Who Pays Transfer Duty in South Africa | Buyer or Seller?

Transfer duty in South Africa is paid by the buyer (the acquirer), not the seller, and is levied under the Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949, which is administered by the South African Revenue Service (SARS). The duty is calculated on the higher of the purchase price or the market value of the property, and the buyer must produce a SARS transfer duty receipt before the deed of transfer can be registered at the Deeds Office. The current SARS rate is 0% on the first R1,210,000 of value (effective 1 April 2025), and rising bands of 3%, 6%, 8%, 11% and 13% apply above that. The thresholds are adjusted in the National Budget each February, so the figure to use is the one in force on the date of transfer, not the date of sale.

The Short Answer: The Buyer Pays

Transfer duty is a tax on the acquisition of property, levied on the transferee (purchaser) under the Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949. The seller pays nothing toward transfer duty. The seller does remain liable for any VAT on the sale in the case of new or vendor-developed property, for capital gains tax on disposal, and for the estate agent’s commission, but transfer duty itself sits squarely on the buyer’s side of the table.

The conveyancing attorney typically handles the duty calculation and the SARS filing on the buyer’s behalf, and the duty is recovered from the buyer alongside the conveyancing fees, bond registration costs, and rates clearance figures. The buyer pays one consolidated bill to the conveyancer, who in turn settles the SARS duty on eFiling and lodges the receipt with the Deeds Office so that registration can proceed.

The Statutory Basis: Why the Buyer

Transfer duty is imposed under the Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949, the operative South African statute for property acquisition tax. The Act charges “the person who acquires” the property — the buyer, the donee, the heir in a sale context, the lessee in certain long-lease contexts — and not the disposer. That single line in the Act is what puts the duty on the buyer’s side and keeps it off the seller’s.

SARS is the collecting authority. The duty is paid to SARS, not to the seller and not to the conveyancer; the conveyancer acts as the buyer’s filing agent. The Director of Public Prosecutions and SARS can pursue the buyer personally for unpaid duty, with interest and penalties accruing. Practically, however, the more immediate consequence is that the deed cannot be registered at all without a SARS duty receipt — so non-payment freezes the buyer’s ownership at the Deeds Registry rather than producing a slow tax dispute.

When Transfer Duty Is and Isn’t Payable

Transfer duty applies across the board to property acquisitions in South Africa, but a handful of situations take a transaction outside the duty net. The list below tracks the categories the Act and SARS practice treat as settled.

Situation	Is transfer duty payable?	Reason
Freehold or sectional title purchase by a private individual	Yes	Standard acquisition — the buyer pays on the higher of price or market value.
Acquisition at or below the duty threshold (R1,210,000 from 1 April 2025)	No	Falls within the 0% bracket; no duty is due although a duty declaration is still lodged with SARS.
Inherited property	No	The acquisition by inheritance falls outside the taxable event in section 2 of the Transfer Duty Act.
New property sold by a VAT vendor in the course of an enterprise	No (transfer duty) — VAT instead	VAT replaces transfer duty on the new-property market.
Divorce transfers pursuant to a court order dividing matrimonial property	Generally no	Court-ordered division of matrimonial property is exempt.
Donations and settlements	Yes	Donations are still acquisitions for duty purposes; the higher of declared value or market value applies.

For transactions that fall in the “thin sliver” categories (donations between spouses, certain cancellations or surrenders of land, certain long leases), the Act — not blanket guidance — governs whether duty is due. Each of those should be checked against the wording of section 2 of the Transfer Duty Act before the declaration is lodged.

How Transfer Duty Is Calculated

Transfer duty is calculated on the higher of the purchase price or the market value of the property. SARS does not accept a low declared price as a way to keep duty down; where the declared price looks thin against the municipal valuation or comparable sales, SARS can revalue the property and reassess the duty with interest and penalties.

The current SARS-published rate brackets, effective 1 April 2025, are:

Value of property (R)	Rate of transfer duty
0 – 1,210,000	0%
1,210,001 – 1,663,800	3% of the value above R1,210,000
1,663,801 – 2,329,300	R13,614 + 6% of the value above R1,663,800
2,329,301 – 2,994,800	R53,544 + 8% of the value above R2,329,300
2,994,801 – 13,310,000	R106,784 + 11% of the value above R2,994,800
13,310,001 and above	R1,241,456 + 13% of the value exceeding R13,310,000

Worked example: a property bought at R2,500,000 falls in the third bracket (R2,329,301 – R2,994,800). The duty is R53,544 + 8% × (R2,500,000 − R2,329,300) = R53,544 + 8% × R170,700 = R53,544 + R13,656 = R67,200.

These brackets are adjusted in the National Budget each February, and the operative figure is the one in force on the date of transfer, not the date the offer to purchase was signed. A sale agreed in February but transferring in April will pick up the new rates if they have taken effect by then. The SARS duty calculator on the SARS website is the simplest way to verify the bracket in force for a given transfer date.

