South African Married Couples Can Now Move R4 Million Abroad Without SARS Approval
- South Africa’s 2026 Budget has doubled the offshore transfer limit to R2 million per person per year, allowing married couples to move up to R4 million abroad without prior SARS approval
- The change cuts red tape and makes it easier for families to invest internationally and diversify their assets
- However, stricter rules are being introduced to prevent tax loopholes involving spouses and emigration
Source: Getty Images
SOUTH AFRICA — South Africa’s 2026 Budget quietly delivered good news for married couples, and anyone looking to move money abroad.
Business Tech reported that the National Treasury announced that the amount South Africans can send overseas without extra tax paperwork has doubled. The single discretionary allowance has increased from R1 million to R2 million per person, per year.
What does that mean in real life?
If you’re a South African tax resident, you can now transfer up to R2 million a year abroad through your bank, without needing approval from the South African Reserve Bank or a tax clearance certificate from the South African Revenue Service.
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And here’s where it gets interesting for married couples: If both spouses use their allowances, they can legally move up to R4 million per year offshore. The funds can be used for a wide range of purposes, including paying for overseas travel, making gifts or donations, financially supporting family members living abroad, or investing in international markets and assets.
Why does this matter?
According to the Institute for International Tax and Finance (INTLTAX), the old system made things frustrating. If you wanted to transfer more than the basic allowance, you had to apply for an Approval for International Transfer (AIT) tax clearance from the South African Revenue Service. That usually meant submitting extensive paperwork, proving full tax compliance, providing detailed information about the planned transfer, and then waiting weeks for approval, often while responding to additional queries and requests for further documentation.
INTLTAX CEO Michael Kransdorff says the delays and admin often discourage people from making legitimate offshore investments. Now, compliant taxpayers can simply instruct their bank; no SARS pre-approval is needed up to R2 million.
Not exactly a “bonus” but more of a correction
The allowance was originally set at R500,000 in 2008 and increased to R1 million in 2011. It then stayed unchanged for nearly 15 years. Because of inflation and the weaker rand, the new R2 million limit mostly restores the buying power people originally had. So this isn’t a windfall, it’s more of a long-overdue update.
Still, the increase gives South Africans broader access to global investment opportunities, allowing them to diversify into international technology and healthcare companies, offshore property markets, foreign currency bonds, large-scale infrastructure projects, and a range of alternative assets that are not widely available on the local market.
For many families, this helps reduce the risk of having all their investments tied to one small, emerging-market economy.
SARS targets R400 billion worth of offshore assets
In related news, the South African Revenue Service announced it was focusing on tracking roughly R400 billion worth of offshore assets to maximise tax revenue from South Africans with undeclared foreign holdings in 2021. Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said SARS was using an automatic exchange of information agreement with about 160 countries, with data received from 87 of them, to identify overseas accounts and require taxpayers to disclose details like account balances and income abroad. The move aimed to close gaps in compliance and ensure people with offshore interests get their tax affairs in order.
Source: Getty Images
SARS targets wealthy citizens
Briefly News also reported that the South African Revenue Service is stepping up efforts to improve tax compliance and boost revenue by focusing more on wealthy individuals who may be underreporting income or hiding assets. This includes closer scrutiny of high-net-worth taxpayers’ financial activities and using audits and data analytics to close gaps in collection.
The aim is to ensure that affluent citizens pay the correct amount of tax and help narrow South Africa’s widening tax gap.
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Proofreading by Kelly Lippke, copy editor at Briefly.co.za.
Source: Briefly News
