The Reserve Bank's Currency and Exchanges Manual permits cash bequests from a resident estate due to non-resident beneficiaries to be remitted abroad provided the Liquidation and Distribution Account bearing a Master of the High Court reference number has been viewed. No rand limit, no allowance and no revenue-service approval appears in that provision.
A cash bequest leaves a South African estate for a beneficiary in Australia on the strength of one document. The Reserve Bank's rulebook for banks names it, puts the duty to look at it on the bank rather than on the beneficiary, and attaches no amount to the requirement at all: the Liquidation and Distribution Account, bearing a reference number issued by the Master of the High Court.
Key Takeaways
- The condition on a bequest leaving a resident estate for a non-resident beneficiary is documentary: the Liquidation and Distribution Account bearing a Master of the High Court reference number must have been viewed.
- No rand limit, no annual allowance and no revenue-service approval appears in that provision.
- Where the estate's total assets are under R250 000, the will and the Letter of Executorship take the account's place.
- Whether a beneficiary is a non-resident turns on residence, domicile or registration, not on citizenship.
- Renouncing a right to capital in a testamentary trust takes the payment out of the bank's hands and into an application to the Financial Surveillance Department.
The condition the Reserve Bank imposes
The instrument is the Currency and Exchanges Manual for Authorised Dealers, published by the Financial Surveillance Department of the South African Reserve Bank. It is the rulebook the banks work to, and it is versioned: this is version 1.132 of 25 June 2026, under Circular 18/2026, with the pages carrying section B.2(K) stamped 13/2025 and 14/2025.
Section B.2(K)(i)(a) provides that cash bequests and the cash proceeds of legacies and distributions from resident estates due to non-resident private individuals, entities or trusts may be remitted abroad, provided the Liquidation and Distribution Account bearing a Master of the High Court reference number has been viewed.
That is the whole of the authority, and what is absent is the more interesting half. No rand ceiling. No annual allowance drawn down. No tax compliance number, no approval for international transfer. This is not a payment outside exchange control: it is authorised by a provision of the Manual and reported like any other cross-border transaction. What it sits outside is the allowance regime.
The routes, and which document each one turns on
Section B.2(K) sets the cases out separately, and what mostly separates them is which document the bank has to see.
| The estate or trust | What must have been viewed | Where it is set |
|---|---|---|
| A resident estate | The Liquidation and Distribution Account bearing a Master of the High Court reference number | B.2(K)(i)(a) |
| A resident estate whose total assets are under R250 000 | The Last Will and Testament and the Letter of Executorship or Authority | B.2(K)(i)(b) |
| The South African portion of an estate whose deceased was not a resident | The same account, and all legal requirements met, its example a resealed grant of probate | B.2(K)(ii)(c)(aa) |
| A resident estate holding authorised foreign assets | Nothing further, if foreign administrative and related costs were met from the foreign portion | B.2(K)(i)(c) |
| A capital distribution from a local testamentary trust | The trustees' resolution confirming the distribution, and the will confirming the entitlement | B.2(K)(ii)(d) |
One thing is worth drawing out of the table. The R250 000 figure is measured on the estate's total assets rather than the share reaching any one beneficiary, so several people each receiving a modest amount from a larger estate are all on the first row.
The account itself is the executor's statement of the estate: assets realised, debts and expenses paid, the balance distributed to those entitled. Section 35 of the Administration of Estates Act 66 of 1965 requires the Master of the High Court to examine it, and it reaches that stage only once an executor has been appointed. The condition is about provenance rather than contents: evidence of a completed procedure in place of a limit on the amount.
The definition that decides whether B.2(K) applies at all
All of this depends on the beneficiary being a non-resident, which section A.1 defines as a person whose normal place of residence, domicile or registration is outside the Common Monetary Area.
Beside it sits a second. A resident temporarily abroad means any resident who has departed South Africa for a country outside the area with no intention of taking up residence, or who has not been granted permanent residence in another country, excluding those abroad on holiday or business travel.
The test is not citizenship. It is residence, domicile or registration, and domicile is an independent limb that can point differently from a visa. A South African settled permanently in Australia is ordinarily a non-resident, which is the precondition for the table above applying at all; which row they land on is decided by the estate, not by them. Somebody who has left South Africa but holds permanent residence nowhere is described by the second definition, and money reaching them from an estate is dealt with under a different section of the Manual. As printed, the two definitions can both describe one person, and neither says which prevails.
One further case sits alongside rather than inside this one, and it is a different test again: exchange-control residence and tax residence are decided separately, so one person can move on one and not the other. Section B.2(J) addresses a private individual who has ceased to be a resident for tax purposes, and B.2(J)(xiii) requires a Manual Letter of Compliance from the revenue service for an inheritance above R10 million to such a person no longer active on its register. The Manual connects the two: B.2(K)(ii)(d) closes by drawing the attention of individuals who cease to be tax residents to that section. Somebody living in Australia who has formally ceased South African tax residency is described by both, and neither says which prevails.
What renouncing does
Section B.2(K)(ii)(d) adds a sentence that moves the decision up a level: a distribution resulting from the renunciation of a beneficiary's right to capital of a testamentary trust must be referred to the Financial Surveillance Department.
The effect is to move the decision from the bank to the central bank: a payment two documents would have released becomes an individual application. Anyone renouncing in favour of another family member is choosing a different process, not a lesser one.
The clock the executor is working to
The pace is statutory rather than a bank's. Section 35(4) requires every executor's account, once examined, to lie open at the Master's office, and where the deceased lived in another district a duplicate at that magistrate's office, for not less than twenty-one days, for inspection by anyone interested in the estate.