The Practical Mechanics: How the Duty Actually Gets Paid

The duty is collected by SARS, but the file is run by the buyer’s conveyancing attorney. The sequence below is the standard hand-off from offer to registration, and each step depends on the one before it.

1. The buyer and seller sign the offer to purchase or deed of sale; the price and suspensive conditions are recorded.
2. The buyer’s conveyancing attorney opens a file and prepares the transfer duty declaration (the TD form) on SARS eFiling.
3. The duty is calculated on the higher of the declared price or the market value, using the SARS rate brackets in force on the date of transfer.
4. The attorney submits the declaration and pays the duty to SARS via eFiling.
5. SARS issues a transfer duty receipt — this is the gatekeeping document.
6. The conveyancer lodges the deed of transfer at the Deeds Office together with the SARS receipt; without the receipt, the Registrar of Deeds will not register the transfer.
7. The buyer’s name is then entered into the Deeds Registry as the new owner.

Where the purchase is financed, the bond registration attorney acts in parallel and lodges the bond against the same transfer, but the duty obligation stays with the buyer and the duty receipt remains a transfer prerequisite — not a bond prerequisite. The Deeds Office rejects the lodgement as a whole until both the duty receipt and any bond documentation are in order.

Transfer Duty vs. Other Property Costs (What the Buyer Also Pays)

Transfer duty is one line item in a longer list of costs the buyer settles at registration. Conflating the lines is the most common source of “I wasn’t expecting this” complaints at the point of transfer, so it helps to see them side by side.

Cost	Paid by	Charged by	Notes
Transfer duty	Buyer	SARS	Calculated on the higher of price or market value; SARS receipt required for Deeds Office registration.
Conveyancing fees	Buyer (and seller for their own conveyancer)	Conveyancing attorney	Charged on a guideline tariff published by the Legal Practice Council.
Bond registration costs	Buyer	Bond attorney (usually appointed by the bank)	Separate initiation, registration, and attorney fees if the purchase is financed.
Rates clearance	Seller’s account, recovered from buyer at transfer	Municipality	The conveyancer arranges the rates clearance figure with the municipality; the buyer usually funds the payment.
VAT	Seller (charged on the price)	VAT vendor seller	Applies only to new property sold by a VAT vendor; the buyer’s cost is the VAT-inclusive price, not VAT on top of a duty base.

Where a transaction attracts VAT (new property from a VAT vendor), the buyer does not pay transfer duty and VAT on the same purchase — VAT replaces transfer duty in that part of the market, which is why developers’ show houses display VAT-exclusive prices with VAT added on top rather than transfer duty figures.

Common Misconceptions

A handful of myths recur at the kitchen-table stage of a property purchase. Clearing them up early avoids a rude shock at the conveyancing quote.

• “The seller pays transfer duty.” Wrong. The Act charges the acquirer. The seller’s tax exposure on the deal is capital gains tax, plus VAT if the seller is a VAT vendor selling new property.
• “Transfer duty is the same as VAT.” Wrong. VAT is a separate tax charged by the seller on new property; transfer duty is charged by SARS on the buyer for everything else.
• “I can lower the price on the deed to reduce the duty.” Wrong. SARS calculates duty on the higher of declared price or market value; a low declared price is a red flag that invites revaluation, interest, and penalties.
• “I don’t owe transfer duty if the bank is financing the purchase.” Wrong. The source of the funds is irrelevant to the duty obligation; what matters is that property is being acquired.
• “Transfer duty is calculated on the bond amount.” Wrong. It is calculated on the property value (the higher of price or market value), not on the loan amount. A 100% bond on a R2 million property still attracts duty on R2 million.

None of these is a planning tool — each is a tax position SARS either ignores or actively penalises. The duty is a statutory liability, and the only legitimate levers are the exemptions in the Act (inheritance, divorce transfers, sub-threshold acquisitions) and the timing of transfer against the National Budget cycle.

Edge Cases Worth Flagging

Most transfers run on the standard buyer-pays-the-duty rule, but four situations tend to come up in practice and each has its own statutory wrinkle.

Situation	Duty treatment
Inheritance	No transfer duty is payable. The acquisition is not a taxable event under section 2 of the Transfer Duty Act. Heirs still need to attend to the Master’s appointment of an executor and the subsequent Deeds Office transfer into their names, but no SARS duty is due.
Divorce transfers	Transfers pursuant to a court-ordered division of matrimonial property are generally exempt from transfer duty.
Donations and settlements	Generally attract duty because they are still acquisitions. The higher of declared value or market value still applies.
Foreign buyers	Non-residents pay the same transfer duty. The FIC and exchange-control clearance requirements (Financial Intelligence Centre Act and SARS Exchange Control rules) sit alongside the duty but are separate procedures.

