household sum. It is not that assessment.

They may look at income and how regular it is, necessary living costs, existing repayments, maintenance, the credit record, the cost of the new credit, and rules that belong to that product. The mix depends on the agreement.

No. A score is one bureau’s number. Affordability is about income, costs and repayments. A lender can decline a person with a strong score, or look past a weak score and still have to be satisfied about the repayment.

Some applicants do not have a payslip. A lender may accept bank statements, financial statements or other records. This page cannot say which document a particular lender will take.

Yes, if the credit provider can verify the income it decides to rely on. That is often drawings, business statements or bank statements, not a salary slip. There is no single pack of documents that guarantees an answer.

Commission, freelance work and seasonal income can be counted, but a lender may look at a longer history and may not treat one good month as the monthly figure. The variable-income box in the tool is included in your total and labelled separately for that reason.

Yes. Repayments you already have reduce what is left for a new instalment. The tool asks for credit cards, personal loans, vehicle finance, store accounts and other monthly debt for that reason.

Section 88 says a consumer who has applied for debt review must not take on further credit, other than a consolidation agreement, until one of the events listed in that section has happened. A lender offering a way around that restriction is a warning, not a solution.

Where section 81 applies, yes. In the Act text checked on 28 October 2026, sections 81 to 84 do not apply to a juristic-person consumer, or to a school or student loan, an emergency loan, a public-interest agreement, a pawn transaction, an incidental credit agreement, or a temporary credit-limit increase, subject to the conditions in section 78. Later amendments can change that list.

You can add up take-home pay, essential costs and existing repayments. That is what the tool does. It does not tell you that a lender will agree.

Income may be too low or not verified, existing repayments may leave too little, the credit record may not meet that lender’s rule, documents may be missing, or the product may have its own criteria. None of these always causes a decline on its own.

No. WiT Money does not approve credit, pull a credit report, calculate an official score, or issue a quotation. The tool runs in your browser.

The estimate on this page uses only the numbers you type. A quotation is the credit provider’s own cost, on its form, for a specific agreement. They are not the same document.

Housing, food, utilities, transport, school and childcare, medical costs, insurance, maintenance you must pay, and other costs you cannot drop. Regulation 23A has published expense norms for some assessments. This page does not copy that table, and the tool does not apply it.

Yes. Statements are a common way to see income and debit orders. You give them to the credit provider through its own process, not by uploading them here.