EmNew Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 Hi, Has anyone recently traveled with physical Rand cash notes on them when exiting RSA on their way to Aus?I know that you can exit an airport in South Africa with less than R25 000 in cash without needing to declare it on the RSA side, and enter Australia with less than AUD10 000 without declaring it. "Fortunately" the bad exchange rate means that you're safe on the Aussie side in terms of equivalent AUD value being far less than AUD10k if you take the max R25k allowed out.What my question is relating to all this is:How thorough is customs on this side in checking for cash on you? Do they for instance have a way of checking how much you're taking out in other ways ( such as transfers already done under discretionary allowance, travelex type cash cards etc ) to ensure that you're not exceeding total limits allowed?If you have had recent experience with this, please share.Many thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mara Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 EmNew, no experiences to share about customs, except to state, that over time we have found that if you can find a bank or exchange office here, that will take your Rands off you, then , the exchange rate they offer would probably be worse than that which you can get in RSA. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordy Posted September 17, 2015 Report Share Posted September 17, 2015 You can transfer as much cash electronically as you like into Australia and it has no bearing on the $10 000 physical cash you allowed to bring on the flight. And from watching the TV show Border Security, you can bring more than $10000 cash into the country as long as you declare it. The reason you have to declare it is because people dont normally bring such large sums of physical cash into the country unless they have something to hide or doing something illegal. So you will be subject to extensive questioning as to why you brought cash and didnt electronically transfer it. If you can provide satisfactory answers you will be allowed through.My question to you is why dont you do an electronic transfer? You will get better rates electronically than if you pitched up at a exchange window with R25000 cash. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmNew Posted September 18, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 Thanks for all the replies. I had thought it a good sneaky option of getting additional funds out. We've exhausted our discretionary allowance and done efts up to the max already, and are the in process of applying for tax clearance for formal emigration, so had no other interim option of taking out extra money. I think now it's just not worth it reading the comments about terrible rates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPanda Posted September 18, 2015 Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 If you have friends or family that you really trust, then you can let them send you some money as 'gifts' as long as you're under the taxable amounts you should be ok? I'm not clued up on the amounts, so I don't know how practical this option really is, but I think it's something to investigate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SandraDee Posted September 18, 2015 Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 i have had my purse and belongings checked on S.A side and then my foreign currency checked against the receipt of foreign currency purchased. The customs guy checking me told me if they didn't match up then it was confiscated. It is very easy to get tax clearance for the R10 million allowance. it only takes a week or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugo2 Posted September 22, 2015 Report Share Posted September 22, 2015 (edited) Thanks for all the replies. I had thought it a good sneaky option of getting additional funds out. We've exhausted our discretionary allowance and done efts up to the max already, and are the in process of applying for tax clearance for formal emigration, so had no other interim option of taking out extra money. I think now it's just not worth it reading the comments about terrible rates.Hithe lesson to be learnt from this: Do not formally emigrate with cash in your bank account! Yes, R10m is a glass celiling and NO need to rely on friends or make them take a donations tax risk. If you use a skilled migration adviser, you would have been told to apply for a >R10m FIA (>R20m per couple) before you left. Formal emigration today is truly for a slect few only and if you have access to cash do not do formal emigration (general rule, exception is if you lost your green bar-coded ID and will fail the FICA test in SA).See http://www.bcbadvisory.com/category/articles/ and page down to the article on why formal emigration is not always the best solution Edited September 22, 2015 by Hugo2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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