2 Guides across 1 job. Each Guide is authored by an accountant; the ones more colleagues stand behind rise to the top.
South Africa replaced 'financial emigration' with a purely tax-driven exit in 2021, and most leavers still run the old playbook. Ceasing SA tax residency triggers a deemed disposal of your worldwide assets (the exit charge), retirement annuities lock for three uninterrupted years of non-residency, moving money out runs through SARS approval rather than the Reserve Bank, and thousands of expats who never formally ceased are still fully taxable with only the R1.25m foreign-earnings exemption protecting them. This Guide sequences the modern exit.
South Africa tax residency: ordinarily resident test, physical presence test, cessation of residency, exit charge on deemed disposal. Trigger on: "South Africa tax resident", "SARS residency", "leaving South Africa taxes", "ordinarily resident South Africa", "physical presence test South Africa", "SA exit tax", "cease to be SA resident", "South African tax emigration", "financial emigration SARS".