SARS Filing Obligations After Becoming a Non-Resident

The common assumption is that SARS filing obligations after becoming a non-resident simply stop, that once you’ve told SARS you’re leaving, SARS is done with you. Compare that to what actually happens, and the gap is wide enough to catch people two or three years into their new life in Canada.

Assumption: ceasing tax residency ends your relationship with SARS. Reality: it changes what you’re taxed on — filing continues.

Once your non-resident status is confirmed, only South African-sourced income remains taxable in South Africa. Rental income from a Cape Town property you kept and dividends from SA shares — all of it stays inside the SA tax net regardless of where you live. If any of that applies to you, you keep filing, every year, for as long as the income exists. This point rarely lands until someone tries to close their tax number entirely and discovers they can’t.

Assumption: your SA tax number falls away once you’re a Canadian resident. Reality: it stays active, tied to whatever South African-sourced income remains.

There is no “delete me from the system” step. Your tax reference number persists, and SARS expects a return for any year in which you had South African-sourced income, even a small one. Leaving that unfiled doesn’t erase the obligation — it accumulates as a compliance gap that surfaces later, often at the worst moment, such as when you need a SARS Tax Compliance Status PIN to move more money out.

Assumption: ceasing residency is a one-time administrative form. Reality: it’s a formal process with its own documentation, and SARS can decline it.

You declare your cessation date on the RAV01 form via eFiling, under Income Tax Liability Details. SARS then opens a case and asks for a signed declaration, a motivation letter, a passport copy showing entry and exit stamps, and evidence specific to whichever test you’re relying on — the ordinarily-resident test, the physical presence test (a continuous 330 days outside South Africa), or a double-taxation-agreement tie-breaker. SARS can and does decline declarations where the criteria aren’t met or the paperwork is incomplete. Get this wrong and you’re still, as far as SARS is concerned, a resident with worldwide income exposure.

Assumption: capital gains on South African property stop mattering once you’ve left. Reality: SA immovable property stays in the SA tax net specifically, by design.

Section 9H of the Income Tax Act treats ceasing residency as a deemed disposal of your worldwide assets at market value, the day before residency ends — a notional sale that can create a real tax bill with no actual cash proceeds to pay it from. South African immovable property is explicitly excluded from that deemed disposal, which sounds like relief until you realise what it actually means: the property stays taxable in South Africa on an ongoing basis, and any eventual sale still triggers South African capital gains tax under the ordinary rules, house or apartment, whenever you eventually sell it.

What “why filing does not simply stop” comes down to. SARS is tracking income source. Non-resident status changes the scope of what’s taxed, from worldwide to South African-sourced only, but it doesn’t switch off the filing requirement while South African-sourced income continues to exist. Rental income, dividends, and any eventual sale of SA property all keep the obligation alive.

This is squarely a “get a professional” area rather than a “read a blog post and act” one. Cessation dates, the deemed-disposal calculation, and what specifically still needs declaring are genuinely case-specific, and a registered SA tax practitioner working alongside a Canadian accountant is the right combination — not a forum thread, and not this article.

Cape2Canada’s free guide on proof of funds and moving money touches the exchange-control side of this same transition, if that’s the piece you’re tackling next.