Sanral to Roll Out Tap-to-Pay at All Its Toll Plazas by December 2025

PRETORIA — 29 May 2025

South African motorists will soon tap bank cards or smartphones at every toll plaza for faster, secure payments as Sanral upgrades its national network by December 2025.

The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) confirmed to MyBroadband that its 30 self-managed plazas will support contactless payments by year-end, with live testing starting October or November 2025 (Sanral statement).

Tap-to-pay systems are already live on major routes managed by concessionaires. The N3 Toll Concession (N3TC) and N4 Toll Route Concession (N4TRAC) completed installations in 2024, covering plazas between Johannesburg-Durban and Pretoria-Komatipoort.

Bakwena—managing 15 plazas on the N1 and N4 highways—is finalising installations and aims activation in late 2025 (Bakwena statement).

The system will accept:

• Debit, cheque, and credit cards (except American Express, Diners Club, and RCS).
• Mobile wallets like Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, Samsung Wallet, and Garmin Wallet.

This aligns with new banking regulations phasing out fraud-prone magnetic stripe cards (Sanral statement). Toll plazas are recognized vulnerability points for card cloning, making contactless options safer (unverified industry assessment).

The upgrades aim to cut queuing times while combatting payment fraud at busy interchanges nationally.