The inheritance case is the one that catches families off guard. A deceased estate is still transferred through the Deeds Office into the heirs’ names — the executor lodges the transfer, the Master authorises it, and registration follows — but the transfer duty step is skipped because the underlying event is an inheritance, not a sale.

How the Conveyancing Hand-Off Works from Offer to Registration

Transfer duty is a national tax, not a provincial one, so the answer on who pays does not change between Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, or a smaller Deeds Office jurisdiction. The procedural layer underneath, however, is local: every transfer is lodged at the Deeds Office for the province in which the property is situated, and the registration step is the moment at which the SARS transfer duty receipt becomes load-bearing. A buyer who skips the SARS duty step is not rejected by SARS — they are rejected by the Registrar of Deeds, who will not register the transfer without the receipt.

The most common confusion in practice is between the Deeds Office (where transfer is registered) and SARS eFiling (where the duty is calculated and paid). Both steps are sequential and both are handled by the buyer’s conveyancing attorney, but they are separate processes: the conveyancer files the TD declaration with SARS first, then lodges the deed of transfer with the Deeds Office only once the SARS receipt is in hand. Where the property is financed, the bond registration attorney acts in parallel and lodges the bond against the same transfer, but the duty obligation remains the buyer’s and the duty receipt remains a transfer prerequisite, not a bond prerequisite.

Burger Huyser Attorneys fields conveyancing and notarial work through qualified staff, with the firm’s conveyancing services offered alongside its general notarial practice across the Gauteng branches. For a buyer in the Gauteng region handling a transfer, the practical first step is to instruct a conveyancer to confirm the duty figure against the current SARS rate schedule (the 1 April 2025 rates remain operative until the next National Budget adjustment) and to file the declaration on SARS eFiling in time for the transfer to register without delay.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the buyer or seller pay transfer duty in South Africa?

The buyer pays transfer duty in South Africa. The Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949 charges the person who acquires the property (the buyer), not the person who disposes of it (the seller). The conveyancing attorney typically files the duty declaration on the buyer’s behalf and recovers the cost from the buyer at registration.

How is transfer duty calculated in South Africa?

Transfer duty is calculated on the higher of the purchase price or the market value of the property, using the SARS rate brackets in force on the date of transfer. The 0% threshold (R1,210,000 from 1 April 2025) means no duty is due on acquisitions at or below that value; above that, bands of 3%, 6%, 8%, 11% and 13% apply cumulatively across each bracket.

When is transfer duty paid, before or after transfer?

Transfer duty is paid to SARS before the deed of transfer can be registered at the Deeds Office. The conveyancer files the transfer duty declaration via SARS eFiling and pays the duty; SARS then issues a transfer duty receipt, which the conveyancer lodges together with the deed. Without that receipt, the Registrar of Deeds will not register the transfer.

Is transfer duty payable on inherited property?

No. Transfer duty is not payable on inherited property in South Africa. The acquisition of property by inheritance is not a taxable event for transfer duty purposes under the Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949. The heirs still need to attend to the appointment of an executor by the Master of the High Court, and the property still needs to be transferred into the heirs’ names at the Deeds Office, but no SARS transfer duty is due.

Is transfer duty the same as VAT on a property purchase?

No. Transfer duty is a tax levied by SARS on the buyer on most property acquisitions. VAT is a separate tax charged by the seller (when the seller is a VAT vendor) on new, undeveloped property. Where VAT is charged on a new-property sale, transfer duty is not separately levied on the same transaction. Most resale property — owner-to-owner — attracts transfer duty on the buyer, not VAT.

Can the parties manipulate the purchase price to lower transfer duty?

No. SARS calculates transfer duty on the higher of the declared purchase price or the market value of the property. A declared price below market value is a red flag that can trigger SARS scrutiny, formal revaluation, and interest and penalties. The duty is a statutory liability; declaring a low price to avoid it is tax-adjacent misconduct, not a planning tool.

What happens if transfer duty is not paid?

The deed cannot be registered at the Deeds Office without a SARS transfer duty receipt, so the buyer simply does not become the registered owner until the duty is paid and receipted. SARS can also pursue the buyer personally for unpaid duty, with interest and penalties accruing. The duty is a personal liability of the acquirer under the Transfer Duty Act.

Need a conveyancer to handle the transfer duty declaration and SARS filing? Burger Huyser Attorneys’ Notarial and Conveyancing Department can take a transfer file from instruction to registration. The firm’s head office in Linden, Randburg (011 888 0246) is the general point of contact, with branch numbers for Midrand, Sandton, Roodepoort, Bedfordview, Alberton, Pretoria and Centurion listed on the firm’s contact page. The firm carries a 4.8/5 average across 250+ Google reviews (Trustindex verified “Top Rated Law Firm in South Africa”) and is led by director Marni Huyser (BCom Law, LLB, LLM Tax Law). For a specific transfer, have the offer to purchase and the property value handy when you call so the duty figure can be quoted against the current SARS rate schedule.