Many South African expats leave South Africa with their minds firmly focussed on their overseas opportunities. For South Africans who have successfully emigrated and made their lives abroad, the advantages of emigration, far outweigh the challenges.
The advantages of emigration
Improve your communication skills
Moving to a new country and taking on a new job generally means you have to improve your communication skills to achieve both at work and in negotiating the challenges of your new life. If you are moving to a country with a different first language, this often involves having to learn new phrases and often an additional foreign language. As a result, you not only improve your marketability but take your communication to a whole new level.
Rise up the corporate ladder
If you immigrating to a country with a stronger economy, it’s likely your career prospects are going to improve. In the Expat Insider 2018 survey, which surveyed expats in 68 countries and asked them detailed questions about their personal finances, it was clear that the majority of expats careers and finances blossom when they move abroad to a country where the economy is booming.
Greater interpersonal skills
Moving abroad means you are exposed to new cultures, new social norms and often an entirely new way of living life. Expats that have successfully immigrated abroad report that they have developed greater levels of compassion and tolerance. In addition, their empathy and understanding of people have improved.
Financial benefits of emigration
South Africans who emigrate abroad, report that financial emigration brings them many benefits. Especially those expats who have a lot of their capital tied up in South Africa – as one of the main benefits of financial emigration is the establishment of the free flow of capital from South Africa – to your new home country abroad.
The important thing to realise is that financial emigration does not affect your South African citizenship or your right to reside in the country. You do not have to give up your passport, and if you so choose, you can return to South Africa and continue to live and work there in the future.
What does financial emigration mean?
Financial emigration is simply the process of exiting South Africa financially and means your status – for exchange control purposes – changes from resident to non-resident with the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). That’s all!
The benefits of financial emigration
As a financial emigrant, all your capital will be consolidated under one roof in a capital count that is managed by your financial emigration specialist at your appointed bank who facilitated your financial emigration. From this account, you can instruct your bank to pay funds to an account to anywhere in the world.
When you financially emigrate you can transfer the full capital value of your retirement annuity proceeds offshore, even before you turn the age of 55. The cash from your retirement annuity can be used for any purpose – from buying a new home to investing in your children’s education.
On completing your financial emigration, you may also transfer any South African source inheritance abroad, any passive income, for example rent, dividends, director’s fees and income from discretionary or vesting trusts, proceeds from a third party life policy and the proceeds of any assets declared in your emigration application.
How to financially emigrate if you are already living overseas
The financial emigration process does involve a lot of forms and red tape and for expats living abroad this can be problematic. As South Africa’s first and most experienced offshore financial specialist, FinGlobal has helped thousands of South Africans financial emigrate and the majority of these were done some years after the South African expats had left the country. For more information about the financial emigration process, contact us today.
