South African companies would be barred from moving crypto assets across the country’s borders in either direction under a draft framework released for public comment on Monday by national treasury and the South African Reserve Bank.

The proposal is contained in the draft Crypto Asset Manual for cross-border activities, an 88-page consultation document issued by the Reserve Bank’s Financial Surveillance Department under Exchange Control Circular No 19/2026.

Nothing in it has legal effect yet: comments are open until 30 September, the authorities say the final manual will follow only once submissions are considered, and it cannot be implemented until the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations — themselves still under review — are promulgated.

Even as a proposal, though, the treatment of companies is a major departure from the treatment of individuals.

Resident individuals would get a workable if heavily administered route offshore, able to move crypto from a South African custodial wallet to an offshore provider or to their own private wallet under either the R2-million single discretionary allowance or the R10-million foreign capital allowance, the latter requiring an approval for international transfer and a tax compliance status Pin verified through Sars eFiling.

Resident entities are offered no equivalent. The document states that they “may not enter into crypto asset transactions deemed as import or export of capital”.

‘Non-permissible transaction’

A table, which sets out the proposed treatment transaction by transaction, spells out what that means: for South African entities, sending crypto from a domestic authorised crypto asset service provider to an offshore CASP or a private wallet is marked a “non-permissible transaction”, as is receiving crypto from an offshore CASP.

Companies would still be able to buy crypto for rand locally, hold it in a custodial wallet, move it between local providers and sell it back for rand. All of that counts as domestic. What they could not do is transact across the border.

Read: Treasury’s crypto crackdown is a betrayal of Mandela’s promise

A joint media statement from treasury and the Reserve Bank flags the outbound half of this: the proposed rules would mean “only individuals, at this stage, will be allowed to externalise crypto assets” through authorised providers. That qualifier — at this stage — suggests a sequencing decision rather than a settled position, though neither document says what a later stage might allow.

If adopted unchanged, the effects would be broad. Stablecoin settlement for importers and exporters — arguably the most compelling institutional use case for crypto in an emerging market — would be closed to South African-registered businesses, along with crypto payment rails for local merchants receiving from abroad, offshore token fundraising by local start-ups and any corporate treasury use of digital assets held outside the country.

In effect, that means that a South African software company invoicing a US client in a dollar stablecoin would have no lawful way to receive it through a licensed local provider. Its founder, transacting personally within his or her allowance, would.

Treasury and the Reserve Bank say the measures are intended to “minimise the risk of regulatory arbitrage between regulated entities conducting cross-border activities”. Letting individuals do what companies cannot may create an incentive to route corporate flows through personal allowances — something the draft elsewhere prohibits, treating the use of another person’s allowance via a loan or similar agreement as a simulated transaction and therefore illegal.

When national treasury published draft Capital Flow Management Regulations on 17 April, the objections centred on individuals: declaration obligations, compelled sale of assets no longer needed for a stated purpose and the powers to search people suspected of carrying crypto out of the country. VALR CEO Farzam Ehsani called it “an alarming document”; Luno’s Marius Reitz warned it could stall South Africa’s momentum as a fintech leader.

Treasury and the Reserve Bank extended that comment period to 30 June and said the regulations were not intended to criminalise possession or apply retrospectively. On one point the new draft moves towards the industry: Reitz had argued that transfers between residents on locally licensed exchanges should not count as capital exports when assets never leave the country, and the draft now deems crypto held in South African custodial wallets, and transfers between authorised CASPs, domestic and non-reportable.

The authorities have also been candid about the text’s limits, acknowledging that because of the timing and volume of submissions the draft manual has not taken into account comments already made on the regulations, and that both documents remain subject to refinement. The drafting is meanwhile proceeding alongside an unresolved legal dispute: two high court judgments now conflict on whether the existing exchange control regulations reach crypto at all, with the Reserve Bank’s appeal against the first still pending before the supreme court of appeal.

A one-way street for self-custody

A second proposal will draw its own comment. An individual could send crypto from a licensed local provider to their own non-custodial wallet, but moving it back into a domestic provider’s custodial wallet is listed as non-permissible — making licensed South African exchanges an exit but not an entrance for anyone holding their own keys.

Other provisions will also attract scrutiny: a minimum unimpaired capital requirement of R5-million or 15% of three-year average gross income, whichever is higher; a bar on offshoring business processes; an outright prohibition on transacting with residents of Lesotho, Namibia and eSwatini.