The short answer

When you invest across borders, think about six things besides the investments themselves. Where your money is held, and whether that provider will keep serving you from Thailand. Currency — how much depends on the rand, and whether your investments match the currency you'll spend. Exchange control — your allowances, and the Regulation 28 limits on retirement funds. Tax in both countries, including Thai tax on investment income you bring in. Estate issues, such as US estate tax on US shares and South African estate duty. And cost and custody — what you pay each year and who actually holds your money. Prefer simple low-cost funds, hold a meaningful share in hard currency, and be very wary of products sold to expats.

Why investing across borders is different

It helps to think of every investment as having two parts. The inside is the investment itself — a share, a bond, a fund. The outside is everything around it: the platform it's held on, the account type, the currency it's priced in, the country where the fund is set up, the country you live in and the country where you'll die. In a purely domestic life, the outside is so stable you barely notice it. In a cross-border life, the outside can matter as much as the inside.

Take a simple example: a fund tracking the world stock market. A South African at home might hold a rand-priced feeder fund in a tax-free savings account and never think about it again. A South African retiree in Thailand might find that the platform restricts non-residents; that the fund's value in baht depends on the rand as well as the market; that its income may be taxable in Thailand when brought in; and, if they chose a US-listed version through an offshore broker, that it could create a US estate tax problem for their family. The investment is the same. The outcome is not.

None of this means investing abroad is risky or complicated in itself. It means you need to look at the outside of each investment as carefully as the inside. The table below gives you a checklist you can use on anything you hold or are offered.

Six questions to ask of every investment

Before you buy — and once a year for everything you already own — ask these six questions.

If you can't answer all six for something you're being offered, don't buy it until you can.

Where you can hold investments from Thailand

The first practical question is access — and for South Africans, it comes with an exchange-control layer.

South African platforms and tax-free savings accounts

Policies vary. Some local platforms carry on as normal for clients living abroad; some restrict new investments; and accounts may be re-designated once you cease tax residence. A tax-free savings account can usually be kept, but check whether you can still contribute. The time to check is before you move.

Offshore investing: two routes

You can get global exposure in two ways. Rand-priced feeder funds on a local platform invest offshore without you using your allowance — but you remain on a South African platform and the value is reported in rand. Direct offshore investments — an offshore account, platform or fund in your own name — use your R2 million discretionary allowance each calendar year, with SARS approval for more. Direct offshore money is genuinely outside South Africa, which many South Africans in Thailand prefer.

Retirement funds and Regulation 28

Retirement annuities, pension and provident funds must follow Regulation 28, which limits offshore exposure to 45%. Living annuities aren't bound by Regulation 28, so they can hold more offshore if that suits you. Retirement annuities can be paid out after you've ceased tax residence and been non-resident for three years.

Thai investments

Foreigners can open Thai brokerage accounts and buy shares on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Thai mutual funds and Thai government bonds, though some companies limit foreign ownership and account rules vary by firm. Thai investments are naturally in baht, which helps match a baht life. For an individual, gains on SET-listed shares sold on the exchange are tax-exempt, and Thai dividends have 10% tax withheld.

Offshore "investment bonds" and savings plans

These are the products most often sold to expats, frequently by people who approach you first. Some have a place for some people, but many carry layers of charges and long lock-ins with heavy penalties for leaving early. We cover them below.

Your main options compared

A simple comparison of the main places a South African in Thailand might hold investments. Your own choice depends on your goals, tax position and how much help you want.

Thai fixed deposit tax and SET rules from PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries. Allowances and Regulation 28 per SARS, SARB and the Pension Funds Act (2026).

Currency: invest in what you'll spend

Most South Africans moving to Thailand hold most of their investments in rand, because that's where they were built up. But if your life is now in baht, your investments' real value — what they'll buy for you — depends on the exchange rate as well as on markets. In 2026 alone the rand moved between about ฿1.89 and ฿2.07 against the baht. A good year for a JSE portfolio can be wiped out by a bad year for the rand.

Your base currency

Start by deciding your base currency: the currency in which you measure whether you're better or worse off. For someone retiring to Thailand for good, that's largely baht. For someone who may return to South Africa, it may be a mix. Your base currency decides how much rand risk you should accept.

Match by timescale

Money you'll spend soon — your cash pot and the next few years' income — should mostly be in baht. Long-term growth money can be more international: a global share fund is spread across dozens of currencies, which diversifies away from any one currency, including the rand.

Hedged and unhedged funds

Some funds offer "hedged" versions that remove most of the currency movement against a chosen currency. Hedging can make sense for bonds; for shares, most long-term investors don't hedge. Hedging isn't free: its cost roughly reflects the gap between the two currencies' interest rates. With South Africa's repo rate at 7.25% and Thailand's at 1.00% in autumn 2026, hedging rand assets into baht costs a lot — another reason many South Africans in Thailand hold hard currency directly rather than hedging rand.

Whatever you decide, the conversions themselves should be done at a good rate. On a large investment switch, a better exchange rate is worth far more than any small difference in fund charges.

