sars.gov.za

Readiness by lane

Green: sars.gov.za. Thin bar: Government Services peer median.

Priority fixes for sars.gov.za

Ordered by impact and by how common each practice is among peers.

1. Priority 1 · Accelerate

   No render-blocking scripts in <head>

   Observed: The homepage <head> loaded 16 external scripts without async or defer.

   Why it matters: A plain <script src> in the head stops the browser from showing anything until that file has downloaded and run.

   What to do: Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.

   On WordPress: Since WordPress 6.3, scripts can be registered with a defer or async loading strategy.

   39% of Government Services peers do this. Limit: Based on the homepage HTML delivered to an automated client; scripts that run later were not executed.

   Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page

2. Priority 2 · Accelerate

   Modern image formats in use

   Observed: The homepage had 23 images and none used WebP or AVIF.

   What to do: Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.

   On Cloudflare: Cloudflare Polish can convert images to WebP.

   15% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format

3. Priority 3 · Harden

   Content Security Policy present

   Observed: The homepage response did not include a Content-Security-Policy header.

   What to do: Start with Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only to see what would break, tighten the policy over a few weeks, then enforce it.

   41% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: Payment Security and PCI DSS: What Website Owners Need to Know

4. Priority 4 · Harden

   CAA records limit who can issue certificates

   Observed: No CAA record was found for sars.gov.za, so any public certificate authority may issue for it.

   What to do: Publish CAA records naming every CA you actually use, including the CAs your CDN uses for managed certificates. Add an iodef contact if you want reports.

   On Cloudflare: Cloudflare documents which CAs its managed certificates need; include them in your CAA records.

   17% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

What sars.gov.za already does well

Practices fewer than half of Government Services peers use.

• Structured data presentJSON-LD structured data found.15% of peers
• Reachable over IPv6IPv6 address published.27% of peers
• Static files cached for 30 days or moreLong-lived caching on static files.30% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.sars.gov.za/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.3, HTTP/2

Certificate

Google Trust Services, 90-day validity, expiring 2026-12-12

CDN or edge

Cloudflare

Platform or framework

WordPress

DNS operators

Cloudflare

HSTS

max-age 365 days, includeSubDomains, preload

DMARC policy

p=reject

Homepage HTML

296 KB, gzip

Images on homepage

23 (jpg 33, png 15)

Limits: homepage only, one location, one moment. Header checks reflect the homepage response; other pages may differ.

Stack and providers

Seen in the homepage response, certificate and DNS. Provider pages compare how their customers configure the same checks.

All 31 checks

Select a gap for the method and fix. How each check works

Compare with other Government Services sites

• archives.gov75
• skatteverket.se77
• trafikverket.se77
• vietnam.vn77
• wbxpress.com76

Government Services readiness benchmark