Introduction

For the last couple of months, I had been trying to sort out my tax residency status. As an individual who wants to stay on the right side of the law, I began the process of ending my tax residency status in South Africa, now that I had become a tax resident of Canada. After so many months, I finally got the notification from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) confirming my non-residency status. In this post, I will walk through the process of how I got everything sorted.

Why Bother Updating South African Tax Authorities?

The world of tax is very complex, interesting and annoying. Complex in the sense that navigating taxes and calculating taxes (as an expat) is tedious. Interesting in that governments around the world have designed tools aimed at assisting each other on all matters related to taxes. Annoying in that someone has to compile and file the necesaary paperwork to relevant authorities. A few facts stood out to me:

• Both South Africa and Canada generally tax their residents on their worldwide income. In theory, this means that I could be a tax resident of both countries unless I submit relevant paperwork to the South African Revenue Service (SARS) informing them of my residency changes.
• Interestingly, Double Taxation Agreements (also known as 'tax treaties') exist between many countries. There does exist a tax treaty between South Africa and Canada (see: https://www.treaty-accord.gc.ca/text-texte.aspx?lang=eng&id=102407)
• In addition to this, the Common Reporting Standard, of which Canada and South Africa are participants, allows for participating countries to exchange/share taxation related information amongst each other. In theory, this means that, at some point, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and SARS would know about my domestic and foreign banking and investment accounts, even if I do not explicitly disclose them (through detailed tax returns). For more information on the Common Reporting Standard, please see: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/04/consolidated-text-of-the-common-reporting-standard-2025_e478bc04.html

From my vantage point, it seemed that it is in my best interest to update South African tax authorities of my recent move to Canada. This means that I should not have to file South African taxes each year. Having said that, there are some implications which I am yet to navigate:

• Once you cease to be an ordinary resident of South Africa, you are seen to have disposed of all your assets. This means that there may be "exit taxes" due.

Get The Papers Ready

The first step of the process was to ensure I have all the paperwork I need to support my application to end my tax residency status in South Africa. Fortunately, as a South African expat, the South African Revenue Agency does provide a detailed article on what the process means and what types of documentation they would require. For more information on this, see: https://www.sars.gov.za/individuals/tax-during-all-life-stages-and-events/tax-and-non-residents/

Disclaimer

No generative AI (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, etc) were used to author any parts of this article. I figured it would be great to write authentic pieces of text with my free time. I would like to think that most people do not want to read an auto-generated, uninspired, "AI slop" article.