SARS’ Crypto dragnet: how the tax net Is closing on South Africa's digital wealth

FROM 1 March 2026, one of the predicted fundamental changes in South Africa's tax landscape, according to media releases, will come into effect.

- WILLEM J. OBERHOLZER

CRYPTO wallets, offshore trading accounts and cross-border digital wealth will now feed into the same international transparency grid that already tracks traditional bank accounts. | FILE

Not the rates. Not the law. The visibility.The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is integrating the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) into its enforcement architecture, alongside an enhanced Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) regime.

In practical terms, this means crypto wallets, offshore trading accounts and cross-border digital wealth will now feed into the same international transparency grid that already tracks traditional bank accounts.

For years, there has been a quiet assumption in parts of the digital economy that complexity creates obscurity. Multiple wallets. Foreign exchanges. Layered offshore structures. Decentralised finance platforms. The belief was not always that crypto was untaxed, but rather that it was difficult to trace.

That assumption is imploding.

From guesswork to data symmetry SARS has never regarded crypto gains as tax-free. The Income Tax Act has always been clear: residents are taxed on worldwide income. If crypto is held as trading stock, gains fall into revenue and are taxed at marginal rates. If held as a capital asset, the Eighth Schedule applies, and capital gains tax follows. The legal position has not shifted; what has shifted is the enforcement capability.

Under CARF, crypto-asset service providers will collect and transmit detailed user and transaction information in a standardised format designed specifically for automated exchange between tax authorities.

Account identifiers, transaction histories, disposals, conversions and transfers are no longer isolated pieces of data. They become structured inputs in a global reporting system.