South Africa · Business & founder
Business Visa and Permanent Residence (section 27(c))
Open. Requires a ZAR 5m capital contribution, which can be waived or reduced for prescribed priority sectors. A recommendation from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition is also required.
For an operator genuinely building something in South Africa, this route works well, and the sector waivers can take the capital requirement to nil. For a passive UHNW family, it is strictly worse than the Financially Independent Permit. It asks for more money, more conditions, more scrutiny, and an ongoing 60% local employment obligation.
Qualifying routes
Must be capital introduced from abroad. Roughly USD 270-290k.
The capital requirement may be reduced or waived for ICT, clothing and textiles, chemicals and biotechnology, agro-processing, metals and minerals refinement, automotive manufacturing, tourism and crafts.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- 5M ZAR
- Total landed cost
- ZAR 5m of capital actually deployed, plus roughly ZAR 150-400k in DTIC application work, business plans, chartered accountant certification and legal fees. Permanent residence adds the ZAR 120,000 outcome fee.
- Route type
- Business & founder
- Timeline
- 8–30 months (The DTIC recommendation alone commonly takes 6-12 months. DHA adjudication follows after that.)
- Physical presence
- You are expected to actively run the business. The temporary visa is issued for up to 3 years.
- Family
- Spouse or life partnerDependent children
- Permanent residency
- Section 27(c) permanent residence is available once the capital is invested and the business criteria are met.
- Citizenship
- Naturalisation follows after 5 years of permanent residence, plus physical presence tests.
- Language test
- You must be able to communicate in one of the 12 official languages.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- A ZAR 5m capital contribution from abroad, certified by a chartered accountant.A recommendation from the DTIC.A business plan.An undertaking that 60% of staff will be South African citizens or permanent residents.Registration with SARS, UIF, the Compensation Fund, and the relevant professional body.
- The 60% local employment condition is not a one-time hurdle. It is a permanent operating constraint. At least 60% of total staff must be South African citizens or permanent residents in permanent positions, and this gets audited every time you renew.
- The DTIC recommendation is a discretionary bottleneck. There is no service standard attached to it, and it is the single most common point of failure in this process.
- If the capital is not yet invested at the time of application, you must bring it in within two years and prove it. A chartered accountant has to certify that the ZAR 5m is available and that it came from abroad.
- For passive families, the FIP route tends to dominate this comparison. Consider what each path actually asks of you. The FIP wants ZAR 12m of net worth you already own. This route wants ZAR 5m you must actually spend, use to employ people, and justify to two separate government departments.
- Business visa renewals get refused for non-compliance with the employment ratio and the business plan more often than initial applications are refused.
- Full South African tax residence follows from this. That means worldwide taxation at 45%, and the section 9H exit charge waiting for you on the way out.