Sending Inheritance and Trust Money Abroad: A Guide for Attorneys and Their Clients

When someone administering a South African deceased estate or family trust needs to pay money to a beneficiary overseas, three sets of rules apply at the same time: the law on winding up estates, South Africa’s exchange control rules (the rules on moving money in and out of the country, policed by the Reserve Bank), and tax law. None of these rules stop the payment from happening. What they do is set an order in which things need to happen, and most delays come from doing things in the wrong order, not from any real problem with the transfer.

The one thing worth doing first, before anything else: work out how the beneficiary is classified under the exchange control rules. Sort that out at the start of the administration, not once the estate is ready to pay out.

Work Out Who the Beneficiary Is, First

Being classified as a South African “resident” or “non-resident” for exchange control purposes depends on where someone was born and their history of living in the country. It does not depend on their citizenship, where they currently live, or even their tax residency, which is a separate question and doesn’t always give the same answer. Most beneficiaries fall into one of three groups.

• South African Residents: (this includes South Africans who happen to be living abroad right now): must receive their inheritance into a local bank account first. They then send the money offshore themselves, using their own personal allowance: R2 million a year with no approval needed (this limit increased in April 2026), and above that, up to R10 million with the tax authority’s (SARS) sign-off. Anything over R10 million needs approval from the Reserve Bank itself.
• Bona Fide Non-Residents: were born outside South Africa and have never lived here as residents. Once the estate paperwork proves where the money is coming from, their inheritance can be paid straight offshore. If they aren’t registered as South African taxpayers, SARS requires a specific document (a Manual Letter of Compliance) confirming this, which SARS says takes about 21 working days to issue.While not subject to allowances, funds due to them are automatically encumbered and require estate documentation (Source of Funds documents) to release.
• Emigrants: individuals who were born in South Africa but have gone through the process of formally ending their South African tax residency with SARS. They can also have their inheritance paid offshore, once they can show SARS’s confirmation that they are no longer tax resident, and once SARS has separately approved the transfer itself. One thing to watch for: someone who was born here and has lived overseas for decades, but never formally ended their tax residency, still counts as a resident under these rules.

There’s also a less common but recurring situation worth knowing about: someone born in South Africa who left as a minor, and who has no South African ID document or tax number, technically still counts as a resident. In cases like this, the Reserve Bank will consider a special declaration treating them as a non-resident for this one transaction, as long as they don’t own any other assets in South Africa. We can apply for this early, at the same time the estate is being registered, so it doesn’t become a last-minute hold-up.

The One Document That Often Holds Things Up

Before paying a non-resident beneficiary, banks generally now want to see a certificate from the Master’s Office confirming that the estate’s final account was open for inspection and nobody objected to it. In practice, this certificate can take a while to obtain. We’ve arranged an alternative way to verify this with our banking partner, so payment doesn’t have to sit and wait on the Master’s Office.

Trusts: What’s Changed

It used to be much harder to pay money out of a South African family trust to a beneficiary living overseas. That’s changed: trusts can now pay both income and capital abroad, following the same SARS approval process described above. For amounts above R10 million, SARS looks more closely and the Reserve Bank needs to approve it in advance too. If an application has to go through the Reserve Bank, allow six to eight weeks, and once granted, the approval is valid for a year.

Where We Come In

We open a dedicated account in the estate’s name that works in both directions. On the outgoing side, we pay foreign costs, like overseas legal fees or amounts owed to foreign creditors, directly from that account, with all the required reporting done for you, which keeps a clean paper trail behind the estate’s final account. On the incoming side, we receive money from overseas, like foreign insurance payouts or the proceeds of selling foreign assets, convert it at an agreed rate, and pay it into the account correctly recorded.

Since February 2022, beneficiaries who inherit foreign assets don’t have to bring them back to South Africa if they don’t want to; they can choose to keep them offshore, and we handle the Reserve Bank approval that requires.

Finally, there’s often a gap of weeks or months between getting approval and the money actually moving, and the rand can shift a lot in that time. We offer forward contracts, which let you lock in an exchange rate in advance, so the amount your client ends up with (or has to pay) doesn’t depend on where the rand happens to be on the day.

The short version: work out who the beneficiary is and get the SARS process started as early as possible, and everything after that is just administration. We’re happy to help directly with the trickier classifications and any Reserve Bank applications.

For more information or assistance please email enquiries@currencypartners.co.za or call (+27) 21 203 0081 to get in touch with our expert team.