Financially Independent Permit

If you have been comparing golden-visa programmes elsewhere, this is the first difference to know. South Africa has no route that offers residence in return for a passive investment. This permit asks nothing of your money beyond proof that you have it: no capital is placed in South Africa and no staff are hired.

What counts is your global net worth: property, bank balances, investment portfolios and shareholdings, less what you owe. It is proven by a summary of certified statements and documents. The evidence is certified, not audited, and no chartered accountant or auditor has to sign it off. A bank statement on its own does not prove net worth, though. The format of the summary and the value given to each asset and liability both have to be right, and that is where most of the work in these cases lies.

The threshold is set by ministerial notice in the Government Gazette and is updated from time to time. We do not print a figure here, because the only one worth relying on is the one in force when you apply, and we confirm it with you on your free assessment call.

The permit carries no undertaking not to work. Once it is approved you may take up employment, consult, sit on a board or run a business, as any permanent resident may. The no-work condition people often associate with this route belongs to a different document: the temporary Retired Person Visa, on which work is not a right and needs the Department’s authorisation case by case.

The Retired Person Visa is a temporary visa that qualifies on a prescribed income or net worth. Holding it does not entitle you to permanent residence: that is always a separate application, and for retirees with a lifelong pension or annuity the permanent route is Section 27(e). Retirees whose strength is capital rather than lifelong income usually look at this permit instead.

The Business Visa is the route that asks for capital. It is a temporary visa to run your own business in South Africa, with a prescribed capital investment that can be reduced through the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), a DTIC recommendation before you apply, and a requirement that currently 60% of your staff be South African citizens or permanent residents within 12 months. Permanent residence on that route comes later, under Section 27(c). The Financially Independent Permit has none of those conditions and starts at permanent residence.

A prescribed once-off payment to the Director-General falls due only when the permit is approved, not at submission. The amount is Gazette-set and confirmed on the assessment call, so you know the full cost before you commit.

Adjudication is lengthy: in our experience, commonly a year or longer, well beyond the timelines for temporary visas. A summary in the wrong format, assets or liabilities valued incorrectly and gaps in the evidence can delay the application or lead to a refusal. We give you a realistic estimate for your case on the assessment call.

You do not need a temporary visa to apply, but where you submit matters. You can submit at a South African mission abroad. To submit inside South Africa you must already hold a long-term visa, such as a Retired Person Visa; a visitor’s visa will not do. That visa then has to stay valid for the whole adjudication, because a pending application for permanent residence is not itself a status.

We confirm the current threshold, structure and pressure-test the net-worth summary, and tell you plainly whether this permit, the Retired Person Visa or the Business Visa fits your assets and plans. Submissions are made in person; we prepare your case and can accompany you at the VFS centres in Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg, or guide you through a submission at a mission abroad. If you want to know whether your net worth carries this application, the next step is a focused conversation about your assets and your plans.