Medical Aid Affordability — What Can You Afford? (2026)
Enter your salary and family size to see a realistic medical aid premium range and which plan tier it supports — using a financial-adviser-sourced budgeting guideline, not a bank rule.
There's no bank rule for medical aid the way there is for a bond — it isn't debt, so it isn't subject to National Credit Act responsible-lending regulation. The commonly-used budgeting guideline instead is roughly 5% to 12% of your gross monthly income, sourced from financial-adviser commentary and corroborated by an independent SA medical-aid comparison tool that flags plans above the same 12% ceiling. Enter your own salary below for your exact range.
Every other tool in this "Salary to Afford" family — the bond, the rent, the personal loan — rests on an actual lending or letting rule a bank or agent applies. Medical aid is different: nobody underwrites it against your income, so there's no institutional ceiling to check yourself against. This calculator uses the closest real, citable convention instead — a financial-adviser budgeting guideline — and is explicit about the fact that it's a soft rule of thumb, not a pass/fail test, before showing you which plan tier your budget realistically supports.
Your Results
Your SARS Section 6A medical scheme fees credit (R—/month for this family size) is credited against your PAYE regardless of which premium you actually choose — so your real premium budget stretches this far past the 5–12% guideline above. The plan-tier fit below is checked against the base guideline only, so treat this effective range as extra headroom on top of it.
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How to Use This Calculator
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1
Enter your gross monthly salary
Your total salary before tax and deductions.
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2
Select your family size
Just you, or how many dependants would join your medical aid.
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3
Read your affordable premium range
See the budget guideline range (5–12% of gross salary), your effective range after the SARS Section 6A tax credit, and which plan tier it supports.
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4
See the fuller tax credit picture
The results already include your Section 6A credit — use the Medical Aid Tax Credit Calculator for the full Section 6A/6B PAYE-line-item breakdown once you've picked a premium.
Why Medical Aid Doesn't Have a "30% Rule"
Every other calculator in this Salary to Afford family rests on an actual institutional rule: banks apply a 30% affordability ceiling to a bond under National Credit Act responsible-lending principles, and letting agents screen tenants against a 3x-income convention. Medical aid has no equivalent. It isn't a credit agreement, so it falls outside the NCA's responsible-lending regime entirely — no scheme, bank or regulator sets a maximum percentage of your income you're allowed to spend on it.
Medical Aid Affordability by Salary — Quick Reference
| Gross Monthly Salary | 5% (Lower Guideline) | 12% (Upper Guideline) | Typical Plan Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| R15,000 | R750 | R1,800 | Entry to low hospital plan |
| R25,000 | R1,250 | R3,000 | Hospital plan |
| R35,000 | R1,750 | R4,200 | Hospital to entry comprehensive |
| R45,000 | R2,250 | R5,400 | Entry comprehensive |
| R80,000 | R4,000 | R9,600 | Comprehensive |
Single-adult reference bands. Family cover costs more per additional dependant — use the calculator above for your own family size. Actual scheme pricing changes at each product's annual launch; treat these as indicative, not scheme-quoted figures.
What Medical Aid Actually Costs — Plan Tiers Explained
South African medical schemes broadly split into three price tiers for a single adult member:
- Low-cost / entry-level plans — roughly R645–R1,350/month. Usually network-restricted (a specific hospital group) with limited day-to-day cover.
- Hospital plans — roughly R1,500–R3,000/month. In-hospital cover for major medical events, little to no day-to-day benefit.
- Comprehensive plans — roughly R5,000–R12,500/month. Full in-hospital cover plus day-to-day benefits — GP visits, medication, dentistry, optometry.
These bands are PayTools' own periodic market estimate, not a single cited source — actual pricing varies by scheme, specific plan and benefit option, and moves at each scheme's own annual product launch (typically January). Use them as a starting orientation, then get an exact quote from a scheme or accredited broker.
Family Cover Isn't Priced Per Member the Way Tax Credits Are
SARS's Section 6A tax credit treats every dependant the same after the first (R376 for the main member, R376 for the first dependant, R254 for each dependant after that) — a fixed, statutory figure. Real scheme pricing works differently: most schemes charge adult dependants close to the main member's own rate, but charge a separately-discounted flat rate for child dependants, with several schemes capping the number of paying children at two or three. This calculator applies a simplified per-dependant loading to estimate which plan tier your family's affordable range can realistically stretch to — not a scheme-verified figure, since the exact adult/child mix and each scheme's own child-rate discount both affect the real number.
Your SARS Tax Credit Effectively Extends Your Budget
Most affordability guides stop at the 5–12% budgeting range and leave the tax credit as a separate, disconnected calculation. It shouldn't be — the SARS Section 6A medical scheme fees credit reduces your PAYE by a fixed amount every month regardless of which premium you choose, as long as you're on a scheme at all. That means the credit isn't really a discount on the premium itself; it's extra room in your real monthly budget on top of the 5–12% guideline. This calculator's results panel adds the two together automatically — the "Effective Range After Your SARS Tax Credit" figure is your base guideline range plus the credit your family size actually qualifies for, so you can see the fuller picture without a second calculator or a manual sum.
Worked Example — R20,000 Salary, Family of Four
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Lower guideline (5% of gross) | R20,000 × 0.05 | R1,000 |
| Upper guideline (12% of gross) | R20,000 × 0.12 | R2,400 |
| SARS Section 6A credit (main member + 3 dependants) | R376 + R376 + (2 × R254) | R1,260/mo |
| Effective range after tax credit | R1,000+R1,260 to R2,400+R1,260 | R2,260–R3,660 |
| Family loading (3 dependants, PayTools estimate) | 1 + 3 × 0.65 | 2.95× |
| Family-scaled entry-tier band | R645–R1,350 × 2.95 | R1,903–R3,983 |
| Family-scaled hospital-plan band | R1,500–R3,000 × 2.95 | R4,425–R8,850 |
| Verdict | Base budget covers entry-level cover for this family; even the R3,660 effective ceiling after the tax credit still falls short of the hospital-plan band |
This is exactly why family size matters here in a way it doesn't for the bond or rent tools: the same R1,000–R2,400 budget that would comfortably cover a hospital plan for one person doesn't stretch past entry-level cover once three dependants are added, since medical aid pricing scales per member rather than staying fixed the way a bond instalment does. The R1,260 tax credit helps, but on this family size it isn't enough on its own to close the gap to a hospital plan.
Once You've Picked a Premium — Check the Fuller Tax Credit Picture
The results panel above already includes your SARS Section 6A tax credit in the "Effective Range" figure, so you don't need a second calculator just to see how the credit changes your budget. What it doesn't cover is Section 6B — an additional credit for out-of-pocket medical expenses above a threshold tied to your age and actual medical spend, which depends on more than just family size. Once you've settled on a specific premium, use the Medical Aid Tax Credit Calculator for the full Section 6A/6B PAYE-line-item breakdown.