To launch Google Ads in South Africa, target the country or a province, write ads, keywords and landing page in English, the only one of the twelve official languages that Google Ads recognizes, and check your account address for VAT. Mobile weighs far more than desktop. The sourced facts are in the facts table at the top of the page.
Key takeaway: Launch a campaign in English for the whole of South Africa or for a few provinces, check VAT and the rules of your sector, polish the mobile version of your pages, then read the South African Google page of each keyword before you bid.
| Fact | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Official languages | Twelve official languages: Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, South African Sign Language, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu (section 6 of the Constitution, whose subsection 1 was replaced to add sign language; the commencement of the amendment was fixed by a proclamation published in the Government Gazette of June 26, 2026) | Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Act (Government Gazette No. 49041, July 27, 2023); commencement: Proclamation Notice 321 (Government Gazette No. 54901) |
| Languages Google Ads supports | English only among the twelve official languages: Google Ads recognizes none of Afrikaans, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, isiNdebele or South African Sign Language. According to Google's help, an ad created in a language missing from its list is disapproved | Google Ads Help, “About available languages in the Google Ads interface” (same list as the Google Ads API language codes) |
| Currency | Rand (R), divided into 100 cents (c): section 15 of the South African Reserve Bank Act makes it the monetary unit of the Republic | South African Reserve Bank (SARB), South African Reserve Bank Act, section 15 |
| Search engines (share of searches) | Google 91.75%, Bing 7.36%, Petal Search 0.31%, Yahoo! 0.28% (September 2026) | StatCounter Global Stats |
| Mobile vs desktop | Mobile 77.26%, desktop 22.02%, tablet 0.72% of page views (September 2026) | StatCounter Global Stats |
| VAT on Google Ads | All Google Ads accounts in South Africa are subject to VAT at the current South African rate, as required by South African legislation since April 1, 2019 (Google notes the rate can change at the government's discretion); on postpay, Google adds VAT once a month, on prepay it subtracts it from the balance once a month | Google Ads Help, “Taxes in your country” (South Africa section) |
| Country VAT rate | 15% (standard VAT rate on the supply of goods and services by registered vendors) | South African Revenue Service (SARS) |
| Country-specific Google surcharge | No South Africa-specific surcharge in Google's list (“Jurisdiction-specific surcharges”) | Google Ads Help, “Jurisdiction-specific surcharges” |
| Online gambling | Only online lotteries and sports betting are listed for the country: lottery operators must be licensed or authorized by the National Lotteries Commission, sports betting operators must be licensed by an appropriate provincial regulator; Google also requires certification | Google Advertising Policies, “Gambling and games” |
| Online pharmacies and telemedicine | Allowed with limitations: a pharmacy must be registered with the South African Pharmacy Council or hold a license recorded with it; a telemedicine provider must be accredited by LegitScript's Healthcare Merchant Certification Program; no prescription drugs in the ad or on its destination; Google certification required | Google Advertising Policies, “Healthcare and medicines” |
| Code of Advertising Practice (ARB) | The code of the self-regulation body (Advertising Regulatory Board) requires advertisers to hold, before publication, documentary evidence for any claim that can be objectively substantiated, direct or implied (clause 4.1.1), and regulates comparative advertising (clause 7) | Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB), Code of Advertising Practice, Section II (general principles) |
| Heritage Day | Last edition: September 24, 2026, a national public holiday | Government of South Africa (gov.za), public holidays |
| Year-end | December 16 (Day of Reconciliation), December 25 (Christmas Day) and December 26 (Day of Goodwill) in 2026, national public holidays | Government of South Africa (gov.za), public holidays |
| Public holiday falling on a Sunday | The Public Holidays Act makes the following Monday a public holiday: National Women's Day (August 9, 2026) is observed on August 10, Human Rights Day (March 21, 2027) on March 22 | Government of South Africa (gov.za), public holidays |
Data verified on . Each value was read on its source on the date shown. It may have changed since: the source prevails.
