SARS FIA FAQs

What are the Proof of Funds requirements?

The evidence of funds to accompany the application need to be liquid to prove to SARS that you could (theoretically) send that amount of funds out of the country. Note that you won’t actually need to liquidate these assets.

These statements need to be less than 3 months old (must have a date) and have your name clearly visible.

The funds need to be based in South Africa – as there needs to be evidence that they need to be taken out of the country.

You may not use a cash loan for this.

For example, you could use the following statements (less than 3 months old):

• Bank statements (Investec or Mercantile account work well here)
• Savings account statements
• Provident Fund/Retirement Annuity statement
• Share portfolio
• Credit balance
• Bond

Some examples of assets which could not be used in your application include:

• House
• Car

How much can I apply for?

You can apply for as many liquid assets you have evidence of, but this should be less than R10m. You do not need to use the assets with which you have applied and you can do multiple applications to increase your total FIA allowance for the year. 

Example 1: You have applied for a R5m allowance with your liquid assets including your savings, retirement annuity, and bond. Once approved, you do a few Orbits with us using your original investment which will consume a part of this allowance. After a month (for example) you apply for a further FIA allowance of R4.99m (slightly less than R10m) with new statements. When the second application gets approved, you now have R10m in total to send out in the calendar year.

Example 2: You use your statement from Investec or Mercantile reflecting that you have savings of R100k. Your application gets approved and you can now do an Orbit with that additional R100k allowance. You now have your funds back in your Investec account including earned profit totaling R102k – with this you can submit an FIA application. 

From the examples above, Example 1 requires the least effort and admin – but Example 2 does quickly mount up if you don’t have enough liquid assets.

How long will my application take to be approved?

This varies on SARS ability to handle these requests. This usually takes about 5 working days, but sometimes takes 21 working days and occasionally within 2 days.

SARS has had long delays with this in the past, sometimes taking up to 2 months to process.