South Africa Tax Residency (91-day physical presence test)

Key parameters
Threshold	91 days
Period / Window	Current + 5 prior tax years
Counting	Any part of a day, transit excluded
Alternative	Ordinary residence
Additional requirements	915 days over prior 5 years

This applies to anyone living in South Africa or spending long periods there, whatever their nationality. You are a South African tax resident if either of these applies:

• Ordinary residence — South Africa is your real home, the place you would naturally return to after time away. There is no day count, and time abroad does not end it while you intend to come back.
• Physical presence test — you are not ordinarily resident, but you spend more than 91 days in South Africa in the tax year, more than 91 days in each of the 5 tax years before it, and more than 915 days in total across those 5.

All three limbs of the physical presence test must hold together. That makes it a test of sustained presence over six years rather than of any single long stay, and nobody can meet it before their sixth year of regular visits.

Physical-presence residency ends after a long enough absence, backdated to the day you left. Ordinary residence has no such rule: it continues until South Africa stops being the place you would return to.

Residents are taxed on worldwide income. Nonresidents are taxed only on income from a South African source.

• Ordinary residence ignores the day count entirely. Someone whose real home is South Africa stays resident through a long posting abroad, however few days they spend in the country.
• A treaty can switch residency off. Anyone treated as exclusively resident in another country under a double tax treaty is not a South African resident, even where the domestic tests are met.
• Leaving triggers an exit charge. On ceasing to be resident you are treated as having sold your worldwide assets, other than South African immovable property, at market value the day before, which can create capital gains tax.
• The 330-day absence always spans two tax years. You needed more than 91 days in the year you were resident, so a continuous absence of that length cannot fit inside a single tax year.
• Working abroad as a resident has its own relief. A capped amount of foreign employment income is exempt if you are outside South Africa for more than 183 full days in any 12-month period, including more than 60 continuous full days.

Residents are taxed on worldwide income, so an error usually surfaces as foreign income left off a return, or as capital gains tax on a deemed disposal of assets that was never declared on leaving. The South African Revenue Service (SARS) levies an understatement penalty on the tax shortfall, from 10% for a substantial understatement up to 150% for intentional evasion, and charges interest on tax paid late. Professional tax advice is strongly recommended in situations like this.

Residency that arrives in year six

You relocate to Cape Town and spend 150, 180, 200, 190 and 210 days in South Africa across your first 5 tax years, 930 in total. Each year passes 91 and the total passes 915, so once you pass 91 days in the sixth year you are resident from 1 March of that year.

One thin year breaks the chain

Your pattern is the same, except one of the 5 years holds only 80 days. The total may still pass 915, but that year falls short of 91, so the physical presence test is not met.

A long absence that ends it

You are resident under the physical presence test and leave on 1 June, staying abroad continuously for 340 full days. That passes 330, so you stop being resident from 1 June, the day you left.

• South African Revenue Service — Interpretation Note 4, physical presence test
• South African Revenue Service — Interpretation Note 3, ordinarily resident
• South African Revenue Service — Cease to be an SA tax resident
• South African Revenue Service — Foreign employment income exemption
• South African Revenue Service — Guide to understatement penalties