In the campaign settings, pick South Africa, a province such as Gauteng or Western Cape, or even a city. One campaign per area keeps budgets, bids and reports readable. The Presence option only reaches people located in the area; Presence or interest, which Google generally recommends on Search, also reaches people who are interested in it without being there.
Write ads, keywords and landing page in English. Google's help says an ad created in a language missing from its list is disapproved, and Afrikaans, isiZulu and the other official languages are not on it. Google removed the language setting from Search campaigns: ads are matched by their language. A language Google does recognize, such as Hindi or Gujarati, is tested in a separate campaign.
Start from Keyword Planner set to South Africa and English, not from a list imported from another English-speaking market. Our guide on how to choose Google Ads keywords covers the method, and the search terms report will quickly show what people really type.
For each keyword, open the Google results page from South Africa and look at the ads and the pages that rank. The Should I Bid intent analysis does this reading keyword by keyword and returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict. It can also target a large city of the country, as an optional setting.
The facts table at the top of the page shows that mobile accounts for most page views. Open your pages on a phone, show your prices in rand and delivery or service terms that apply in the country.
Google says all Google Ads accounts in South Africa are subject to VAT. Check your account address, then ask your accountant what is recoverable: it depends on your status and your country.
Gambling, health, figures in claims: read Google's advertising policies for your sector, then the code of the country's self-regulation body. Have a local lawyer validate the borderline cases.
Run a capped test budget, read the search terms report and exclude the searches with no buying intent. Then look in Google Trends set to South Africa at how demand moves around public holidays before you spread your spend.
South Africa has twelve official languages, since South African Sign Language joined the list. The text of the constitutional amendment published in the Government Gazette replaces subsection 1 of section 6 with a list of twelve languages, and a proclamation by the President fixed its commencement. The facts table at the top of the page gives the list. Beware of older sources: the government page that reproduces chapter 1 of the Constitution still showed eleven languages when we read it.
Of these twelve languages, Google Ads recognizes only English. Google's help on available languages lists the languages of language targeting, and the language codes list of the Google Ads API holds the same ones. English is there, but neither Afrikaans, nor isiZulu, nor isiXhosa, nor any other official language of the country, sign language included. This is the particularity of this market: the language most spoken at home is not on the list.
An ad written in another official language risks being disapproved. Google writes, in the same help page, that ads created in a language missing from the list are disapproved, and its unsupported language policy also bans ad or destination content in a language that targeting does not support. For South Africa, the safe route is therefore English. Reread these two pages before you launch: they can change.
The census nevertheless shows that English is not the language of most households. According to the census statistical release, isiZulu is the language most often spoken in households, ahead of isiXhosa and then Afrikaans, and English only comes after several other languages. This statistic measures the household language, not the language of searches: someone can speak isiZulu at home and type searches in English. Only the search terms report of your account and the South African Google page will tell you what your customers type.
Other languages that Google recognizes can serve specific communities, provided you measure demand first. The Constitution names, among the languages commonly used by communities in the country, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, and Google Ads recognizes all of them. A campaign in one of them, opened separately with its ads, keywords and landing page in that language, is only worth it if Keyword Planner set to South Africa shows real demand there.
Google Ads offers the nine provinces, many cities and finer areas as targeting locations. The official list of locations holds Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West and Western Cape, as well as cities such as Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Gqeberha and Bloemfontein. Google says the targetable location types vary from one country to another, as its help on location target types by country explains.
The targeting option decides who sees your ads. According to Google Ads help on geographic targeting, the broad Presence or interest option reaches people in the area and people who show interest in it. Google recommends it in general on Search and keeps Presence for sectors with strict targeting limits, or for advertisers who only want people on site. For an offer delivered only within the country, compare both on a test.
