SARS Just Updated Your Foreign-Income Rates

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Your client got paid in dollars. Now SARS wants that figure in rand. Use the wrong rate and the whole return is off, and the penalty lands on your desk, not theirs.

What SARS published

On 8 June 2026, under the Income Tax Act, 1962, SARS released its updated average exchange rates. These are the official rates you use to convert foreign amounts into rand for a year of assessment. There are two tables, and they do different jobs.

• Table A lists the average exchange rates of selected currencies for a full year of assessment, with data going all the way back to December 2003. Use this when your client's year of assessment runs a normal 12 months. For example, Your client's 2025 tax year ran the normal 1 March 2024 to 28 February 2025, and they earned USD 10,000 in foreign freelance income. The Table A average for a year of assessment ending February 2025 is R18.2815 to the US dollar. So you declare 10,000 × 18.2815 = R182,815. One rate for the whole year.

• Table B lists the monthly average exchange rates. Use this when a year of assessment is shorter or longer than 12 months, for example a new company's first year, a deregistration, or a change of financial year-end. For example: A company changes its year-end and has a short 4-month year of assessment, September to December 2025. It earned USD 2,000 each month. You apply each month's Table B average rate and add them up:

  • September 2025: 2,000 × 17.4621 = R34,924.20

  • October 2025: 2,000 × 17.2847 = R34,569.40

  • November 2025: 2,000 × 17.2294 = R34,458.80

  • December 2025: 2,000 × 16.8542 = R33,708.40

Total declared = R137,660.80.

Why this matters to your practice

If a client earns anything in a foreign currency, freelance work billed in USD, a foreign dividend, rental on an offshore property, or export income in a trading business, that amount must be translated into rand before it goes on the return. SARS publishes these averages so you do not have to track daily spot rates across a whole year.

This is bread-and-butter compliance, but it is also where mistakes hide. Pick the wrong table, or apply last year's rate, and the taxable income is wrong from the start.

And SARS is not guessing about who earns abroad. Through the data-sharing network we explained in SARS Already Knows More Than You Think, the figures often arrive before your client does.

What to do today

Bookmark the SARS average exchange rates page and check it before you file any return with foreign amounts. Confirm which table applies, full year or part year, and use the rate for the correct year of assessment. Then turn it into a service: clients with offshore income, cross-border consultants, and importers will pay for an accountant who handles foreign-currency conversion correctly and keeps them out of trouble.