Which traffic fine system applies where you live?

A driver who lives in Cape Town, works in Johannesburg and drives a car registered in Bloemfontein can collect fines under two different legal systems in the same week, with different deadlines and different ways of challenging them.

Almost nobody checks which one a particular notice belongs to. That is the first thing to establish about any fine, because the correct response under one system is useless under the other.

The two systems

The Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977. The traditional system, and still the one that covers most of the country's territory. A traffic offence is a criminal matter. You receive a section 341 notice, which is the roadside or windscreen notice offering payment, or a section 56 written notice to appear in court. An unpaid fine can lead to a summons and, eventually, a warrant of arrest.

The AARTO Act 46 of 1998. An administrative system. A traffic offence is an infringement rather than a crime. You receive an infringement notice from an issuing authority, administered by the Road Traffic Infringement Agency. Non-payment escalates through a courtesy letter to an enforcement order, which blocks licence and disc renewals rather than producing a warrant.

They are not variations on a theme. They have different remedies, different deadlines, different consequences and different paperwork.

Where each one applies

Location of the infringement decides. Not your residence, not the registration of the vehicle, not where you were going.

2008 to mid-2026. AARTO ran as a pilot in two municipalities only: Johannesburg and Tshwane. Everywhere else in South Africa was Criminal Procedure Act territory.

From 1 July 2026. Phase 2 brought the core of the AARTO Act into force in 60 further municipalities (Proclamation 322 of 2026, Government Gazette 54917 of 29 June 2026), and brought the AARTO Amendment Act 4 of 2019 into force in those 60 and in Johannesburg and Tshwane, 62 municipalities in all (Proclamation 323 of 2026, Government Gazette 54918). The list spans every province except the Western Cape and includes every metro except Cape Town. In those areas minor traffic matters are dealt with by AARTO infringement notices rather than section 341 notices; serious offences still go to court.

The Western Cape. It was pulled out of that phase after the City of Cape Town lodged an intergovernmental dispute, and has been deferred. A fine issued in Cape Town, Stellenbosch or George today is still a Criminal Procedure Act matter.

What has been announced. As at October 2026, a further phase extending AARTO to the remaining municipalities, the Western Cape among them, has been announced but not proclaimed, and the dates given for it have already slipped once. Treat announced dates in this area with caution: the rollout has been postponed repeatedly, and dates that were reported everywhere have subsequently been withdrawn.

Because the gazetted list of municipalities is the operative document and it changes, confirm the current position with the Road Traffic Infringement Agency rather than relying on any article, including this one. Our traffic fine checker works through which system a particular notice belongs to.

Demerit points are not in force

This deserves stating separately because the misinformation is so widespread.

Three presidential proclamations gazetted in August 2025 set out a phased rollout, and the last of them set 1 September 2026 as the start of the demerit points system. That date was reported everywhere and is still being repeated.

Those proclamations were withdrawn in the Government Gazette of 28 November 2025, along with the implementing regulations gazetted the previous month. Sections 24 to 28 of the AARTO Act, which create the demerit points system, have never been brought into operation anywhere in South Africa, including in Johannesburg and Tshwane where the rest of AARTO has run since 2008. The rollout that took effect on 1 July 2026 expressly excluded them.

No fine you receive today can cost you a demerit point. Our guide on how demerit points work sets out the framework for when the system does start.

How to tell from the paper

You do not need to know the gazetted list. The notice itself tells you.

An AARTO infringement notice:

• uses the word infringement, and refers to the AARTO Act
• names the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (renamed the Road Traffic Infringement Authority by the Amendment Act, still RTIA), or carries an AARTO form number
• offers a discount for early payment, commonly 50% within the stated period
• refers to a representation, a courtesy letter or an enforcement order
• gives no court date

A Criminal Procedure Act notice:

• refers to section 56 or section 341 of the Criminal Procedure Act
• names a court and, for a section 56 notice, a date to appear
• refers to an admission of guilt fine
• warns of a summons or a warrant for non-appearance

If a notice names a court and a date, it is not AARTO. If it offers a representation to the Agency, it is not the Criminal Procedure Act.

Why it changes what you do

This is the practical point of the whole exercise.

Under AARTO, if you want to challenge the fine you make a representation to the RTIA, in the prescribed form, within the period. Lodging it costs nothing, but the AARTO Regulations, 2026 add a R100 representations fee if it is rejected. Since 1 July 2026 there is no longer an option to elect to be tried in court on an infringement: the Amendment Act repealed it, and a refused representation goes on appeal or review to the AARTO Appeals Tribunal within 30 days instead. If you ignore everything, an enforcement order follows and blocks your renewals until it is revoked. Our guide on enforcement orders sets out the revocation route.

