NLTA
National Land Transport Act, 2009 (Act No. 5 of 2009)
The licensing spine for anyone who moves passengers for reward by road in South Africa, and the offences that follow from getting it wrong.
Sections
9
Duties
10
Questions
17
Assessment from
R 16 200
What it covers
The National Land Transport Act is the statute under which every road-based public transport service in South Africa is licensed. Its first rule is the one that catches most businesses: section 50(1) says no person may operate a road-based public transport service unless they hold an operating licence or permit issued for the vehicle concerned. Not for the business, for the vehicle. What follows from that is a set of duties that are easy to breach without meaning to. The licence may only be held by the person registered as the owner or operator of that vehicle. It may not be hired out or ceded, and a transaction that tries is simply invalid. It does not authorise anything another law forbids, and it does not excuse any other licence or permit. Swapping the vehicle requires written authorisation, and that authorisation has to be in the replacing vehicle along with the licence for the one it replaced. The 2023 Amendment Act added the provision that matters most to anybody running an app. Since 12 September 2025 it is an offence to provide an e-hailing software application and permit an operator to use it for a vehicle that has no valid operating licence. The penalty is up to two years in prison or a fine up to R100 000, and it sits in the same bracket as operating without a licence at all. Enforcement is physical. An authorised officer who is satisfied on reasonable grounds that a vehicle is being used without the necessary licence may impound it, and it stays impounded pending investigation and prosecution. The impoundment fee rises on a second or subsequent impoundment of the same vehicle. This assessment covers Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 as they bind an operator or a platform provider. It does not cover the Minister's functions, provincial frameworks, municipal transport funds or the contracting chapters, because a business cannot act on any of those.
Does this apply to you?
This applies to you if you carry passengers by road for reward, or if you supply the app through which somebody else does. It applies per vehicle, not per company: ten vehicles means ten operating licences, and the licence names the vehicle.
It applies to you as a platform provider even if you own no vehicles, because of section 90(1)(lA). Permitting an unlicensed operator onto your app is an offence committed by you, separately from any offence the operator commits.
Lift clubs, staff services and some tourist services are treated differently and in places exempted, so a business that thinks it falls outside should answer on the basis of what it actually does rather than what it calls itself. Freight is not public transport and is not covered here.
Where this text comes from
Transcribed 2026-10-19. Check the provision against the source before relying on it in a filing.
What non-compliance costs
Section 90(2)(a) sets the heavy bracket at two years imprisonment or a fine not exceeding R100 000. It covers operating without a licence, operating contrary to the licence's terms, applying for a licence for a vehicle that already has one, forging a licence, running a tourist service without accreditation, and the e-hailing platform offence in 90(1)(lA). Every other offence in section 90(1) carries up to three months or R10 000 under 90(2)(b).
The commercial consequence is heavier than either. Under section 87 an authorised officer may impound the vehicle, and it is released only on acquittal, withdrawal of the charges, or conviction plus payment of the impoundment fee, which rises on each subsequent impoundment of the same vehicle. A vehicle in a depot earns nothing.
Section 90(3) reaches the holder for what a manager, agent or employee did, unless the holder neither connived at it nor failed to take all reasonable measures to prevent it. Reasonable measures you cannot evidence are reasonable measures you did not take.
What the assessment covers
The assessment works through 17 questions across 10 duties, scored out of 131. Each answer generates the specific actions needed to close or prove that duty, and a “yes” only counts once its evidence is in, which is what makes the score defensible rather than self-declared.
The questions themselves are part of the assessment.
Find out where you stand on NLTA
Run the assessment, get your score, and get the exact list of what to fix, with the evidence trail an auditor will ask for.