Only if it is export proceeds. Paragraph 41 of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's Monetary Policy Statement of 27 February 2026 maintains the exporter retention threshold at 70%, small-scale gold producers excepted at 90%. The exporter keeps that share in foreign currency and the rest is liquidated, meaning converted into ZiG. A personal remittance is free funds instead.
Two payments can leave Australia for Zimbabwe on the same day, for the same amount, and be handled under different rules at the other end. Export proceeds are partly converted into ZiG, Zimbabwe's own currency; a family remittance is not. What separates them is not how the transfer is labelled but what the receipt actually is.
Key Takeaways
- The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's Monetary Policy Statement of 27 February 2026 maintains the exporter retention threshold at 70% across all sectors, with small-scale gold producers excepted at 90%.
- The balance is liquidated, meaning converted into ZiG, and the Reserve Bank says those proceeds help liquify the interbank market and build reserves to back the currency.
- The International Monetary Fund describes the same arrangement as a surrender requirement, raised from 25 percent to 30 percent in February 2025.
- The rule binds the Zimbabwean party receiving the money. Paragraph 41 addresses exporters and says nothing about the person paying them.
What is Zimbabwe's export retention threshold
A share of export proceeds the exporter keeps in foreign currency, with the rest converted.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe issues a Monetary Policy Statement under section 46 of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act [Chapter 22:15]. The statement of 27 February 2026, published as "Monetary Policy Statement At A Glance" and subtitled "Deepening Domestic Currency Usage to Consolidate Price and Exchange Rate Stability", carries a heading called Exporters' Foreign Currency Retention Threshold, and says this at paragraph 41:
To ensure continued stability in the foreign exchange market, the retention threshold for exporters is maintained at 70% across all sectors of the economy, with the exception of small-scale gold producers, whose retention shall be 90%, with immediate effect.
Two details in that sentence are easy to lose. The first is the carve-out: it is 70% across all sectors except small-scale gold producers, who keep 90%. The second is the word "maintained", which tells you the threshold is set afresh in each statement rather than fixed once.
What happens to the rest
It is liquidated, and the Reserve Bank says what the proceeds are used for.
Paragraph 40 of the same statement puts it directly: proceeds from export liquidations continue to play an essential role in liquifying the WBWS, or willing-buyer willing-seller, interbank market, as well as facilitating the continued strategic accumulation of foreign exchange reserves to back ZiG.
The statement also records an option for the exporter on the other side of that conversion. Paragraph 39 says the US dollar denominated deposit facility introduced in February 2025 remains available to ensure preservation of value for exporters with no immediate use of the ZiG equivalent from export liquidation proceeds.
So the arrangement is not simply a conversion. It is a conversion whose output feeds a market, with a facility attached for an exporter who does not need the converted money yet.
The same rule, counted from the other end
Outside the small-scale gold carve-out, a 70 per cent retention and a 30 per cent surrender are one arrangement described twice.
The International Monetary Fund's 2025 Article IV consultation with Zimbabwe, published as Country Report No. 25/282 in October 2025, describes the same regime in the language of surrender rather than retention. Its External Sector Assessment annex, under a heading on foreign exchange intervention and reserves, records long-standing capital control measures including a foreign exchange surrender requirement of 25 percent of export receipts, and that the surrender requirement increased to 30 percent of export receipts in February 2025.
That single change is worth following through, because it dates the current figure. Neither institution puts it this way, so the arithmetic is worth doing rather than taking: what is surrendered and what is retained make up the whole of the proceeds, so a surrender moving from 25 to 30 per cent is a retention moving from 75 to 70 per cent, in the same month. The February 2026 statement then maintained it.
The Fund also classifies it. Its staff report treats the increase as a tightening of a capital flow measure, the Fund's term for a rule that restricts money crossing a border, assessed under its Institutional View on the Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows, and states that the tightening is considered not appropriate, because the implementation cannot be seen as temporary and is made without the necessary macroeconomic adjustments, and should be removed as soon as conditions allow.
On what the surrendered currency does, the two institutions agree. The Fund records that the Reserve Bank has remained a dominant seller in what it calls the WBWS market, the willing-buyer willing-seller one, stabilising the rate within a narrow range through interventions funded by surrender requirements.
Following the Article IV consultation, the Fund's Executive Board recommended reducing the Reserve Bank's foreign exchange market footprint by gradually redirecting surrender requirements into the market and eliminating exchange restrictions for current account transactions and capital flow measures as conditions allow.
| Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe | International Monetary Fund | |
|---|---|---|
| What it calls the rule | retention threshold | surrender requirement |
| The figure it states | 70% retained, February 2026 | 30% surrendered, from February 2025 |
| Exception named | small-scale gold producers at 90% | not addressed |
| What the proceeds do | liquify the interbank market, build reserves to back ZiG | fund the Reserve Bank's market interventions |
Who does the rule actually bind
The Zimbabwean party receiving the money, and only in respect of what that receipt is.
