SAMBRA grading explained: NSR, SR and how to prepare

The South African Motor Body Repairers' Association (SAMBRA) is the body repair association of the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI). It accredits member shops after an inspection of their premises, equipment, staff and paperwork against its National Certification Grading Criteria Checklist, and grades each one as non-structural or structural.

Membership is voluntary. The grade matters because it's the industry's common yardstick: SAMBRA says all major insurers recognise its standards, and motorists searching its Find a Repairer map see every member marked as a non-structural or structural repairer.

Choose the grade that matches the work you do and the equipment you have:

The brand categories in SAMBRA's directory, such as aluminium or EV repairers for a particular make, are manufacturer approvals, not SAMBRA grades.

The checklist dates from December 2019 and is still the version SAMBRA links from its How to Join page. You get a copy when you apply, and the inspector works from a duplicate. It has four parts:

Each scored item carries a weight between 0.1 and 1, and a “partially” earns part of an item's score. Every item also refers to a procedure in SAMBRA's standard operating procedure manual, which isn't publicly available.

Before anything is scored, both grades need these five, with copies attached:

• MIBCO: a letter of good standing, or a letter of intent, exemption or proof that you've applied, plus your MIBCO registration number.
• SARS: proof of tax compliance, or a deferred payment agreement with SARS.
• Workmen's compensation: your COIDA registration number.
• A qualified panel beater on staff, or proof that they've applied for a trade test.
• A qualified spray painter on staff, or proof that they've applied for a trade test.

The checklist still calls it a “section 28” trade test, the old name. Experienced people without papers now qualify through Artisan Recognition of Prior Learning (ARPL) and a trade test; our guide to starting a panel beating business explains the route and the MIBCO and COIDA registrations.

The scored lists walk through the shop area by area, from reception to the quality-control bay. Most items apply to both grades. In summary:

An NSR shop without a commercial spray booth can score on a spray room with an extractor and filtration unit instead. The SR list drops that option.

The SR list repeats the NSR list, drops the spray-room fallback and adds 19 items. Grouped together, they are:

• A qualified mechanic on staff.
• A chassis straightening bench and a measuring system, manual or electronic.
• A double-sided inverter spot welder of at least 9 000 amps, a MIG/MAG welder and a MIG brazer.
• A plasma cutter and a spot-weld remover.
• Oxy-acetylene flashback arresters, non-flammable welding screens, welding masks to the safety rating and flame-resistant welding aprons.
• Lifting equipment and an engine hoist, a MacPherson strut compressor or spring clamps, a shop press and bearing pullers.
• A torque wrench set.

1. 1

   Contact SAMBRA

   Call 011 886 6300 or email customerservice@sambra.biz, or contact your regional representative. SAMBRA is part of the RMI, so you join the RMI as a motor body repairer.
2. 2

   Meet the regional representative

   They collect your details, visit the shop or meet you online, and tell you which grading process applies.
3. 3

   Apply

   Complete the application form with three references from RMI members or the trade and a short note on why you want to join. Send your company details and registration, MIBCO and VAT numbers, trade certificates and photos of the premises, and pay the joining fee. You get an RMI membership number.
4. 4

   The inspection

   An authorised RMI staff member or representative inspects the shop against the same checklist you were given.
5. 5

   Your grade

   Accredited members may display the RMI and SAMBRA emblems and appear on the Find a Repairer map as a non-structural or structural repairer.

The application form asks shops that aren't RMI members yet whether the business has traded for more than six months under its current owner. It's a question, not a stated rule, so if your shop is new, ask the regional office how it affects your application. The form also makes clear that paying the accreditation fee doesn't mean you've been approved.

You're given the checklist so that you can prepare against it, so use it as a self-assessment. Walk the shop with the PDF a few weeks before the visit and fix what's missing. Many items take an afternoon rather than a budget:

• File the five minimum documents, with copies, along with your insurance schedules, B-BBEE certificate and proof of association membership.
• Put up the signs: shop name, trading hours and an after-hours number outside; PPE signs in the booth, welding area and workshop; indemnity signs in the quotation and quality-control bays; emergency exits.
• Pin up evacuation plans with routes and assembly points for each department, and have a first-aid kit and a certified first-aid officer.
• Display the MIBCO Main Agreement.
• Write down your complaints procedure and your warranties on workmanship, paint and parts.
• Use a standard check-in form, printed quotes, detailed job cards and a quality-control checklist on every job.
• Demarcate the bays and the waste area, keep every bay clean and lit, and have the booth's compliance certificate and your equipment's service records ready.
• Keep customers' belongings from their cars somewhere safe.

The optional part of the checklist is a good picture of a well-run shop: manufacturer approvals, apprentices, an estimator, a diagnostic technician and scan tool, a paint thickness gauge, parts traceability, customer updates, a training plan, courtesy cars, card payments and CCTV. SAMBRA doesn't say how it counts, so treat it as a list to work towards.

The checklist's requirements stay conditions of membership after you're graded. You agree to inspection at any time during normal working hours. If the shop stops qualifying, or your monthly debit order isn't paid, you must tell the RMI in writing and take the RMI and SAMBRA emblems off your premises and advertising.

SAMBRA doesn't publish how often it re-inspects. Until 2017 it graded members every year. From mid-2017 to 2019 an industry scheme had Bureau Veritas audit shops against SAMBRA's criteria, with certificates valid for two years and audits from R1 900 plus VAT. The current checklist, from December 2019, names RMI staff or representatives as the inspectors. Ask your regional office what applies now, and if the inspection finds gaps, ask what to fix and when you'll be seen again.

A SAMBRA grade isn't the same as a place on an insurer's panel. Insurers approve repairers against their own published requirements, usually with their own site visit, and none of the insurer requirements we've read make SAMBRA membership compulsory. A grade still helps: its checklist covers much of what insurers look at, and SAMBRA says all major insurers recognise its standards.

In September 2026 SAMBRA said the Competition Commission had approved it, under the block exemption for small businesses, to negotiate service level agreement terms with individual insurers on behalf of qualifying small members. Labour rates stay each shop's own decision.

Grading also isn't manufacturer approval. SAMBRA says its accreditation doesn't automatically qualify a repairer for a manufacturer's approval, with Mazda the one exception it names. Carmakers appoint their own approved repairers for in-warranty work; our right to repair guide explains what the Competition Commission's rules say about that.