How to renew a FortiGate licence in South Africa

Why there's no "buy now" button for South Africa

Fortinet's FortiCloud portal offers online self-renewal — but only for customers in the United States and Canada, and only for small device counts. Everywhere else, licences flow through Fortinet's distribution channel: distributor → reseller → you. That's why every SA renewal ends in a quote, whoever you buy from. The difference between renewal experiences is how much admin sits between you and that quote — chasing resellers, decoding FC-10 part numbers, confirming your covered-until dates. That's the part we've automated.

The step-by-step

Step 1 — Find your serial number

On the sticker underneath the appliance, or in the FortiGate dashboard. It starts with FGT, FWF (FortiWiFi) or FG. For high-availability pairs, you'll need both serials — each unit is licensed separately.

Step 2 — Check what you currently have

Use our free expiry checker, or on the appliance: System → FortiGuard (GUI) / get system fortiguard-service status (CLI). Note your current bundle too — renewal is the right moment to check the bundle still fits.

Step 3 — Get a verified quote

Enter the serial in our wizard, pick a bundle and a 12, 24 or 36-month term. We verify the device against FortiCare and send a formal rand quote, VAT included, usually within business hours. Here's what drives the number.

Step 4 — Approve through your normal process

A reply-to-accept is enough; POs welcome. Then settle the TechCo ICT invoice through your usual billing channel — no card details online, ever.

Step 5 — We register, your FortiGate updates

We register the renewal against your serial and confirm the new expiry dates in writing. The appliance picks up its new entitlement automatically within hours; run execute update-now on the CLI to force it immediately. (Seeing "expired" after renewing is a known sync quirk — force the update or allow up to a day.)

Step 6 — Forget about it (we won't)

After your first renewal we track your expiry dates and remind you well in advance — typically 60 and 30 days out — so the next renewal happens on time, not after the lapse.

Special cases

• Already expired? Renewals are back-dated to the expiry date — read how that works before you assume the worst.
• Multiple devices / branches? One request, one consolidated quote, optionally co-terminated so everything expires together.
• Tender or government procurement? We quote for RFQs and tenders with Level 1 B-BBEE credentials — details here.