Moving More Than the SA Allowances Permit: How the Exceptional Process Works
Start with the ceiling most people never reach. Combined, an adult can move up to R12 million a calendar year through the ordinary allowances alone — R2 million through the single discretionary allowance, R10 million through the foreign investment allowance, once both were raised in 2026. Most emigrating South Africans never come close to that figure. A smaller number do, usually from a business sale or a property portfolio being liquidated at once — and for anyone moving more than the SA allowances permit, the process changes entirely once they cross that line.
Step one: the allowances run out
Everything up to R12 million (combined FIA and SDA) moves through an authorised dealer bank using the standard process — tax clearance from SARS for the FIA portion, and no separate clearance needed for most of the SDA. Above that combined ceiling, or above R10 million specifically on the FIA side, the transaction stops being routine.
Step two: SARB Financial Surveillance
Amounts above the standard limits go to the SARB Financial Surveillance Department for case-by-case approval, applied for through your authorised dealer bank rather than directly. Crossing that threshold is a shift from an automatic process to a discretionary one, where SARB reviews the specific circumstances before approving.
Step three: the documentation gets deeper
Above R10 million specifically, the process folds in a more stringent SARS verification alongside the SARB review, and triggers a risk-management assessment covering source of funds and anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing risk under FICA. In practice this means the file needs to answer, in real documentary depth, where the money came from. For a high-value estate, that can mean the executor's full accounting and a tax clearance history that matches the amounts being moved.
Realistic timelines
SARB doesn't publish a fixed turnaround for Financial Surveillance approvals, and it varies with how complete the file is on first submission — an incomplete file with gaps in the source-of-funds trail will take considerably longer than one that answers every likely question upfront. Treat this as a process measured in weeks to months, and build that into any plan that depends on the money landing in Canada by a specific date.
Where professional help earns its cost
This is squarely the territory where people bring in a South African tax practitioner, or occasionally an exchange-control specialist attorney, rather than handling it through the bank alone. The process is navigable without one for a straightforward, well-documented estate. It gets considerably harder to navigate alone once the source-of-funds picture has any complexity — multiple properties, or money that passed through several accounts over the years.
The neutral version of this advice
There's no need to panic or assume the money is stuck: it's a slower, more heavily reviewed version of the same process everyone else goes through at smaller amounts — more paperwork and a discretionary approval step instead of an automatic one. Start the file early, and treat the professional fee as part of the cost of moving a large sum.
Our free guide to proof of funds and moving money covers the standard allowance process in more detail — useful groundwork before the exceptional route becomes relevant.