The Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) may be delayed, but the era of “invisible fines” is nearing the end, and motorists face a crackdown with unpaid fines.
Aarto was postponed from December 2025 to July 2026 by transport minister Barbara Creecy. The new system to deal with traffic offences would have been introduced in phases starting on December 1, with the licence demerit points system scheduled to go live countrywide on September 1 2026, but Creecy said not all municipalities were ready to implement Aarto.
However, the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) and multiple municipal systems have begun synchronising data, meaning that outstanding fines are no longer invisible or contained within local jurisdictions, said Barry Berman, CEO of Fines South Africa. Under the existing Criminal Procedure Act (CPA), the fragmented nature of fines and warrants can create issues across different municipalities, meaning a fine or warrant in one area doesn’t automatically link to another.
One of Aarto’s goals is to create a single, national system where outstanding traffic fines are centrally tracked, making them visible to all authorities. Motorists are already feeling the consequences of unpaid fines before the demerit system officially goes live, said Berman.
“Across the country, drivers are encountering blocked licence renewals, surprise summonses, ballooning penalties, and even flagged vehicles at roadblocks as enforcement shifts into a more automated, integrated phase,” he said.
According to RTIA data, more than 32-million fines remain outstanding nationwide, and system integrations already under way are exposing these backlogs during routine NaTIS transactions and holiday enforcement operations, he warned.
“Many motorists only discover an issue when it’s too late, for example, at a roadblock or when they try to renew their licence. The days of fines going unnoticed or ignored are over.
“Even ahead of the full Aarto rollout, real-time data integration means your driving record follows you everywhere. This is why we strongly encourage drivers to check regularly for outstanding fines and settle them,” said Berman.
He said nationwide roadblock operations are set to intensify over the festive season, and motorists who are unaware of outstanding fines risk unnecessary conflict and delays at checkpoints as officers verify compliance on the spot.
“Last December alone, more than 1.2-million traffic fines were issued nationwide, many at holiday roadblocks — a trend expected to increase as municipalities expand system integrations,” he said.
Berman added that existing CPA fines will not fall away when Aarto goes live.
Motorists can check for outstanding fines through platforms like Fines South Africa or PayCity which consolidate information from various municipal and Aarto databases.
Aarto is the government’s plan to replace the existing criminal system with an administrative one. With the demerit system, drivers will be allocated points for offences and face suspension or cancellation of their licences if they accumulate too many, in addition to any penalty fee payable. If this happens repeatedly, the licence is cancelled and the driver must, after a prescribed period, redo their learner’s and full driving tests from scratch.
Aarto, without the licence demerit system, has been operating in Johannesburg and Pretoria for several years. The plan was to start the national rollout with 69 municipalities on December 1, expand to 144 more from April 2026, and introduce the demerit system in September 2026. With the delay, full implementation is now expected in 2027.
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