Free tool

What is an unfiscalised till costing you a day?

$25 per point of sale, for every day you remain in default, up to 181 days — a maximum of $4,525 per till. Past that the liability stops being a fine and becomes a criminal offence. Put your own numbers in.

No sign-up, no email181-day cap appliedSource named below

Civil penalty exposure

$4,500

3 tills × 60 chargeable days × $25

$75Added every further day

121Days of civil penalty left before the cap

The cap is not reliefAfter 181 days the daily penalty stops, because continuing in default becomes a criminal offence instead: a fine not exceeding level seven, imprisonment for up to 12 months, or both. You have 121 days before that line.

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The rule

The penalty is capped. What follows it is not a bigger invoice.

Section 10(1) of Statutory Instrument 104 of 2010 (Value Added Tax (Fiscalised Recording of Taxable Transactions) Regulations) sets a civil penalty of $25 per point of sale per day, not exceeding 181 days. An operator still in default after that is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding level seven, imprisonment for up to 12 months, or both.

Why the cap matters to the number you were quoted

Multiply $25 by four tills by two years and you get a figure north of seventy thousand dollars. Nobody is charged that, because the civil penalty stops at 181 days. If a quote you have been given keeps multiplying, the arithmetic is wrong and so is the conclusion drawn from it.

What the cap converts into

Once the 181 days are used up, the exposure moves from the company’s bank account to a person’s record: on conviction, a fine not exceeding level seven, imprisonment for up to 12 months, or both. That is a different kind of problem, and it is the reason the cap is not good news.

Questions

Where every figure on this page comes from.

Where does the US$25 a day come from?

Section 10(1) of Statutory Instrument 104 of 2010 (Value Added Tax (Fiscalised Recording of Taxable Transactions) Regulations). It provides for a civil penalty of $25 per point of sale for each day the operator remains in default.

Why does the number stop growing after 181 days?

Because the regulation caps the civil penalty at 181 days. Continuing in default beyond that is an offence rather than a running charge — on conviction, a fine not exceeding level seven, imprisonment for up to 12 months, or both. A calculator that keeps multiplying past day 181 is printing a liability that does not exist.

Is this the whole exposure?

No. This is the fiscalisation civil penalty only. Any VAT assessed, interest on unpaid tax, and penalties raised under other provisions are separate and are not modelled here. Treat the figure as an order of magnitude and take it to your tax adviser.

Does registering a device now stop the clock?

The penalty accrues for each day the operator remains in default, so it stops accruing when the default ends. It does not reverse the days already accrued. That is the argument for fiscalising this week rather than next quarter.

About the product behind the tool

Native FDMS integration: built and tested, not yet live with a customer.

Device registration, receipt signing, hash chaining, fiscal-day counters and credit-note referencing are written against ZIMRA's FDMS specification and covered by tests. They have not yet been validated against ZIMRA's own test environment, no customer is issuing fiscal invoices through us today, and nothing here is certified or approved by ZIMRA. We will tell you exactly where that stands before you pay us anything.

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