The household language changes a lot from one province to another, even if your ads stay in English. According to the census statistical release, four people in five speak isiZulu at home in KwaZulu-Natal, and isiXhosa in the Eastern Cape; more than seven in ten speak Sesotho in the Free State and Setswana in North West; in the Western Cape, two people in five speak Afrikaans. These gaps do not change the language of your ads, which Google limits to the languages of its list, but they tell you who you are talking to: adapt the tone, the examples and the visuals of your pages in English, and compare provinces in your reports.
Whoever bids in Johannesburg does not necessarily bid in Cape Town. The ads shown can vary from one location to another: check it on the results page, city by city, or look at who bids on your keywords before you set a bid ceiling.
Google has almost all searches in South Africa. The facts table at the top of the page shows Bing far behind, then marginal engines: StatCounter also lists Petal Search, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo and Yandex, with tiny shares. A Google Ads campaign only reaches searches made on Google: do not build a Microsoft Advertising campaign, the ad platform of Bing, before you have measured your results on Google.
Mobile crushes desktop in page views. The facts table gives the three shares: the phone carries most of them, the tablet almost nothing. So design your landing pages for the phone first: readable text, a short form or a call button, fast loading. For a B2B offer, still look at the device report of your own account: the split of page views in a country says nothing about the split of your customers.
The same search does not show the same results page from one country to another. Before you bid, open South African Google: how many ads, which comparison sites, which Shopping ads. The page itself tells you whether the click is worth its price, and our guide to search intent in Google Ads explains how to read it.
Google says all Google Ads accounts in South Africa are subject to VAT. In Google's page on taxes by country, the section for the country says the tax applies at the South African rate, as the legislation requires, and that this rate can change at the government's discretion. On postpay, Google adds VAT once a month; on prepay, it subtracts it from the balance once a month. The standard rate published by the tax authority is in the facts table, and the tax authority says that rate increases announced for a time were reversed: check the rate again before you build a budget.
Unlike other countries, the South Africa section does not name the Google company that invoices. So look at the documents of your own account: in Google Ads, open tools and settings, Billing, Documents, then Tax and statutory documents. Google says a VAT invoice is available from the fifth business day of the following month, that it is not generated on weekends or bank holidays, and that its invoices are accepted by various tax authorities as valid VAT invoices. That last statement is Google's: ask your accountant what is recoverable in your case.
Google's list of jurisdiction-specific surcharges does not name South Africa. Several countries appear in it, with a supplement added to the invoice for ads served there; that is not the case here, as the facts table recalls. Read the list again before a big spend: it changes.
The rand is the national currency, and its exchange rate floats. According to the Reserve Bank Act, the monetary unit of the Republic is the rand, divided into cents, and the Reserve Bank says the country follows a floating exchange rate policy, where the rate is determined by market forces. If your account is billed in another currency, your revenue in rand and your ad spend therefore move against each other: watch the gap before you set your ceilings, and show your prices in rand on your landing pages.
Online gambling is limited to lotteries and sports betting, with an authorization or a license. Google's page on country-specific rules lists, for South Africa, lotteries and sports betting. Lottery operators must be licensed or authorized by the National Lotteries Commission, sports betting operators licensed by an appropriate provincial regulator, and Google also asks for certification. Other forms of online gambling are not listed there as allowed. If you work in this sector, check with a lawyer which provincial license covers which province before you choose your targeting areas.
Health has its own rules. According to Google's page on healthcare and medicines, online pharmacies and telemedicine are allowed with limitations: the pharmacy must be registered with the South African Pharmacy Council, or hold a license recorded with it; the telemedicine provider must be accredited by LegitScript's Healthcare Merchant Certification Program. No prescription drug may appear in the ad or on the destination page, and Google certification is required.