Where to start

A review of what you already hold, a better way to move larger sums between currencies, a home for hard-currency savings, and a simple route for everyday money.

Thai tax on your investments

Once you spend 180 days or more in Thailand in a calendar year, you're Thai tax resident for that year. That affects your investments in two ways.

Foreign investment income you bring in

Foreign income earned from 2024 onwards that a Thai tax resident brings into Thailand can be taxable here. That can include dividends, interest and gains from investments held in South Africa or offshore, once the money is transferred to Thailand. Savings and investments built up before 2024 are treated differently — but you need to be able to show which money is which. Keep older money in separate accounts, take investment income into a different account from your capital, and log every transfer to Thailand and what it represents. Our guide to receiving overseas income in Thailand explains the rules.

Thai investments

For investments held in Thailand, the rules are simpler. Dividends from Thai companies have 10% tax withheld, and residents can choose to leave them out of their tax calculation. Interest on Thai bank deposits usually has 15% withheld. Gains on shares listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and sold on the exchange are exempt for individuals.

South African tax once you've moved

Moving to Thailand doesn't end your South African tax position on investments — and ceasing tax residence changes it in a single step.

• While you remain resident, SARS taxes your worldwide investment income and gains: interest above the annual exemption, dividends (local dividends with 20% withheld), and capital gains, of which individuals include 40% in taxable income.
• If you cease residence, SARS treats most of your worldwide assets as sold at market value that day — a deemed disposal that can create a capital gains tax bill on your portfolio. South African property is excluded because it stays taxable anyway.
• As a non-resident, you're generally taxed in South Africa on South African dividends (through withholding) and on gains from South African property, but not on gains from shares and funds.
• Tax-free savings accounts stay free of South African tax, but Thailand doesn't recognise the wrapper.
• Retirement funds are taxed under South African rules and the South Africa–Thailand tax treaty.

The treaty exists so the same income isn't taxed in full twice. It works best when you know in advance where each kind of income will be taxed and keep the paperwork to claim relief.

Fund domicile and the US estate tax trap

This is one of the least known and most expensive cross-border issues, and it catches many South Africans who invest offshore for themselves.

If you're not a US citizen or US-domiciled, the United States can still charge estate tax on "US-situs" assets you own when you die. Shares in US companies count as US-situs even if you hold them through a broker outside America. For non-US-domiciled individuals the exemption is only $60,000 — about R990,000 — and rates go up to 40%. Your family may also need to file US paperwork before they can deal with the assets, on top of South African estate duty.

This matters because many offshore brokers make it easy to buy American shares and US-listed exchange-traded funds with your discretionary allowance. A retiree with a couple of million rand in US shares could leave their family a sizeable US tax bill and months of paperwork. Check whether any treaty relief applies to you — it has to be claimed.

The common solution is simple: rather than holding US shares or US-listed funds directly, many expats hold funds based outside the US — for example, in Ireland or Luxembourg — that themselves invest in US and global markets. Before you buy any fund, check where it's based. If you already hold US shares directly, take advice on whether to restructure — this has to be done in your lifetime.

Retirement funds: offshore limits and access

For most South Africans, retirement funds are the biggest investment they own — and the one with the most rules.

• Regulation 28 limits retirement annuities, pension and provident funds to 45% offshore. If you want more global exposure, that has to come from your other savings — or from a living annuity once you retire, which isn't bound by Regulation 28.
• On retirement, you can usually take up to a third as a lump sum, partly tax-free under SARS's tables, and must use the rest to buy an annuity. A living annuity lets you choose a drawdown of 2.5% to 17.5% a year and how it's invested.
• Retirement annuities after emigration can be paid out once you've ceased tax residence and been non-resident for three years, taxed in South Africa. Take advice before you decide — the money leaves the protection of the retirement-fund system.
• Two-pot savings withdrawals are taxed at your marginal rate, so they're rarely the cheapest way to fund life in Thailand.

If someone recommends moving or cashing in a retirement fund, ask exactly what it will cost in tax and charges, and why it's better than leaving it where it is.

Costs: the cross-border tax nobody mentions

Every investment has costs, but cross-border investing can stack them up: a fund charge, a platform charge, an adviser charge, a currency conversion charge, sometimes an insurance-wrapper charge on top. Each looks small as a percentage. Together, compounded over twenty years, they can take a startling share of your money.

The chart at the top of this page shows the effect on R4 million growing at 5% a year before charges. At a total of 0.5% a year, charges take about R966,000 of growth over twenty years. At 1.5%, about R2.65 million. At 2.5% — the level some expat savings plans and investment bonds reach once every layer is added — about R4.06 million: more than the original investment.

• Ask for the total yearly cost of everything — fund, platform, adviser, wrapper — as one percentage.
• Ask for it in rand too, for your actual investment.
• Ask about one-off costs — entry, exit, switching and currency conversion.
• Compare against a simple low-cost alternative before you agree.

