Tax on trading profits
If you trade forex or CFDs in South Africa actively enough to be treated as a trader rather than an investor.
If you trade forex or CFDs in South Africa actively enough to be treated as a trader rather than an investor, SARS taxes your gains as income at your marginal rate — not as capital gains. That single distinction drives almost every practical decision: how you register, when you file, what you can deduct, and how much of your profit you keep. This page sets out what the rules say, what they require of you, and where the numbers come from.
Two regimes, one decision: income or capital gains
SARS taxes residents on worldwide income. The question that matters for a trader is which bucket your trading falls into.
Frequent or active forex trading is generally taxed as income, at the individual's marginal rate on a progressive scale running from 18% to 45%. Occasional, investment-style activity is treated differently — under the capital gains regime. The dividing line is not a single number; it is a pattern of behaviour, and SARS looks at how often you trade, how you hold positions, and whether the activity looks like a business.
Why the distinction matters in money terms: the two regimes apply different effective rates, different treatment of losses, and different rules on what you can subtract from the taxable amount. Trading-related expenses are deductible against trading income. That is a meaningful difference from the capital gains side, where the deduction rules are narrower.
Rates and brackets change annually. Treat any percentage you see here as the position as of the review date, and confirm the current schedule with SARS before you file.
Next steps from here: Is trading legal here, then Deposits and withdrawals.
Provisional tax: the filing rhythm you inherit
Active traders typically register for provisional tax. That changes your year from a single annual event into a repeating cycle.
| Obligation | What it is | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| IRP6 — first period | Provisional tax return | Due end-August |
| IRP6 — second period | Provisional tax return | Due end-February |
| Third top-up | Additional payment where an amount is still owing | Applies if owing |
| ITR12 | Annual individual income tax return | Filed annually |
The practical consequence: you pay tax during the year, based on your own estimate, rather than settling everything once at the end. If your estimate undershoots, the top-up catches it. If it overshoots, the excess sits with SARS until the annual return reconciles it.
Rules are one half of the picture and conditions are the other. Look at what a broker charges before you move any money.
Trading conditionsCurrency, and why it is not a footnote
Your tax position is calculated in ZAR, while your trading is denominated in whatever the instrument is quoted in. That means the rand's movement is part of your taxable result, not separate from it. A position that is flat in its quoted currency is not necessarily flat in rand terms.
This is why the reporting currency on your records matters. SARS works in ZAR; your broker statement may not.
Before you deposit: the FSCA register check
Retail forex and CFD trading is legal and regulated in South Africa. The conduct regulator is the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
Any broker serving South African retail clients must be an authorised Financial Services Provider (FSP) under the FAIS Act. Brokers acting as counterparty or market-maker issuing CFDs must additionally hold an OTC Derivative Provider (ODP) authorisation under the Financial Markets Act, in force since 2018, which carries capital-adequacy and trade-reporting duties.
The check itself is free and takes a few minutes. Look the broker up on the FSCA FSP register at https://www2.fsca.co.za/Fais/Search_FSP.htm and confirm that the FSP number shown there matches the number the broker displays on its own site. A mismatch is the signal to stop.
This matters for tax as well as for safety. A broker that is not authorised is not filing the trade reports that an ODP authorisation requires — which leaves you reconstructing your own records from whatever the platform will export, at exactly the moment SARS asks for them.
What to keep, and what to hand over
The tax treatment of active trading assumes you can evidence it. Trading-related expenses are deductible, but a deduction is only as good as the record behind it.
Two documents do the heavy lifting: the IRP6 provisional returns you submit during the year, and the ITR12 annual return. Both draw on the same underlying record — trades, expenses, and the ZAR values attached to them.
Because rates, brackets, and filing thresholds are revised annually, the working assumption for planning is that this year's schedule is not next year's. Before you estimate a provisional payment, confirm the current brackets and any changes to the provisional tax rules with SARS directly rather than relying on a figure from a previous year.
The two facts that do not move: the regulator is the FSCA, and the tax authority is SARS.