Is Your Personal Trainer an Independent Contractor?
Section 200A says one factor out of seven is enough to presume employment, and then you are the one who has to disprove it. A gym supplies the equipment, so the clock is already running.
Ask most independent gym owners about the trainers on their floor and you get the same answer: they are self-employed, they have a contract that says so, some of them pay rent for the space. Whether your personal trainer independent contractor arrangement holds up has almost nothing to do with that contract. South African law has a test for it, the test is unusually blunt, and your gym almost certainly trips at least one of its seven factors before you open the contract at all.
This is not a reason to panic and it is not legal advice. It is a reason to count something this week.
The presumption
One factor out of seven, and the burden moves to you
Section 200A of the Labour Relations Act and section 83A of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act carry the same rebuttable presumption. NEDLAC's Code of Good Practice: Who is an Employee, published as General Notice 1774 of 2006 in Government Gazette 29445, sets out how it works, and anyone applying those sections has to take the Code into account.
A person is presumed to be an employee if they can show that any one of the seven listed factors is present. One is the whole threshold.
What happens next is the part worth understanding. The Code is explicit that establishing one factor does not by itself prove the person is an employee. What it does is move the burden: the onus then falls on the employer to lead evidence that the person is not an employee and that the relationship really is independent contracting. If you fail to lead satisfactory evidence, the Code says the applicant must be held to be an employee.
At the CCMA the burden therefore sits with you. You are the one who has to prove the trainer is not your employee.
Two limits are worth knowing. The presumption only applies below the earnings threshold the Minister sets under section 6(3) of the BCEA, and it applies, in the Code's words, "regardless of the form of the contract". A clause in your agreement calling someone an independent contractor is not conclusive proof of anything.
Threshold, 2025
From 1 May 2026
Werksmans Attorneys put the new threshold at R269 600,90 a year from 1 May 2026, up from R261 785,45, set by the Minister of Employment and Labour under section 6(3). That is roughly R22 470 a month. A trainer taking home less than that, which is most of them at an independent gym, sits inside the presumption.
The seven
Where a personal trainer independent contractor arrangement comes apart
Here are the seven factors from the Code, in plain terms, next to what each one usually looks like at a boutique gym in South Africa.
| The factor | At a typical independent gym |
|---|---|
| The manner of the work is controlled or directed by another person | Sometimes. Depends how much you dictate about method and conduct |
| Their hours of work are controlled or directed by another person | Often, if they work your opening hours or a slot you assign |
| They form part of your organisation | Usually. They are on the timetable, in the shirt, on the website |
| They have averaged at least 40 hours a month for you over the last three months | Ten hours a week clears this. Most full-time trainers clear it easily |
| They are economically dependent on you | Usually, if your members are where their clients come from |
| You provide the tools of trade or work equipment | Always. You own the racks, the floor, the dumbbells |
| They work for only one person | Often, unless they genuinely train elsewhere too |
The equipment factor is the one nobody escapes
A gym that supplies equipment supplies the tools of trade. That is the whole job description of a gym. And the Code closes the obvious exit: the factor applies regardless of whether the tools are supplied free of cost, or their cost is deducted from the person's earnings, or the person is required to repay the cost.
Read that against the usual rent arrangement. Charging a trainer to use your floor does not make your dumbbells their tools. Under the Code it is the same factor either way, and it is live from the first session.
If you supply the equipment, the presumption is already running. Everything else in the contract is argument.
Two of the factors have more give in them than owners expect. The Code says economic dependence is generally present where the person depends on you for the supply of work, and that it is absent where someone is genuinely self-employed. It also says the "works for only one person" factor falls away if they render services to anyone else, whether or not your agreement permits it.
This week
Count it before somebody else counts it for you
Work out the monthly hours for each trainer
Average over the last three months, because that is the window the Code uses. This is the only factor that is pure arithmetic, and if you cannot answer it from your booking records then you cannot assess your own exposure.
Write down who supplies what
Equipment, floor space, booking system, music, towels, the brand on the shirt. Then note whether anything is charged back, and remember that charging for it does not remove the factor.
Find out where else they work
Ask directly, and keep the answer. A trainer with three other clients elsewhere is in a different position to one who only ever works your floor, and right now you probably do not know which you have.
Read your own timetable honestly
If they appear on your schedule, take your bookings, follow your rules and wear your branding, you are describing someone who forms part of your organisation. That is factor three, on its own.
Take the list to a labour lawyer, then pick a side
There are two honest endings. Employ them properly, with the leave, notice and contributions that follow. Or restructure so the independence is real rather than written down. Papering over the gap is the option that fails.
The point
The contract is not the evidence. The working week is.
Section 200A asks what actually happens on your floor: who supplies the kit, who sets the hours, how many hours were worked, where else the person earns. Those are facts in your booking system, and you either have them or you do not.
Pull three months of hours per trainer. Start there.
None of this means every trainer in the country is secretly an employee. The presumption is rebuttable, genuinely independent arrangements exist, and the Code spends most of its length explaining how to tell the difference. The point is narrower: the test looks at the relationship, not the paperwork, and the moment one factor is present you are the one who has to do the explaining.
Owners usually find that out during a dispute, which is the worst time to go looking for three months of attendance records. Go and look now, while nobody is asking.
Hours per trainer, per month, going back three months, without anyone rebuilding it from a diary. That is a records question before it is a legal one, and it is the kind of thing we set up.
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