| A2A | Aapplication-to-application |
| ABET | Adult basic education and training |
| ADEC | Association of Distance Education Colleges |
| ADT | Average Daily Traffic |
| AEC | Atomic Energy Commission |
| AME | Average Monthly Earnings |
| ANC | African National Congress |
| AOL | America Online |
| APCSA | Association of Private Colleges of South Africa |
| API | Application Programming Interface |
| ARC | Agricultural Research Council |
| ARV | Anti-retrovirals |
| ASP | Active Server Page (web scripting language) |
| ASP | Application Service Provider |
| ASPECT | Academic Support Programme for Engineering in Cape Town |
| ASSA | Actuarial Society of South Africa |
| B2B | Business to Business |
| B2C | Business-to-Consumer |
| B2C | Business to Consumer |
| BANKSETA | Banking Sector Education and Training Authority |
| BB | Bulletin Board |
| BCC | Blind Carbon Copy |
| BCF | Bike Chat Forums (an online forum for discussion about motorcycles) |
| BI | business intelligence |
| BioPAD | Biotechnology Partnerships and Development |
| BIT | binary digit |
| BLOG | short for "Web Log" |
| BMR | Bureau for Market Research |
| BPA | business process automation |
| BPM | business process management |
| Bps | Bytes Per Second |
| BSD | Berkeley Software Distribution |
| BYTE | Binary digit eight |
| CAD | Computer-aided design |
| CAD | Computer Aided Design |
| CAGR | Compound Annual Growth Rate |
| CASE | Community Agency for Social Enquiry |
| CBI | Cape Biotechnology Initiative |
| CC | Carbon Copy |
| CENIS | Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies |
| CEO | Chief Executive Officer |
| CESM | Classification Educational Subject Matter |
| CFO | Chief Financial Officer |
| CGI | Common Gateway Interface (web scripting facility) |
| CGS | Council for Geoscience |
| CHE | Council on Higher Education |
| CMO | Chief Marketing Officer |
| CMS | Content management system |
| COO | Chief Operating Officer |
| CPC | Cost Per Click |
| CPM | critical path method |
| CPU | Central processing unit |
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management |
| CRM | Customer relationship management |
| CSDS | Centre for Social and Development Studies, now called the School of Development Studies (SODS) |
| CSIR | Council for Scientific and Industrial Research |
| CSIR Bio/Chemtek | CSIR's Division of Food, Biological and Chemical Technologies |
| CSS | Central Statistical Service |
| CSS | Cascading Style Sheet |
| CTO | Chief Technology Officer |
| CUP | Committee of University Principals |
| DACST | Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology |
| DBSA | Development Bank of Southern Africa |
| DENOSA | Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa |
| DMOZ | Directory Mozilla |
| DNE | Department of National Education |
| DNSBL | Domain Name Service Black List |
| DoE | Department of Education |
| DoL | Department of Labour |
| DOS | disk operating system |
| DPRU | Development Policy Research Unit |
| DSL | Digital Subscriber Line |
| DST | Department of Science and Technology |
| DTI | Department of Trade and Industry |