Under the Criminal Procedure Act, there is no representation to the RTIA, because the RTIA has nothing to do with it. You pay the admission of guilt fine, which is a conviction, or you elect to appear in court and defend it, or you make representations to the prosecutor. Ignoring it can produce a warrant of arrest, which our guide on arrest for unpaid traffic fines explains.

Sending a representation to the RTIA about a Cape Town fine achieves nothing and the deadline runs while you wait for a reply. Waiting for a court date on a Johannesburg camera fine achieves nothing either, because there will not be one.

Our guide on disputing a traffic fine sets out both routes.

Fines issued before your area switched over

A question that arrived with Phase 2 and that a great many drivers now have sitting in a drawer.

A notice belongs to the system that was in force where and when the infringement happened. The change on 1 July 2026 was not retrospective. So a fine issued in Polokwane in March 2026 is a Criminal Procedure Act matter and stays one, even though a fine issued at the same intersection in August 2026 is an AARTO infringement notice.

That has two practical consequences.

Old fines do not acquire AARTO remedies. You cannot make a representation to the RTIA about a 2024 notice from a municipality that only joined AARTO this year. The route for that notice is the one that existed when it was issued: pay the admission of guilt fine, or deal with the summons, or make representations to the prosecutor.

Old fines do not stop being a problem either. A pre-switchover fine that was ignored can still produce a summons and a warrant through the criminal process, and people assume, wrongly, that the change of system wiped the slate.

So a driver in one of the 62 municipalities may now be carrying two categories of unresolved fine at once, each requiring a different response, distinguishable only by the date on the paper.

Checking what is actually outstanding

Most people discover a problem at the worst moment: at a roadblock, or when a licence disc renewal is refused at the counter.

Check periodically rather than reactively. The RTIA maintains a facility for AARTO infringements, and criminal-system fines sit with the issuing authority and the relevant court.

Check against the vehicle and against your licence. Camera infringements attach to the registered owner of the vehicle; notices handed to a driver attach to that person.

Check before you renew. An enforcement order under AARTO blocks the transaction, and discovering it in a queue with an expiring disc is avoidable.

Check after you sell a vehicle, and make sure the change of ownership was actually recorded, because infringements continue to follow the registered owner until it is.

Paying an admission of guilt is a conviction

One consequence that transcends both systems and that people discover years later.

Paying an admission of guilt fine under the Criminal Procedure Act is an admission, and it can result in a criminal record. Our guide on admission of guilt fines explains how this happens and how to have the conviction set aside.

Under AARTO the position differs, because an infringement is administrative rather than criminal. Which is another reason to know which system you are in before you pay anything.

If you drive across provinces

The position for somebody who covers ground is not complicated, but it does require a habit.

Assume nothing from the last fine. Your previous notice tells you about that municipality on that date, not about this one.

Read each notice for the markers above before deciding what to do.

Check your record periodically. Fines go to the address on the vehicle registration, and if that address is old you will not see them until an enforcement order blocks a renewal or a warrant surfaces at a roadblock. Our guide on notifying a change of ownership covers the related problem.

If you run vehicles for a business, appoint a proxy. Our guide on the AARTO proxy explains the obligation, which now bites in far more municipalities than it did before July 2026.

Worked example

This example is illustrative. A sales representative lives in Somerset West, and his car is registered at that address. In one month he is caught by a camera in Midrand, stopped for a broken taillight in Bloemfontein, and given a notice for parking on a verge in Stellenbosch.

Midrand is in Johannesburg, where AARTO has applied since 2008. That notice is an infringement notice. If he wants to challenge it, he makes a representation to the RTIA within the period; if he does nothing, a courtesy letter and then an enforcement order follow, and his licence disc renewal is blocked.

Bloemfontein falls within a municipality brought into AARTO from 1 July 2026. Before that date it would have been a Criminal Procedure Act matter; now it is an infringement notice, with the same remedies as the Midrand one. This is exactly the sort of change that catches out somebody applying what they learned three years ago.

Stellenbosch is in the Western Cape, which was deferred. That notice is a Criminal Procedure Act matter. There is no representation to the RTIA. He pays the admission of guilt fine, understanding that it is an admission, or he elects to go to court.

Three fines, one month, two legal systems, and three different correct responses. The notices themselves said which was which, and reading them was the whole of the work.