Products sold to expats: what to watch for

Expats are a target market. Some of the people who approach South Africans in Thailand offer genuine help; many sell products that pay them well and you badly. The most common are long-term regular savings plans and single-premium "investment bonds" wrapped in offshore life insurance, often sold in US dollars as a way to "get money out of the rand".

The problems are usually the same: high and layered charges, commission paid up front, and penalties for leaving early that can last for many years. Some people find, years later, that they can't get their money out without losing a large slice of it.

Warning signs include:

1. They contacted you first — by phone, social media or at an event.
2. They won't put the total yearly cost in writing, in rand or dollars.
3. There's a long lock-in or a penalty for stopping early.
4. The return is "guaranteed" or unusually high.
5. You're pressed to decide quickly, or to cash in a retirement fund.
6. You can't explain what you'd own, or who holds it.

If you already hold one of these products, don't panic and don't cash it in without understanding the cost of leaving. Get an independent look at the numbers first. Our guide to investment scams and due diligence covers the warning signs.

Custody, records and what happens when you die

Two final cross-border questions are easy to overlook.

Who actually holds your money?

When you buy through a platform, your investments are usually held by a custodian in a nominee account, separate from the platform's own money. That separation is what protects you if the platform fails. Ask where your investments are held, in which country, in whose name, and what happens if the firm goes out of business. Be very wary of any arrangement where your money is pooled with the firm's own or held somewhere you can't verify.

Can your family find and reach it?

Investments in several countries can be very hard for a family to trace and claim. Keep a list of every account and platform, with contact details, and tell someone you trust where it is. Check beneficiary nominations on retirement funds, living annuities and policies. Make sure your wills cover investments in each country — many South Africans with offshore assets also make a will in the country where those assets are held. Remember that estate duty applies to your worldwide assets while you're ordinarily resident in South Africa, and that US estate tax may apply to US shares.

A worked example: Grant and Noi

Grant is South African and 58; his wife Noi is Thai. They live in Khon Kaen and plan to stay. Grant has a retirement annuity worth R4.4 million, a tax-free savings account worth R500,000, about R1.6 million of US shares he bought through an offshore broker using his allowance, and an offshore savings plan he was sold three years ago, paying the equivalent of R10,000 a month.

Where it's held. His local platform will keep serving him while he remains tax resident, so he keeps the tax-free savings account. He decides not to cease residence yet, after looking at the capital gains tax on a deemed disposal of his US shares.

Currency. Their spending is almost entirely in baht. They keep two years of spending in Thai bank deposits, hold a hard-currency reserve in an offshore account, and accept that the retirement annuity — at most 45% offshore — will stay largely rand-based until Grant retires and moves it into a living annuity with more global exposure.

US estate tax. Grant's US shares are worth about $97,000 — well above the $60,000 US-situs threshold. On advice, he sells them while he's alive and reinvests through Ireland-based global funds that invest in the same markets, timing the sale around his South African and Thai tax positions.

The savings plan. An independent look shows total yearly charges of nearly 3% and a large penalty for stopping in the first five years. Grant stops new contributions but leaves the existing money in until the penalty falls away, then plans to move it.

Estate. Wills in both countries and an offshore will for his offshore assets, Noi named on his retirement annuity nomination, and a list of every account kept with their daughter.

Grant hasn't changed his investment approach at all — he still owns a sensible, diversified spread of shares and bonds. What he's changed is the outside: where it's held, which currency it's in, what it costs, how it's taxed and what happens when he dies.

The cross-border investment mistakes we see most

1. Keeping everything in rand when the spending is in baht.
2. Not checking the platform before leaving, and being forced to sell or move later.
3. Holding US shares directly without realising the US estate tax exposure.
4. Ceasing tax residence without working out the deemed disposal on your portfolio.
5. Buying a savings plan or bond from someone who made the first approach.
6. Never adding up the total yearly cost across fund, platform, adviser and wrapper.
7. Mixing pre-2024 money with new investment income before bringing it into Thailand.
8. Leaving no record of where investments are held for the family to find.

Keeping your investment accounts secure

Investment accounts are a prime target for fraudsters, and managing them from abroad means logging in from phones, laptops and shared Wi-Fi. A few habits protect them:

• Use a password manager and a different strong password for every platform.
• Keep your South African cellphone number active for OTPs, and protect it against SIM swaps.
• Use a private, protected connection on hotel, café and condo Wi-Fi.
• Never act on unexpected calls or emails about your investments or retirement funds.

How we researched this guide

We used PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries and the Thai government's guidance on how foreign investors in Thai shares are taxed; our own guide to receiving overseas income in Thailand; KPMG on US assets and US estate tax for non-US individuals; SARS rules on investment income, capital gains, tax residence and the deemed disposal; Reserve Bank rules on allowances; Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act; retirement-fund rules on living annuities and retirement annuities after emigration; and the South African Reserve Bank's September 2026 and Bank of Thailand's August 2026 rate decisions. The charges illustration assumes R4 million growing at 5% a year before charges for 20 years and is not a forecast. Checked 23 October 2026. This guide is general information, not personal financial, tax or legal advice — rules change and individual circumstances differ.