Johannesburg – Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber has announced a new “Remote Visa” for individuals who work in another country and want to live in sunny South Africa.
Speaking at the RMB Morgan Stanley Investor Conference on Tuesday, (17 September 2024), Minister Schreiber said: “After working at breakneck speed over the past few months alongside the South Africans Revenue Service and Operation Vulindlela in the Presidency, the regulations for a new points-based work visa, as well as for the remote working visa, arrived on my desk this morning”.
He added: “These regulations will bring the remote working visa to life after we are able to iron out the tax implications of this new system.
“In terms of the remote working visa, a person who is employed and paid in another country will now be able to move to sunny South Africa, to spend all of their dollars, yen, Euros, pounds, or Renminbi right here.
“To add to the attraction, only if someone spends more than six months out of the year in South Africa, will they even be required to register with the [SA] revenue service.
“Our new remote working visa must be one of the best deals I’ve ever come across. South Africa carries none of the cost of employing these nomads, yet we reap all of the benefits.”
The minister said such individuals – also referred to as “nomads” – will spend their foreign currency in South Africa at supermarkets and restaurants, eating South African food, grown by South African farmers.
He said they will buy cars and clothes from South African businesses, and pay to visit South African tourist attractions.
“And, yes, they will spend their money in South African sports stadiums, watching the South African rugby team beat everyone else,” said the minister.
“In return, they get to live in the most beautiful country on earth for half of the year, without any mindless red tape or burdensome tax requirements.
“My message to remote workers all around the world is simple: there is just no place like South Africa.
“And with our new user-friendly remote working visa, there has never been a better time to come and spend your hard-earned salary in a beautiful country whose best days are yet to come.”
Minister Schreiber said the Remote Visa was “just the beginning” of changes to come.
“Even more exciting than the remote working visa, is the new points-based work visa,” he said, adding that the points-based work visa was going to “revolutionise” the South African economy.
Minister Schreiber said: “Gone will be the days when highly skilled workers had no pathway to help build this country if their skills happened to not be included in arbitrary critical skills list.
“Of course, under this new system, a person whose job is included on the critical skills list will automatically qualify for a work visa.”
However, going forward, the minister said workers who have job offers in South Africa will also be able to apply based on their own unique combination of qualifications, work experience,language skills, and the salary level they have been offered.
“In the process of developing these regulations, I have been very clear that it is time to acknowledge that it is the job market, and not bureaucrats, that determines who has a critical skill,” he reiterated.
“If a company offers a person a salary of R1 million per year because they cannot find the requisite skills in South Africa, they are doing so because that person has a critical skill.
“The points-based system has the potential to be truly transformative for the South African economy.”
The minister explained that a combination of all the regulatory reforms were being worked on – including the points-based work visa, the remote working visa, the Trusted Employer Scheme, and the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme, which cuts red tape for large tour groups from China and India.
He said within the next year the changes would take South Africa much closer to the additional 11 000 skilled workers and the 10% increase in tourism to quadruple economic growth.
Earlier this month Stats SA reported that the South African economy strengthened by 0,4%1 in the second quarter (April–June) of 2024.
“But exciting as these policy changes are, they are only half of the equation,” said the minister.
“The forward-thinking regulations we are now implementing will mean little without far more effective administration.
“And it is on administration, that Home Affairs has an enormous amount of work to do in order to fulfil our potential as an economic enabler.
“The reality is that, when it comes to administration, Home Affairs is at least a decade behind the curve.
“The inefficiency and corruption that has maligned this department can all be traced back to the fact that it still has manual and paper-based processes.”
