The South African Competition Commission launched a cross-economy review on April 22, 2026, targeting regulations that impede competition and restrict small and medium-sized enterprise participation across all markets in South Africa – identifying six major categories of regulatory barriers that structurally disadvantage smaller firms relative to established incumbents.
The review draws on the authority the Commission has held since the late 1990s under section 21(1)(k) of the Competition Act, which empowers it to examine legislation and public regulations and report anti-competitive provisions to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition. Its scope and ambition, however, reflect priorities outlined in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2026 State of the Nation Address and expanded enforcement tools introduced by the 2018 Competition Amendment Act – legislation that broadened the Commission’s mandate to address economic concentration and promote participation by historically disadvantaged persons.
What the Review Found
The Commission organized its findings into six major categories of regulatory barriers. These include burdensome licensing systems that impose disproportionate entry costs, monopoly-entrenching rules that protect incumbent operators through regulatory design rather than competitive merit, excessive compliance requirements that consume resources at rates small firms cannot sustain, and restrictions on price or non-price competition that limit the tools available to new entrants trying to gain market share.
The review also highlights two additional structural problems: rules that effectively prohibit certain forms of market participation outright, and poor administrative implementation – specifically delays in licensing decisions and inconsistent interpretations of regulatory requirements across agencies or municipalities. That last category is notable because it operates independently of the text of any given regulation; a technically reasonable rule becomes a barrier when its administration is unpredictable or slow.
The Commission frames this review as an exercise of its regulatory advocacy function rather than a traditional enforcement action. Prior sector-specific market inquiries – covering grocery retail, data services, private healthcare, and online intermediation – repeatedly surfaced licensing rules, zoning restrictions, and compliance frameworks that entrenched incumbents. This 2026 review applies that same analytical lens economy-wide rather than to a single industry, and its findings are intended to feed recommendations to the Minister and relevant regulators proposing concrete reforms to remove or modify regulatory barriers to competition and market participation.
Why the Barriers Matter for Small Businesses
The structural asymmetry the Commission identifies is straightforward: a large incumbent firm can spread licensing costs, compliance staff salaries, and administrative delays across a substantial revenue base and an established legal department. A small business entering the same market absorbs those costs against a fraction of the revenue – and often has no dedicated staff to manage regulatory filings, respond to inconsistent agency interpretations, or sustain operations through multi-month licensing delays.
This dynamic is not unique to South Africa. Regulatory simplification efforts in the European Union have similarly identified compliance thresholds and administrative burdens as factors that disproportionately affect smaller firms, particularly those attempting to scale into new markets. In both contexts, the core problem is that regulations designed with large, well-resourced operators in mind create entry costs that function as de facto barriers even when no exclusionary intent exists.
The Franchise Association of South Africa, which has been directly invited to submit evidence to the review, has noted that franchisees frequently encounter municipal and sector-specific rules that lengthen entry timelines and increase upfront costs. The association is preparing a submission that details specific regulatory pain points – an indication that the compliance burden described in the Commission’s framework maps onto recognizable operational realities for businesses attempting to open or expand locations.
Legal analysts at GoLegal have cautioned that meaningful impact from the review will ultimately depend on whether the executive and line regulators implement the Commission’s recommendations – a constraint that applies to regulatory advocacy functions broadly, where findings carry persuasive rather than binding authority.
What the Review Means for Small Businesses in Practice
For a small business attempting to enter a regulated market – whether that means obtaining a trading license, qualifying for a sector permit, or navigating municipal zoning – the barriers the Commission identifies tend to arise at the earliest stages of the market-entry process. A licensing system that takes months longer than its statutory timeline to process applications, or that applies eligibility criteria inconsistently across applicants, effectively raises the capital required to enter a market by extending the pre-revenue period.
The compliance cost dimension operates differently but with similar effect. Regulations that require ongoing reporting, third-party audits, or operational standards calibrated to large-firm infrastructure impose fixed costs that do not scale with business size. A 10-person firm meeting the same compliance requirement as a 500-person competitor spends a materially higher share of revenue on that obligation – reducing the capital available for hiring, inventory, or market development.
The Commission’s public call for submissions explicitly requests concrete examples of specific regulations, including municipal bylaws, that raise costs or limit SME entry. That framing suggests the review is designed to surface ground-level operational obstacles rather than abstract regulatory categories – which means the findings, when published, are likely to reference identifiable rules that small business owners in affected sectors will recognize. The parallel in other jurisdictions is instructive: regulatory certification failures in Texas demonstrated how administrative breakdowns – rather than intentional exclusion – can strip thousands of small businesses of market access in a single procedural event.
Where the Review Stands and What Comes Next
The Commission set a June 5, 2026, deadline for written submissions, accepting input from businesses, industry associations, labor organizations, and consumer groups. After assessing those submissions, the Commission plans to publish findings and recommendations for regulatory reform that may inform amendments to sectoral laws, municipal bylaws, or administrative procedures.
Observers in the competition law community, including commentary from African Antitrust, describe the review as the logical extension of sector-specific market inquiry findings – a structural intervention targeting the upstream regulatory design that enforcement actions cannot reach. Whether recommendations translate into actual regulatory change will depend on uptake by the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition and the relevant line regulators who control the rules in question.
The Commission’s publication of findings and reform recommendations following the June 5 submission deadline is the most proximate milestone for businesses and sector associations tracking the review’s outcome.