Uber could be operating illegally in South Africa after failing to confirm receipt of a Certificate of Registration from the National Public Transport Regulator. Under the amended National Land Transport Act, e-hailing platforms were given 180 days from the gazetting of the law in September 2025 to apply for and obtain registration. That grace period ended on 11 March 2026.

As of 7 May 2026, Uber had not confirmed that the regulator had issued the required certificate. That matters because the law does not only require an application to be lodged. It requires the registration process to be completed by the end of the grace period.

The amended law formally recognised e-hailing and introduced stricter rules for both platforms and drivers. These include governance, safety and accountability requirements, as well as conditions such as vehicle branding, panic buttons and operating permits for drivers.

Why the deadline matters

The Department of Transport has previously warned that any platform not registered by the deadline would be operating outside the law. It also said drivers working through an unregistered platform would automatically be illegal, because they cannot apply for their own operating licences until the platform itself is registered.

That is where the pressure now sits. If Uber does not have its certificate, then both the company and many of the drivers who rely on it may be left in legal limbo.

Uber has said it submitted its application well before the deadline, but added that the regulator had not finalised the process in time. That may become important if enforcement action follows. The department has already acknowledged backlogs, and if the delay was outside Uber’s control, any penalties could trigger a court challenge.

Rivals moved faster through the system

The registration process itself is long and detailed. It includes application submission, document verification, publication in the Government Gazette, adjudication, a demonstration of the app’s functionality and final approval by the regulator. Only then can a certificate be issued and provincial authorities notified.

At the time of publication, there appeared to be no gazette notice confirming Uber’s application had reached the publication stage. That could suggest its process started later than some competitors. Bolt, for example, submitted its application in November 2025 and received its certificate on 27 February 2026. Pretoria-based Wanatu became the first platform to secure registration, receiving its certificate on 12 February.

Government may still try to buy time

Transport department spokesperson Collen Msibi has said the department was considering “modalities to grant a further grace period”. He later said a pronouncement would be made during the department’s budget speech on 12 May 2026.

Until that happens, the situation remains unresolved. The law is clear on the deadline, but the state also appears aware that applying it strictly could provoke legal and economic fallout. For commuters, drivers and rivals alike, the bigger question now is whether South Africa’s biggest e-hailing platform is operating in a regulatory gap or about to be pulled back into compliance.