Section 35(12), as substituted with effect from 3 April 2024, removes the executor's discretion: where the account has lain open and no objection has been lodged, the executor shall forthwith pay the creditors and distribute the estate among the heirs in accordance with it.
What happens to money that cannot be paid out
Section 35(13) is worth knowing before it applies. The executor must, not later than two months after the estate becomes distributable, pay to the Master for deposit in the guardian's fund all money they have for any reason been unable to distribute under the account.
Two months is short, and unable covers ordinary practical failures: a beneficiary who cannot be reached, or whose account details or identity documents have not been produced. Once the money is in the fund, section 88(1) allows interest only on sums held for defined categories, among them a minor, an unborn heir and a person with a usufructuary or fiduciary interest. An adult heir overseas is in none. Section 88(2)(b) separately stops interest five years after money becomes legally claimable unless it is claimed before then, which matters only where interest was running in the first place, and section 92 forfeits anything unclaimed for thirty years to the State.
So the cost of not producing usable details promptly is not a delay. It is a transfer into a fund that pays an adult beneficiary nothing.
Where the published guidance disagrees with the rulebook
A government page can be out of date while the rulebook beside it is current, and on this corridor one is.
The revenue service publishes a question and answer addressed to an overseas heir of a parent's estate. It tells them to place their emigration on record with the Reserve Bank, and offers an alternative for those who already emigrated in exchange control terms. The page carries a last-updated stamp of 26 February 2021.
Section B.2(J)(i) of the Manual states that the concept of emigration as recognised by the Financial Surveillance Department has been phased out with effect from 1 March 2021. The guidance was stamped three days before the process it recommends stopped existing, and it is still served. The same page uses the phrase inheritance allowance, which corresponds to nothing in the Manual. The compliance letter B.2(J)(xiii) calls for above R10 million is a document a particular person obtains, not an allowance anybody draws down.
The two authorities also differ on their face about trusts. The revenue service's page on the manual letter of compliance for non-residents, dated 18 June 2021, lists a distribution from a South African trust to a beneficiary deregistered from its database as needing one irrespective of the amount, while B.2(K)(ii)(d) lets the bank remit such a distribution on the trustees' resolution and the will, naming no revenue-service document. Both are live and official, and which applies is a question for the executor's advisers. Australian treatment of the same money is a separate question again, for a registered tax agent here.
Where to look next
- Receiving money from South Africa - the rand to Australian dollar corridor page.
- AUD to ZAR - the convert page for the pair.
- How international transfers work - the sequence a payment moves through once the South African end is settled.
- Understanding transfer fees - transfer costs.
Sources
- Currency and Exchanges Manual for Authorised Dealers, South African Reserve Bank - version 1.132 of 25 June 2026, Circular 18/2026: sections B.2(K)(i)(a) to (c), B.2(K)(ii)(c)(aa), B.2(K)(ii)(d), B.2(J)(i), B.2(J)(xiii), and the A.1 definitions.
- Currency and Exchanges guidelines for individuals, South African Reserve Bank - version 1.69, 7 January 2026, section 3.12.1.
- Administration of Estates Act 66 of 1965, consolidated text hosted by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development - sections 35(4), 35(12) as substituted from 3 April 2024, 35(13), 88 and 92.
- I live overseas and I am the heir of my parents' estate, South African Revenue Service - last updated 26 February 2021.
- Non-residents process for Manual Letter of Compliance, South African Revenue Service - dated 18 June 2021, on trust distributions to a deregistered non-resident.
General information about how South African exchange control treats a bequest paid to somebody living in Australia. Which side of the residence definition a particular estate falls on, and how the money is treated on arrival, are questions for the executor's advisers and a registered tax agent. Not financial advice, not tax advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
Is there a limit on an inheritance leaving South Africa for a beneficiary in Australia?
Not in the provision that governs it. Section B.2(K)(i)(a) of the Reserve Bank's Currency and Exchanges Manual for Authorised Dealers permits cash bequests and the cash proceeds of legacies and distributions from resident estates due to non-resident private individuals to be remitted abroad, on one stated condition: that the Liquidation and Distribution Account bearing a Master of the High Court reference number has been viewed. No rand figure, no allowance and no revenue-service document appears in it.
What is the Liquidation and Distribution Account?
It is the executor's account of the estate, showing what was in it, what was paid out of it and who receives the remainder. Under section 35 of the Administration of Estates Act it is examined by the Master of the High Court and then lies open for inspection. The account reaches that stage only after an executor has been appointed and the Master has examined it, which is what the Reserve Bank's condition presupposes.
Does a small estate need the same document?
No. Section B.2(K)(i)(b) provides that where the total assets of the resident estate are less than R250 000, the bequest may be remitted abroad provided the Last Will and Testament and the Letter of Executorship or Authority have been viewed instead. The threshold is measured on the whole estate, not on the share going to any one beneficiary.
Does it matter whether the beneficiary is still a South African citizen?
The Manual's definition turns on residence, domicile or registration rather than citizenship. A non-resident is a person whose normal place of residence, domicile or registration is outside the Common Monetary Area. A second definition, resident temporarily abroad, reaches somebody who has left South Africa without being granted permanent residence in another country, and as printed the two can both describe one person with nothing saying which prevails.
What happens if the beneficiary cannot be paid?
Section 35(13) of the Administration of Estates Act requires the executor, not later than two months after the estate becomes distributable, to pay to the Master for deposit in the guardian's fund all money they have been unable to distribute. Section 88 allows interest only for defined categories such as a minor or an unborn heir, and section 92 forfeits money unclaimed for thirty years to the State.