Bank interest

How to download your Absa IT3(b) tax certificate

Absa lets you download tax certificates in the Absa Banking App and on Absa Online Banking. The current year's certificate is free online. Here are Absa's steps, and how to make the PDF SARS-ready.

Prepare bank tax certificates for eFiling. TaxScanZA scans and exports SARS-ready PDFs under the upload limit.
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Updated 6 October 2026. General information, not tax advice. TaxScanZA is independent of Absa and SARS.

Where to find the certificate

Absa Banking App:

  1. Log in and tap Menu at the bottom right of the screen.
  2. Scroll down and tap Tax certificates. One of Absa's guides places it under Documents first.
  3. Tap the calendar icon to select your tax year.
  4. Select the tax certificate type, then tap Continue.
  5. Download the certificate to your device.

Absa Online Banking:

  1. On the Absa website, click Logon at the top right and log on.
  2. Click Menu at the top left, then Settings.
  3. Scroll down and select Tax certificates, then the tax year and the certificate type.
  4. Click View tax certificate, accept the charges in the pop-up, then download or print it.

Absa's digital banking fee brochure, effective 1 January 2026, lists online tax certificates as no charge for the current year and R10.00 for previous years. Absa's help line is 08600 08600.

What an IT3(b) shows

SARS lists the IT3(b) as the certificate for "Income from Investments, Property Rights, Royalties and/or Withholding Tax on Interest". For most people it reports the interest a bank account or investment earned in the tax year, which for the 2026 filing season is 1 March 2025 to 28 February 2026.

Make it SARS-ready before you upload

When you do upload the IT3(b) certificate, for a correction or a verification, the file has to pass eFiling's upload checks:

  • Under 5MB per file. A multi-page phone photo or a high-resolution scan can go over the limit.
  • Not password-protected. SARS lists password-protected and encrypted documents from banks and funds as a cause of failed uploads. The file opens for you but eFiling rejects it.
  • Readable. Your name, the account number, the tax year and the interest figures must be legible after any compression.
  • A plain filename. Use letters, numbers and hyphens only, for example absa-it3b-2026.pdf.
The fix for a protected or oversized PDF: Open the certificate, print it or display it clearly on screen, and scan it as a new PDF. A fresh scan carries no encryption, and TaxScanZA exports it under 5MB with a clean filename.

If the figure on your return is wrong

SARS's ITR12 guide says auto-assessments use data received from "employers, financial institutions, medical schemes, retirement annuity fund administrators and other third-party data providers". If the interest figure on your return does not match your certificate, SARS's auto-assessment guidance is to ask the institution that provided the data to correct it and send the updated data to SARS. Then open your return again, check that the figure has updated, and file. Keep the certificate: it is your proof if SARS asks.

Check the file before you upload

Run the certificate through the SARS Document Compliance Checker. It flags encrypted PDFs, oversized files and filenames eFiling may refuse, in your browser, without uploading anything. Then follow the upload rejected guide for the eFiling submission itself.

See also encrypted PDF upload error and the supporting documents checklist. Bank somewhere else? See the IT3(b) guides for FNB, Standard Bank and Nedbank.

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