South Africa will redraft its cross-border crypto rules, Finance Minister Godongwana says

South Africa's National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) will rewrite their draft rules on moving crypto assets in and out of the country, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said on 21 October 2026, presenting the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), his mini-budget, to the National Assembly.

"We received thousands of comments, and it is clear that we need to take a different approach to these amendments," Godongwana said. "We must aim to shift away from pre-approvals. Instead, we must assess transactions for legitimacy and tax compliance."

"The treatment of crypto assets should also be guided by the recommendations from the Financial Stability Board," he said. The board is the international body that coordinates financial regulation for the G20 group of major economies.

Consultations will start, he said, "with the aim of publishing a revised second draft of the regulations for further input." He gave no timeline and did not say which provisions would change, the South African tech news site TechCentral reported.

Crypto assets are digital tokens such as bitcoin that people buy, hold and send over the internet, often without a bank in between. South Africa's exchange controls are the rules that limit how much money residents may move abroad and require approval for larger transfers. The draft rules would, for the first time, formally bring crypto into that system.

The plan dates from the February 2026 budget, when Treasury said it would bring crypto assets into the capital flows management framework. The Reserve Bank had warned that crypto payments could be used to get around exchange controls, and said nearly R63 billion had moved from South African bitcoin wallets to foreign wallets since January 2019.

The National Treasury and the SARB published the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations on 17 April 2026. They would replace the Exchange Control Regulations of 1961. Every buyer of a crypto asset would have to make a written declaration of when and how it was acquired and where it is held, and officials would get broad powers to search for and seize currency, crypto assets, gold or securities. Offences could bring a fine of up to R1 million, or the value of the asset involved if that is greater, up to five years in prison, or both. The deadline for comments, first set for 18 May, was extended to 30 June 2026.

On 3 August 2026 Treasury and the SARB released a draft Crypto Assets Manual for cross-border activities, a practical guide to how the regulations would work. It set out how crypto asset service providers, the exchanges and platforms that buy, sell and hold crypto for clients, would apply for authorisation and report cross-border transfers to the SARB's Financial Surveillance Department. Comments closed on 30 September 2026.

Under the manual, only individuals could, at this stage, move crypto abroad, through an authorised provider and within their personal allowances: a single discretionary allowance of R2 million a year, and a foreign capital allowance of up to R10 million a year that needs approval from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and proof of tax compliance. Companies would not be allowed to move crypto across the border in either direction.

The manual also treated a transfer from a local provider to a non-custodial wallet, one the owner controls without an exchange, as a cross-border transaction. MyBroadband, another South African tech news site, said the proposed rules would in effect ban self-custody of crypto. In response to criticism, Treasury and the SARB said the rules would not be retroactive.

Crypto exchanges pushed back. Farzam Ehsani, chief executive of the exchange VALR, pointed to the search-and-seizure powers and called the draft regulations "an alarming document", as quoted by TechCentral. Regulation "should not dictate which technologies individuals and businesses can use," he said, as quoted by MyBroadband. The exchange Luno argued in its submission on the manual that treating all stablecoin payments as capital flows, when the same payment made through a bank would not be, may clash with South Africa's commitments to the International Monetary Fund.

Crypto firms in South Africa already face other rules. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority has declared crypto assets such as bitcoin to be financial products under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, and in 2025 the Financial Intelligence Centre made crypto asset service providers accountable institutions, subject to supervision and reporting.

Kenya regulates crypto businesses under its own law. Its Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, 2025 took effect on 4 November 2025 and makes the Central Bank of Kenya and the Capital Markets Authority the regulators that license providers, according to the services they offer. The transition period ends on 4 November 2026; after that, a provider without a licence from either regulator is operating without permission.