{"id":852167,"date":"2026-02-25T14:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T12:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=852167"},"modified":"2026-02-25T17:11:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:11:21","slug":"tax-free-limit-increased-to-r46000-per-year-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/budget-speech\/852167\/tax-free-limit-increased-to-r46000-per-year-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax-free limit increased to R46,000 per year in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says that the annual tax-free investment limit has been increased from R36,000 to R46,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his 2026 Budget, the Minister said that gross tax revenue was revised up R21.3 billion for 25\/26  compared to the estimate in the 2025 Budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Due to this, the government decided to withdraw the R20 billion in tax increases provisionally included in the May 2025 Budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This allowed the government to withdraw some of its proposed tax increases without risking fiscal sustainability or economic activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Minister added that the nation&#8217;s national savings and investment rate is far below the levels needed to truly create generational wealth and support local investment in the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To counter this, the Minister announced the following tax-free adjustments: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The tax-free annual investment limit will increase from R36,000 to R46,000.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The limit to retirement fund deductions is raised from R350,000 to R430,000, allowing individuals to invest more each year on a tax-free basis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>While the annual tax-free investment amount has been increased to R46,000 per year, the R500,000 lifetime limit remains intact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/budget-speech\/851355\/calls-to-change-r500000-tax-free-limit-in-south-africa\/\">Old Mutual<\/a> had called on the government to increase the overall tax-free limit for South Africans to R600,000.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIncreasing the lifetime limit to R600,000 would also extend the investment horizon, allowing investors to benefit from tax-free growth for longer,\u201d said Lizl Budhram, Head of Advice at Old Mutual Personal Finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The annual contribution limits had already adjusted over time, increasing from R30,000 per year to R33,000 in 2019 and R36,000 in 2021. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana increased the tax-free investment yearly limit, but made no mention of the lifelong R500,000 limit. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":820023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13716],"tags":[20799,1110,3246],"class_list":["post-852167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget-speech","tag-godongwana","tag-old-mutual","tag-sars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852167"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852220,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852167\/revisions\/852220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}