The country also has a self-regulation code for advertising, run by the Advertising Regulatory Board. The ARB site explains that its decisions rest on this code, which is based on the international code of the International Chamber of Commerce and adapted to the South African context. According to the introduction section of the code, it applies to all advertisements for the supply of goods or services by way of trade. The general principles section requires holding, before publication, documentary evidence for any claim that can be verified, and regulates comparisons with competitors. If your ads quote a figure, a ranking or a competitor, keep the evidence at hand and have a local lawyer review the case.
Google's rules are written country by country: read the South African ones before you write, even if your company is based elsewhere. For other sensitive sectors, reread Google's advertising policies: they change, and a disapproved ad costs time.
The government publishes the official list of national public holidays, and the facts table keeps three dates from it. The gov.za public holidays page lists, for the current year and the next, days such as Freedom Day in April, Heritage Day in September, the Day of Reconciliation in December, Christmas and the Day of Goodwill. The facts table gives the dates: these are days when your customers, carriers or customer service can be away.
When a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is a holiday too. The same page cites the Public Holidays Act and gives examples: National Women’s Day and Human Rights Day, moved to the Monday when they fall on a Sunday. The real calendar therefore changes from one year to the next: check the official list of the year before you set budgets, schedules and customer service.
Public holidays also delay your invoices. According to Google, VAT invoices are not generated on weekends or bank holidays: if your accountant waits for them to close the books, plan a margin.
Do not guess the effect on your searches: measure it. Open Google Trends set to South Africa, compare your keywords around these dates over several years and note whether demand rises, drops or shifts, before you raise, cut or pause your budgets.
Rain does not fall in the same season everywhere. According to South African Tourism, much of the rain falls in the Western Cape in winter, unlike the rest of the country, which gets summer rainfall. If your offer depends on the weather (roofing, air conditioning, travel, garden), do not copy the calendar of one province onto another: measure it province by province in Google Trends.
Five mistakes are easy to make when you launch South Africa from abroad. Avoiding them costs less than fixing them after the first clicks.
A test costs little compared with clicks that carry no buying intent. Launch the clearest keywords, let the search terms speak, then exclude what does not convert, with the help of the negative keyword tools compared on this site. To find starting ideas from a product or a page, Vision generates them, and you then have them analyzed on South African Google.
Create a campaign that targets South Africa, or the provinces you want, with the targeting option that fits your offer. Write ads, keywords and landing page in English, the only one of the twelve official languages that Google Ads recognizes, then rebuild your keywords from the searches of the country. Check VAT, the rules of your sector and the code of the self-regulation body, polish the mobile version of your pages and run a capped test.
According to Google's help, an ad created in a language missing from the language targeting list is disapproved, and neither Afrikaans nor isiZulu is on it. English is the only one of the twelve official languages that is recognized. Read Google's page again before you launch, because it can change. To speak to households of another language, adapt the tone, the examples and the visuals of your pages in English.
Google says all Google Ads accounts in South Africa are subject to VAT, at the South African rate, as the legislation requires. On postpay it is added once a month; on prepay it is subtracted from the balance. Google does not give tax advice: ask your accountant what is recoverable. The standard rate is in the facts table at the top of the page.
Only with conditions. For online gambling, Google's list keeps only lotteries, with an authorization from the National Lotteries Commission, and sports betting, with a license from a provincial regulator, plus Google certification. For health, pharmacies must be registered with the pharmacy council and telemedicine accredited by LegitScript, with no prescription drug in the ad or on the landing page.
Yes. The Google Ads list of locations holds the nine provinces, as well as cities such as Johannesburg and Cape Town. Choose a province if your offer is local, and the whole country if you deliver everywhere, then read the reports by location before you concentrate the budget. The Presence option only keeps people located in the area, Presence or interest also reaches people who show interest in it.
Yes. Should I Bid reads the Google results page for the country and language you choose, among 50 countries: for South Africa, English is the language offered by default. Each keyword gets a score out of 100 and a decision, Bid, Test or Skip, with the evidence read on the page. The pricing page explains how credits work: one credit per keyword analyzed, with free analyses to try it, no credit card.