The retention threshold is an obligation on a Zimbabwean exporter. It is not a rule about Australian payers and not something a sender opts into or out of. Paragraph 41 addresses exporters and says nothing about the person paying them.
The treatment follows what the receipt actually is. A payment for goods or services a Zimbabwean business exported is export proceeds, and the threshold applies to it. A remittance sent to a family member is not export proceeds, and the Reserve Bank treats those separately, as free funds, meaning foreign currency the recipient may keep in that currency and change when and where they choose. Its position on that is set out alongside the live figures on the Australian dollar to Zimbabwe Gold page rather than repeated here.
One caveat on the currency of the figures. The 70 per cent, and the 90 per cent for small-scale gold producers, are stated as at the Monetary Policy Statement of 27 February 2026, and paragraph 41's own word, maintained, is the reason to read them as figures set afresh each time rather than standing ones. The Reserve Bank also issues a mid-term statement, and nothing later than 27 February 2026 is among the sources here, so nothing cited establishes the position after that date.
Where to look next
How international transfers work sets out the ordinary sequence a payment moves through and where it can be held. What a payment rail is made of covers the separate layers a cross-border payment depends on. For the live figures and the Reserve Bank's free-funds position, see the Australian dollar to Zimbabwe Gold page, or the convert page.
Sources
- Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Monetary Policy Statement 2026, published as "Monetary Policy Statement At A Glance - 2026", 27 February 2026 - issued under section 46 of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act [Chapter 22:15]; paragraph 41 maintaining the exporter retention threshold at 70% across all sectors with small-scale gold producers at 90%; paragraph 40 on export liquidation proceeds liquifying the interbank market and building reserves to back ZiG; and paragraph 39 on the US dollar denominated deposit facility available to exporters
- International Monetary Fund, Zimbabwe: 2025 Article IV Consultation, Country Report No. 25/282, October 2025 - Annex I, External Sector Assessment, for the foreign exchange surrender requirement of 25 percent of export receipts and its increase to 30 percent in February 2025; the classification of that increase as a tightening of a capital flow measure under the Institutional View, considered not appropriate and to be removed as soon as conditions allow; and the Reserve Bank remaining a dominant seller in the interbank market through interventions funded by surrender requirements
- International Monetary Fund, Press Release No. 25/323, IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Zimbabwe, 2 October 2025 - the Executive Directors' recommendation to reduce the Reserve Bank's foreign exchange market footprint by gradually redirecting surrender requirements into the market and eliminating exchange restrictions for current account transactions and capital flow measures as conditions allow
General information about sending money to Zimbabwe and about the rules that apply to different kinds of receipt. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
What is Zimbabwe's export retention threshold?
Paragraph 41 of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's Monetary Policy Statement of 27 February 2026 states that, to ensure continued stability in the foreign exchange market, the retention threshold for exporters is maintained at 70% across all sectors of the economy, with the exception of small-scale gold producers, whose retention shall be 90%, with immediate effect.
Does the retention threshold apply to money sent to a family member?
No. It applies to export proceeds. The Reserve Bank treats diaspora remittances separately, as free funds, and its own position on those is set out on the Australian dollar to ZiG page. The rule described here attaches to a receipt that is the proceeds of an export, not to an ordinary personal transfer.
Is the 70 per cent retention the same thing as a 30 per cent surrender?
They describe the same arrangement from opposite ends, though neither institution says so in those words. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe states the exporter's retention; the International Monetary Fund's 2025 Article IV staff report describes a foreign exchange surrender requirement on export receipts, recording that it was increased from 25 percent to 30 percent in February 2025. What is retained and what is surrendered make up the whole, so the two figures are the same rule seen from either side. That equivalence is the position outside the small-scale gold carve-out, where retention is 90%.
What happens to the part that is not retained?
It is liquidated, meaning converted into ZiG. Paragraph 40 of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's Monetary Policy Statement of 27 February 2026 says proceeds from export liquidations continue to play an essential role in liquifying the WBWS, or willing-buyer willing-seller, interbank market, as well as facilitating the continued strategic accumulation of foreign exchange reserves to back ZiG. The IMF describes the Reserve Bank's market interventions as funded by those surrender requirements.
Does the sender in Australia decide how the money is treated?
No. The rules described here bind the Zimbabwean party receiving the money, and the treatment attaches to what the receipt is rather than to how the sender describes the transfer. Paragraph 41 addresses exporters and says nothing about the person paying them.