Since 15 April 2026, a South African business that sends direct marketing has to register with the National Consumer Commission before it contacts anyone. It pays to register, pays again every year, and checks its mailing list against a national opt-out register every month.

I came across this while planning a newsletter for a client. My first reaction was that it could not possibly apply to an ordinary email sent to people who signed up for it. It does.

What the Rules Say

The Consumer Protection Act Amendment Regulations, 2026 were published on 15 April and took effect the same day. They set up an Opt-Out Registry, run by the National Consumer Commission (NCC). Anyone can go onto it and block direct marketing, either from everybody or by company, industry, channel or type of message.

If you market directly to consumers, three things follow.

  • You register as a direct marketer, as a company, on the NCC's eServices portal, which opened in July. The registration fee for 2026 is R2,574.
  • You renew every year. The renewal fee for 2026 is R1,930.50.
  • Every month, before you send, you run your list against the registry and remove anyone who has blocked you. That costs 12 cents for each name that has to come off. The NCC has confirmed you are not charged for the names that pass.

The penalty for ignoring all of it is up to R1 million or 10% of annual turnover, whichever is greater.

One detail surprised me more than the fees. At a webinar on 24 July, the NCC said a block on the registry overrides consent. Someone can tick the box on your website, sign up properly, and later register a blanket block, and from that day you may not send them your newsletter. Private opt-out lists, such as the one run by the Direct Marketing Association, will not count.

When It Starts

The reporting disagrees on this. In June, Property Professional reported a transition period ending on 30 September, with enforcement from 1 October 2026. At that 24 July webinar the NCC said there is currently no deadline, and that it would announce registration and enforcement dates later.

I would go by the later statement. As far as I can tell, nobody is being fined for not registering yet. That will change, and the regulations already apply in the meantime.

Is a Newsletter Direct Marketing?

This was the question I most wanted answered, because I assumed an information-only newsletter would sit outside all of this. No prices, no products, no booking button. Just useful things to read.

The Act defines direct marketing as approaching a person, in person, by mail or electronically, "for the direct or indirect purpose of" promoting or offering to supply goods or services in the ordinary course of business.

The word that matters there is "indirect". A business does not send a newsletter out of kindness. It sends one to stay in front of people who might buy from it one day. A guesthouse emailing past guests a list of restaurants in Camps Bay is promoting Camps Bay, and Camps Bay is what the guesthouse sells. A design studio sending out articles about branding is reminding people that it does branding. We send a newsletter ourselves, and I would not try to argue that ours is anything else.

Michalsons, a law firm that works in this area, puts it plainly: if your company sends newsletters, promotional updates or advertising-style emails, these regulations apply to you. I looked for a source that treats an information-only newsletter as exempt and could not find one. The regulations are five months old and the NCC has not published anything on this exact point, so I cannot promise how it will be applied. I would not build a marketing plan on the hope that it goes the other way.

What Falls Outside

Not every email counts.

Replying to someone who asked you a question is not direct marketing, and neither is an update on an order or a job that is already under way.

The Consumer Protection Act also only protects consumers, which means individuals and small businesses with a turnover or assets under R2 million. A business that markets only to larger companies may fall outside these regulations altogether.

The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) still applies to everyone. You need consent before emailing marketing to anyone who is not already a customer, and every email has to say who it is from and give people a way to unsubscribe.

My View

Honestly, I am stunned by this. It is a ridiculous bit of red tape.

The problem it is aimed at is real. Anyone with a phone in this country knows the calls from numbers you do not recognise, selling things you never asked about, and the NCC's own announcement describes the regulations as a way to curb spam calls. But the rules do not stop at the call centre. They land on every small business that just wants to email the people who asked to hear from it, and they put a registration fee, a yearly renewal and a monthly admin job between a bakery and its own mailing list.

The people behind those calls were already ignoring the rules that existed. I doubt a registration form is what stops them. My guess is that the businesses that register will mostly be the ones that were already doing things properly.

What We Are Doing

For our clients, and for ourselves:

  • We are not designing any newsletter around the idea that information-only content is exempt.
  • We will register once the NCC announces an enforcement date. At R2,574, and R1,930.50 a year after that, registering costs less than the time it would take to argue about whether you need to.
  • Until then, the work that matters is POPIA. Record when and how each person signed up, keep the unsubscribe link in every send, and take people off the list the moment they ask.
  • Once the registry is running, the monthly check becomes part of the send routine, the same as proofreading.

If you send a newsletter and want to know where you stand, talk to us. We are not lawyers, and for anything with real money riding on it you should ask one. But we can tell you what we have found and what we are doing about it.

This article is for information only and is not legal advice. The regulations are new and the NCC is still clarifying how they apply, so do your own research, or speak to a lawyer, before you act on anything here.

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